Deputy prime minister Leo Varadkar has warned Ireland to not take LGBT+ progress “for granted” as Britain back peddles under Boris Johnson. Tánaiste Varadkar told the national independent radio station Newstalk that Britain and America are textbook examples of queer rights being eroded. “Ireland’s just become so much better a place, so much more welcoming, so much more diverse, so much more tolerant,” the leader of the Fine Gael party said. Citing how Ireland legalised marriage equality in 2015, Varadkar described the country as having undergone a “social revolution”. Since the 1990s, he said, Ireland has slowly shed its more regressive laws, such as allowing divorce following a narrowly-won referendum. Looking at Britain, however, Varadkar said that Johnson’s repeated potshots against trans people show how the nation is stymying LGBT+ rights. “When we see what else is happening around the world, western Europe is a beacon of progress in that regard,” he explained. “We see things like abortion rights being rolled back now in the United States for example. “Boris Johnson having a bit of a go at trans people, maybe hoping that will curry favour in certain sections, which is a bit sad.”