Former British politician Nigel Farage has claimed the Northern Ireland Protocol was not necessary and should never have been agreed to.
Mr Farage was one of the loudest voices for a 'leave' vote in the European Union referendum in the UK, which took place five years ago today.
Mr Farage previously led UKIP and The Brexit Party, and is also a former MEP.
The broadcaster told Newstalk Breakfast they should never have signed up to the protocol.
"There were aspects of the deal, and I suppose to be fair to Boris Johnson [former British Prime Minister Theresa] May left him with a very bad hand of cards.
"But we should never, ever have agreed to the protocol.
"And we've seen already with the awful Ursula von der Leyen: she was prepared to put a hard border back on the island of Ireland just to cover up for the mess they made on the vaccines.
"I'm not happy with what's happening in Northern Ireland at all... it wasn't necessary was it?
"The truth of it is had there been a tariff imposed between goods going from the Republic to the UK, and the other way, there would have needed to be some means of checking what goods went back and forth.
"But even with tariffs, all over the world you have things called trusted trader schemes.
"We import vast amounts from China, we don't check every container - I mean that would be ludicrous.
"We don't have a tariff regime between the Republic and the UK, and the excuse that is being used for all these difficulties is they now have to check British products.
"As if somehow we're going to sell inferior goods into Ireland, which we're just not going to do".
Asked if he was happy about Britain's place in the world outside the EU, he says: "I'm happier than I was five years ago: we have re-established our independence, we are now a democracy again.
"What I would be less happy about are one or two aspects of our parting deal."
Scottish independence 'not going to happen'
And he suggests Scottish independence is not going to happen.
The current parliament in Edinburgh has said a vote on independence 'would be realistic' in the first half of its five-year term.
The country's Trade Minister Ivan McKee told Newstalk Breakfast in May: "The priority is of course to get through the pandemic, and make sure that that recovery is on track.
"But as soon as we are past that point, then we would be looking at moving forward with another independence referendum.
"Clearly, that will depend on how the recovery progresses, but I think that it would be realistic to say that that could quite possibly be in the first half of this five-year parliament."
On this, Mr Farage says: "Scotland - Nicola Sturgeon's policy of Scotland rejoining the European Union, and that would mean a commitment to joining the Euro.
"That means the Scottish separation just is not going to happen.
"The SNP swept the board under a first-past-the-post system, but the SNP and the vote to leave the United Kingdom is nowhere near 50%.
"I don't believe it will be, but that's a matter of conjecture", he adds.
