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This is the kind of headline that Varadkar should never have allowed to emerge. It is potentially toxic but unsurprising given his lack of clarity about the consequences of a No Deal. Time for clarity: the clock is ticking, and his circumlocutions are making No Deal more likely.
Time to make it clear that (a) since the backstop is required to avoid a hard border, if there is no backstop there will have to be one (b) that Ireland understands this basic logic (c) that it will insist on a backstop as a precondition for any future talks.
If we had gone along with HMG fantasies that a border could be avoided in the absence of regulatory and tariff alignment, back in 2016/7, we would not have been a member state requiring the solidarity of others. We would have been part of the problem. We made the right call then.
And we need to make the right call now. Otherwise we make No Deal more likely by giving the ERG ammunition in Westminster; we lose the solidarity of the EU26; and by encouraging headlines like this we confuse the real issues & give ammunition to Irish Brexiteers.
If there is No Deal, & HMG reneges on written promises made not once but thrice, & no backstop-type arrangement is put in place, there will be a border and that will be the fault of HMG. Not France or Germany or the Commission. Let's all remember where the blame will really lie.
And let's back the Government when it does what it will be legally obliged to do, in the process protecting Irish farmers from beef and pork imports from outside the EU (UK tariffs on beef will be cut by almost half, pork tariffs will be cut even more).
And let's back them when they continue to insist on a backstop going forward.
