Hard Brexit could signal return of soldiers on border, warns Varadkar

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has warned that a no-deal Brexit could result in the return of military and police to the border. 

Mr Vardakar made his comments during an interview with Bloomberg TV in which he was explaining why he could not compromise on the controversial Backstop.

The Backstop forms a central component of the proposed withdrawal agreement between the UK and EU, but is coming under sustained pressure since the House of Commons overwhelmingly rejected it. In the lengthy interview he claimed that Ireland was "victimised" by the Brexit decision.

Mr Varadkar said he was open to exploring other options to the Backstop if they could guarantee a hard border, but no such alternatives have yet been provided.

"I'm hearing from a lot of people, a lot of British politicians and British actors saying of course we're also against a hard border and we're also against the Backstop, but the only alternative they can offer to a Backstop is a promise to sort it out later or a promise around technologies that don't exist yet." 

The interviewer asks, have you seen these technologies?

"They don't exist and nobody's been able to show them to me," said the Taoiseach. "So why would we give up a legal guarantee, and something that we know will work in practice for a promise to sort it out later?"

Mr Varadkar then outlined how the border might look without the guarantee of the backstop. 

"If things go very wrong it will look like [it did] 20 years ago."

Pushed by the Bloomberg interviewer on how the border would look, Mr Varadkar replied: "It would involve customs post, it will involve people in uniform, and it may involve the need for example cameras, physical infrastructure, possibly police presence or army presence to back it up. The problem with that, in the context of Irish politics and history, is those things become a targets, and we've already had a certain degree of violence in the last few weeks."