Must Brexit backstop be compromised to move forward?

"It's a bit of a game of chicken," says one senior source in Dublin of the Brexit negotiations as they move towards the decisive stage ahead of forthcoming European summits.

Both sides stress they want to reach agreement and are searching for a breakthrough; both are sticking to their red lines.

Everyone – the UK, the EU, Ireland – agrees they want to avoid a hard border on the island after Brexit. But there is no agreement on how to achieve this.

The EU side says the Irish protocol (including a legally enforceable backstop mechanism for ensuring there is no hard border even if the two sides can’t agree a trade deal) must be part of the withdrawal agreement, due to be concluded in the next two months.

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So that's your game of chicken: a disastrous outcome unless one or both parties change course

No backstop, no withdrawal agreement, they say.

And if there is no withdrawal agreement, there’s no transition period – the two-year period after next March’s exit date during which the UK will continue to operate as a de facto EU member to allow a “future relationship” agreement to be negotiated.

If that happens, the UK crashes out without a deal at the end of March 2019. That would be a disaster for the UK. But also for the EU – especially Ireland. So that’s your game of chicken: a disastrous outcome unless one or both parties change course.

Electronic Border

On Monday, senior Irish Government figures strongly disputed suggestions that EU Brexit negotiators would accept that technological or electronic Border checks between north and south could be the basis of an operating backstop.

“Just wrong,” said one senior source in Dublin, “a misunderstanding, wilful or otherwise.” Irish officials believe the suggestion of the Irish/EU concession on the backstop – carried in British newspapers – was a misrepresentation of a briefing to EU ambassadors by Sabine Weyand, deputy to the chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier.

What the EU was actually suggesting, several sources insisted, was that the electronic/technical checking of goods take place on shipments travelling to Northern Ireland from Great Britain – not between the North and the Republic.

They play down the significance of any proposed checks. They point out there are already checks on agricultural goods moving between the North and the rest of the UK. They stress it could be “British not EU officials doing the checking”, says one source. They say that and customs checks (“the hard one,” says one official) could be handled like the unobtrusive regulatory checks.

This is all of a piece with Barnier’s stated intention to “de-dramatise” the backstop.

It'll have to happen and if we have to move a bit to get one, then we have to move a bit

But it still remains unacceptable to the British, as UK Brexit secretary Dominic Rabb’s interview today makes clear.

Collision course

And a series of conversations with people deeply involved in the issue on Monday confirms there is no resolution in sight; the two sides remain divided on the backstop. The game of chicken hasn’t revved up yet. But the two parties are still on a collision course.

EU leaders meet in Salzburg this week for an informal summit. Brexit will be on the agenda, but no breakthrough is anticipated. There is another summit in Brussels in October. But few believe that agreement will be reached there either. A mooted Brexit summit in November is thought to be a more likely crunch point.

That is precisely what former taoiseach Bertie Ahern warned against – a squeeze on Ireland to accept electronic/technical solutions to the Border problem late some Brussels night.

Some sources in the Irish Government fear exactly the same, and believe that the pressure to step back from the backstop is coming on. “There has to be a deal,” says one figure in the Government. “The EU wants a deal. It’ll have to happen and if we have to move a bit to get one, then we have to move a bit.”