On the controversial – some would say “life or death” – question of how to keep open the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, the backstop, this is what I am told has been agreed.
It is what’s described in Brussels as the “swimming pool” approach – in other words it has a shallow end and a deep end, when it comes to measures aimed at making sure trade is completely frictionless between NI and the ROI, and fairly frictionless between Great Britain and the EU27.
GB would be in the shallow end, NI in the deep.
Or to be more precise, the whole of the UK would stay in the customs union if a long-term trading relationship between the UK and EU isn’t negotiated and implemented by the end of 2020 – which no one (with the possible exception of the PM) expects it to be.
In fact most EU politicians expect the backstop to be the reality of our trading relationship with the EU for many years.
But – and this is reassuring for May, and perhaps for most in the Cabinet – EU leaders don’t really like this version of the backstop, which is largely May’s preferred model of how to keep open that border in Ireland (in that sense it can be seen as a victory for her in the negotiations).
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