Some thoughts off the back of this morning's @UKandEU media briefing (w @CSBarnard24 @hayward_katy @anandMenon1):
On the backstop fun-and-games, important to remember that this is all driven by two basic factors
First is that the UK still has no consensus view about what it wants the future UK-EU relationship to look like, so EU has greater incentive to have a backstop to protect its interests
Second is that transition is ever-more clearly too short for its purpose (ie negotiating that future relationship), so need to plan for its end w/o a future deal in place
These factors reinforce each other, and make it much harder to avoid backstopping
The other big message is that the backstop isn't a preferred option for anyone in this, on either the UK or EU side
As @hayward_katy set out in impressive detail, whatever outcome of Brexit there is, NOI will see changes to its border arrangements, even with a operating backstop, plus there will be impacts on the entirety of N-S relations
This really matters, because often there's an impression in UK that somehow EU wants to force backstop to happen, which is very much not the case
Ultimately, this all seems to boil down to the relative lack of trust between the two sides in Art.50: after +2yrs of tetchiness, it's hard to take word as bond
(as an aside, this underlines why UK no-deal contingency plans are flawed: they rely on being able to still talk constructively with EU after failing to resolve Art.50 itself)
This low-trust situation will not, and cannot, be quickly resolved. Trust will only return slowly on a basis of hard facts and progress.
Worth thinking about as and when we move to EU-UK future relationship talks
Worth thinking about as and when we move to EU-UK future relationship talks
tl;dr a difficult situation has been more difficult by the choices that have been made
