You can see where the backstop problem has got to since last December - and that's nowhere really. Raab, Geoffrey Cox and some, if not most, of the cabinet say Britain can't be placed in a position where we're in limbo, otherwise known as the first circle of Hell, aka the EU customs union, indefinitely. We are demanding the right to withdraw from the backstop unilaterally or have a fixed time limit (HERE). This looks like a red line that can't be smudged and written in permanent marker.
Meanwhile, the Irish foreign minister says Ireland and the EU will 'never accept' a time limited backstop and an agreement that does not require the consent of both parties to be ended (HERE). This also looks like a wide, deep, unequivocal red line.
We are just days away from the point at which it becomes necessary to call a no deal scenario and begin really serious planning and the differences are not of detail but fundamental points.
It looks like someone will need the wisdom of Solomon to make a time limited backstop seem indefinite and vice versa. But this is what the withdrawal agreement will turn on. The outcome will show in stark detail, in this international arm wrestling contest, where the negotiating muscle really is.
It coincides with a new poll (HERE) that indicates most people would prefer to stay in the EU than leave without a deal but only 53.5% to 46.5% which is a bit too close for comfort.
Incidentally, the backstop is about the UK staying in the customs union but this alone won't give us the "frictionless trade" the PM has talked about so often. The real problem is regulatory alignment and that row is still to come.
