Any threat to withdraw UK-Irish security cooperation is unacceptable- minister

Julian Smith, the British minister for Northern Ireland, said any threat to withdraw security cooperation with Ireland was unacceptable and not in the interests of the province or the wider United Kingdom. A Downing Street source was quoted in The Spectator magazine on Tuesday as saying that security and defense cooperation would inevitably be affected if the European Union tries to keep the United Kingdom in the EU against its will.

"I am clear that any threat to withdrawing security cooperation with Ireland is unacceptable," Smith said on Twitter. "This is not in the interest of NI or the Union."