Robert Peston at ITV is tweeting that officials from the government and the EU have just reached a settlement on the Irish border backstop. He says it involves "massively" increasing checks on food and livestock flowing from GB to Northern Ireland. It will be interesting to see if the DUP accept this. There are some minimal checks carried out at present but only yesterday Arlene Foster said the DUP would not accept any "additional" checks.
Peston tweeted:
Peston tweeted:
It includes a provision to massively increase checks on food and livestock flowing from the GB mainland to NI. But these happen already. Importantly Barnier, for the EU, has “de-dramatised” regulatory checks to the satisfaction of May...— Robert Peston (@Peston) October 10, 2018
It's not clear if Ms Foster is saying no new types of check or whether she meant no increase in the number of existing checks. No doubt we will find out in due course.
This is in effect a border down the Irish Sea no matter how it's dressed up. The ERG might accept it but we don't know how long we will need to remain in the customs union and this will be their red line - or at least one of them. They won't need much of an excuse to vote down the deal and if it topples May, so much the better.
Also, I don't see any signs of the EU having moved at all. This was always their preferred option.
