(Bloomberg) -- Ireland’s government said the Brexit accord that the next U.K. prime minister has vowed to rip up is the “only viable solution on the table” to avoid a hard border in Ireland in the event of a no-deal split.
The government remains in discussions with the European Commission in the hope of minimizing the negative consequences of no-deal, it said on Tuesday. But any arrangement will clearly be “sub-optimal.” No one has yet come up with any alternatives that achieve the same as the deal agreed with Theresa May.
Ireland is not planning for checks at or near the border, Foreign Minister Simon Coveney told reporters in Dublin. But he declined to say how they might be avoided if the U.K. crashes out of the bloc without a deal.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said last year his government would “never” build a border, though he appears to have stepped back from that stance after it became clear that could mean a de facto frontier emerged between Ireland and the rest of the bloc.
If the U.K. tumbles out of the bloc in October without a deal, then the question that has dogged Brexit talks -- how to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland -- becomes an acute crisis. At the same time, the main obstacle to getting a Brexit deal that’s acceptable to all sides is finding a solution for the Irish border. Both candidates to replace May have vowed to renegotiate the so-called border backstop.
On Monday, Coveney warned Ireland risks losing access to the EU’s single market if Northern Ireland become a “backdoor” to the bloc in the event of a no-deal Brexit, underlining the scale of the dilemma facing Ireland if the U.K. crashes out.
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