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Theresa May and Leo Varadkar are to work together to come up with a new plan to achieve a frictionless Irish border post Brexit that does not involve Northern Ireland staying in the customs union and the single market in the event the UK leaves both arrangements.

But the taoiseach admitted it was the “tricky bit” of the Brexit egotiations. Varadkar told reporters after bilateral talks in Belfast that they the two sides “were very much of the view” that this was a “last resort” and should be avoided

In December, the EU and London agreed three options to achieve an invisible border. The first option was to achieve this through an overall EU-UK deal. If this was not possible, the UK could come up with a bespoke solution. If neither of those were achievable then both sides would agree to “full alignment” of regulations north and south of the border. Varadkar told reporters:

