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To add to the numerous threads out there on Brexit, Dublin’s reading of the UK positioning is as follows:
1/ Boris Johnson & his team are basically hardballing towards a No Deal through rhetoric and sloganeering. Hence “undemocratic backstop” etc.
2/ They are retroactively rejecting the key elements of the backstop that were agreed as part of the 2017 Joint Report which allowed the divorce negotiations to move into Phase II, ie the transition and starting to look at the Future Relationship
3/ UK govt now rejecting the Joint Report’s commitment to the “all-island economy”, instead limiting the aim to nothing more than “no infrastructure at the border”
4/ The bluntest message is that the backstop has to go, but the UK are not coming forward with alternatives. (Once you deny the aims of the JR then why should you come up with alternatives to meet those aims?)
5/ When David Frost went to Brussels last week to meet Commission and Council officials he was asked, if (theoretically) the backstop was removed would the HoC accept the WA, and the answer was No
6/ That is because the UK is now rejecting the level-playing field provisions of the WA which the EU had seen as a buffer against a low-regulation Singapore on Thames emerging on its doorstep
7/ As such beyond No Deal Boris Johnson would seek a Canada-Dry FTA with no level playing field provisions
8/ Dublin regards a welter of disparaging press comment about Irish political leaders as part of a sustained effort to strongarm Ireland into shifting its position
9/ Dublin believes EU26 are still solidly behind Ireland, even more so given the aggressive approach by Number 10 and the trash-talking of the backstop and level playing field issues
10/ So the view is a No Deal is much more likely but that in due course when the UK come back to look for a trading relationship with the EU, the Irish border, citizens rights and the financial settlement will be upfront preconditions (British officials have always disputed this)
11/ Boris Johnson will meet Merkel and Macron at the G7 in Biarritz but nothing is expected to come of it.
