Irish PM Says ‘Very Difficult’ to Seal Brexit Deal Next Week

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Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said it’s hard to see a deal to break the impasse over Brexit being clinched next week, amid a stand-off over U.K. proposals over how to keep the Irish border invisible after it leaves the European Union.

Problems remain with Boris Johnson’s proposals to take Northern Ireland out of the EU’s custom union, and give the region’s power-sharing assembly a veto over rule alignment with the bloc, Varadkar said in an interview with broadcaster RTE on Tuesday.

Varadkar agreed that some of the briefing from London about him was becoming toxic, but vowed to hold the U.K. to earlier promises to avoid a return to a hard border in Ireland.

“I don’t play dirty,” Varadkar said.

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