14:03

Leo Varadkar’s intervention provides a glimmer of hope for a Brexit deal – after the Irish premier said his preference was for an agreement to be struck within the next 10 days.

“My preference is that we come to an agreement and that we have a deal by the middle of October,” Varadkar said during a meeting with Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen in Copenhagen, with the taoiseach adding that if the UK were to request an extension to its Brexit deadline he would consider it.

His remarks come after a fractious 24 hours that appeared to torch any chance of a deal with resistance to Boris Johnson’s proposals for customs controls in Northern Ireland meeting strong resistance in Dublin and Brussels.

“Brexit doesn’t end with the UK leaving, it’s just the next phase of negotiations but if the UK were to request an extension, we would consider it, but most EU countries would only consider it for good reason, but an extension would be better than no deal,” he added.



On Thursday, Varadkar made comments about the shortfalls in Johnson’s deal which lead to scathing attacks by the Democratic Unionist party which is supporting the Conservative party’s deal.

The party leader Arlene Foster said he would go down in history as the Taoiseach who prompted a hard border on the island of Ireland.