The draft legal agreement has been published (HERE) and as expected it has caused a few blood vessels to burst. The DUP are up in arms and no doubt the other Brexiteers as well. The PM has said the idea of a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK would be unthinkable for any prime minister. The answer therefore is in her hands. The text confirms that there will be full regulatory alignment on both sides of the border but in the Ireland protocol on page 99 of the draft agreement it says this:
UNDERLINING that part or all of this Protocol may cease to apply should a future agreement between the Union and the United Kingdom be agreed which addresses the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland, including by avoiding a hard border and protecting the 1998 Agreement in all its dimensions;
So, all that is needed is for the UK to come up with a practical, workable solution to keeping an open, frictionless border that is "absolutely unchanged" from as it is now. Brexiteers have told us repeatedly that it is easily solved with Andrew Lillico this morning saying it's a red herring (HERE).
I really don't see the problem.
The backlash against the draft treaty has started. The prime minister has said no UK PM could sign up to a deal that puts a border down the Irish Sea between the UK and Northern Ireland. But this is a choice for the UK to make. It does not have to be so.
The legal text simply sets out for the Irish border the only option that is known to work. She already agreed to this in December so it's not at all clear why she won't accept it now it is written down in legal terms. This article on the Politico website (HERE) thinks Barnier has come down hard as a way of forcing the issue. To try and get Mrs May to understand that firm proposals are needed. If she just prevaricates as she has done, failed to make any workable proposals and simply tells the EU to "make us an offer" she should not be surprised if the EU does just that. As it has now done.
This was always going to happen. Stunningly, there are people arguing that Barnier is being too hard on us. I hope David Davis isn't making this claim since he was the one who said we held all the cards.
If she does reject it there will be a crisis. There may be some tweeks including some warm words , much favoured by Mrs May, about the alternative "delusional" solutions but this is just kicking the can further down the road and delaying the start of trade talks even more.
The EU must be tearing their hair out. They have begged and begged us to set out a workable solution to the Northern Ireland border problem. But we doggedly refuse to do it and simply keep saying, as the idiot Bill Cash did on Newsnight last night, there are "technical solutions" that could be used. We just keep repeating the mantra as if somehow this will magically produce an answer.
We then say what the EU have proposed is unacceptable.
