Fighting fit

At a dinner in the Irish embassy in London last November, Dominic Raab believed he was on the brink of a Brexit breakthrough. In a meeting with Simon Coveney, Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Brexit secretary sought to find a compromise on the issue of the backstop. He explained that parliament would never agree an open-ended pledge in the way the EU envisaged: pushing things too far would end in the failure of talks. But Britain could make separate guarantees on the border, he said, leading to a ‘win, win’ for both sides. Coveney seemed interested, and suggested he would consider it.

Just days later, the idea was dropped by Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach. But why? Sitting in The Spectator’s office earlier this week, Raab tells the story — and he doesn’t blame anyone in Dublin. ‘I think there was a window of opportunity,’ he says. ‘The frustrating thing is that it was closed by our own side.’