No party can have Brexit veto, says Taoiseach Leo Varadkar

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said no one political party on the island should be able to wield that power on the shape of post-Brexit cross-border arrangements.

Mr Varadkar, on a visit to Sweden, said Boris Johnson’s Brexit plans “fall short in a number of aspects”.

He questioned how the prime minister could reconcile his pledge for no new customs infrastructure on the island, with his wish to take Northern Ireland out of the customs union.

Mr Johnson wants to give the currently defunct Northern Ireland Assembly a vote, both on whether to opt into a proposed all-island regulatory system, and whether to remain in it after an initial four-year period.

Mr Varadkar said the petition of concern mechanism could not be a factor in Brexit arrangements.

“Our view is that any consent mechanism, were it to exist, would have to be reflective of the view of the whole of the population of Northern Ireland and not give any one party or any denomination a veto,” he said.

“Any consent mechanism and democracy mechanism must reflect the views of the majority of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

“No one party – not my party, not Sinn Fein, not the DUP – should be in a position to veto what would be the will of the majority in Northern Ireland or Ireland.”

The taoiseach noted that Stormont had not sat for almost three years, due to a political dispute between the DUP and Sinn Fein.

“What I would say is, we need to be practical about any arrangements when it comes to consent or democracy clauses,” he said.

“Stormont has not sat for three years, that is the reality of it, so if we wrote into an international treaty, provisions that required certain actions by Stormont, what would happen if Stormont wasn’t operating?

“You would need a fall-back position there as well. So I think that’s the kind of thing that we need to explore with our British friends.”