Fudging Ireland’s border issue can only mean Troubles ahead

The question of what kind of border after Brexit will exist between Northern Ireland and the Republic will, I predict, become a very thorny one indeed as negotiations crawl into the autumn. Talk of ‘putting the border in the Irish Sea’ — somehow leaving the north inside the EU for customs and immigration purposes, but cut off from European funding — was a red herring that provoked DUP tantrums, but more significant was the weekend outburst from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. As far as his government is concerned ‘there shouldn’t be an economic border… and we’re not going to help [the British] design some sort of border that we don’t believe should exist in the first place.’

Behind this is Irish irritation at glib remarks about the border by British ministers — so far entirely failing to address the problem that two countries not in a customs union must obviously have a customs boundary between them.