Lord Trimble reiterated the major issue with Britain leaving the EU was the Irish border “The real issue in terms of the border is tariffs.

“If there are tariffs, and under existing EU law, and EU state, who has power of an external border, must put in place on that border appropriate installations to allow them to monitor movement of that border.

“On the basis of where we are going, if there are tariffs, then it becomes a hard-ish border.

“It comes so of virtue by EU law. Our position, by that I mean the United Kingdom’s position, is that we want to have free trade, and that would go a long way to solving the Irish problem.”

If there's a bit of Ireland that's not in the EU and a bit of Ireland that is in the EU, then there's going to be a border. That's simple sense. And that's what there's going to be, because there's no way the RoI is going to end up as part of the UK, and there's no way NI is going to end up as part of a 'united Ireland' any time in any our lifetimes, if ever.

The declaration is irrelevant to this. It's the worst sort of posturing and it won't change things one jot. There will be a border and a soft border is no use at all, so it'll have to be a 'proper' border of some sort.