Varadkar claims ‘Brexiteers’ could collapse Government under FF plan

The Taoiseach has said that hardline Brexiteers could bring down the Government if he agrees to Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin's plan to support the Government until a deal on the UK leaving the EU is concluded.

Leo Varadkar said he did not think Mr Martin had thought through strategically his proposal to extend the confidence and supply agreement that is keeping the minority Fine Gael-led Government in power.

"My difficulty with that is it puts the future of an Irish Government and the future of an Irish parliament in the hands of a vote of a foreign parliament and I think that goes against our basic sovereignty," Mr Varadkar said during an interview at the Government's latest Getting Ireland Brexit Ready conference.

“You could have hardline Brexiteers in Westminster saying: ‘Vote against this deal - not only do we get to bring the deal, you can bring down the Irish Government as well.’ I think maybe he didn’t think that through strategically so that is something I couldn’t agree with in principle.”

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Mr Varadkar said that if there was goodwill, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil could agree not to hold a general election until the summer of 2020, which would allow the Government to conclude the Brexit negotiations and get through the UK leaving the EU, which is due to happen in March.

Negotiating teams from the parties are engaging later on Thursday in talks to review the confidence and supply deal that has facilitated the minority Government since 2016.

Volatility

Mr Martin has said it would be “reckless” to have an election in the midst of political volatility in the UK.

Speaking to about 1,000 business representatives at the Brexit conference, Mr Varadkar said the UK’s proposal to remain in the EU customs union for a temporary period after it leaves the bloc as a means of avoiding a hard border in Ireland fell short because it was time-limited and it could damage the EU single market.

The UK is opposed to the EU's proposal for the so-called backstop to maintain an open border in Ireland post-Brexit as it would keep Northern Ireland under EU economic rules.

“The backstop can be temporary but it can’t have an expiry date,” said Mr Varadkar of the UK’s proposal. “It can temporary until we have a better arrangement and it can’t have an expiry date.”

Mr Varadkar said the EU had to maintain a level playing field and that a temporary customs arrangement would mean that the UK could end up being a “neighbour trying to undercut” the EU on areas such as labour, health and environmental standards and on workers’ rights.

The Taoiseach said "some of the most enthusiastic Brexiteers" wanted to leave the EU in order to undercut its standards and "all those terrible things that Europe forced them to do".

He did not fully dismiss the British proposal, however. "It is something we can consider, something we are listening to but I don't see it as an alternative to the backstop," he said at the Convention Centre in Dublin, sitting alongside Tánaiste Simon Coveney.

“It might be part of the solution but I don’t think it is an alternative to the backstop and all the regulatory issues as well. It would have to be done on the basis that it is a level playing field.”

‘Last minute’

The Taoiseach acknowledged the challenges for businesses trying to plan for the UK's departure when political negotiations were still ongoing in Brussels and it was not clear what form Brexit would take.

“We had hoped to have the deal done now. It is not part of our strategy to drag it out to the last minute,” he said.

Mr Coveney said that the European Commission would be publishing their own no-deal Brexit contingency plans over the coming days for sectors such as aviation and citizens' rights. "They won't be a pretty picture," he said.

Asked about Anglo-Irish relations, Mr Varadkar said there were some hard Brexiteers in the UK who were surprised that the Irish were not following Britain out of the EU.

“You do come across people in the British establishment who can’t believe we won’t fall into line. They thought, ‘sure you’ll be leaving too, won’t you?’ The fact that we aren’t and that we have stood up for ourselves has made some of them quite annoyed,” he said.

Relations between the UK and Ireland had “in a wider sense” become “strained,” he said.

Brexit had, he said, "created a disturbance in the force," quoting the Star Wars character Obi-Wan Kenobi.

“They are strained as well because of Northern Ireland because institutions there are not up and running and the UK government is dependent on support from one party,” he said.