“We will keep on working to ensure that we somehow find a way out of this, but if it is not possible then we also have to take our next steps and think about those,” Rutte said in a joint news conference with his Irish counterpart, Micheál Martin, saying his country stood “shoulder to shoulder” with Ireland.

“I don’t want to guesstimate about what they could be because I don’t think that is helpful, but I think Boris Johnson and the UK know very well what the next steps could be. Let’s hope we don’t come to that.”

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Leslie Adler)