IRELAND’S EU commissioner Phil Hogan piled on the pressure on Britain yesterday to stay in the EU single market, using the threat of a “hard border” with the North of Ireland if it left.

Mr Hogan’s comments came after Tory coalition partner the DUP said it would not tolerate a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic — as threatened by Brussels if Britain leaves the single market.

He said it was a “very simple fact” that “if the UK or Northern Ireland remained in the EU customs union, or better still the single market, there would be no border issue.”