Leo Varadkar has said removing the border backstop would be as bad for Ireland as a no-deal Brexit. The EU has said the Withdrawal Agreement – including the backstop – is not up for renegotiation. The Taoiseach said the backstop was a legal guarantee (Liam McBurney/PA)The Taoiseach told RTE’s Marian Finucane programme: “It’s a legal guarantee and legally operable guarantee that we will never see a hard border again. “The difficulties we have with a time limit is effectively you are saying there will or could be a hard border once that time limit expires – that isn’t a backstop. “What we are open to, and always have been open to, is alternative arrangements that perhaps could avoid a hard border, through procedures and technologies and so on.

Source: Irish Examiner June 15, 2019 16:07 UTC