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Michel Barnier has been showing EU leaders this new slide setting out the conditions a UK-proposed backstop alternative should meet. The requirement 'status quo for cross-border exchanges' is not met by mooted Alternative Arrangements - a point Leo Varadkar has been making today. 
Varadkar's words: 'So far Alternative Arrangements do something very different. They just manage the border. They facilitate tariffs, checks, controls but try to do it in a way that is invisible and unobtrusive. That's better than nothing but not the outcome we want to achieve.'
I should point out the Alternative Arrangements Commission do not claim otherwise, as their trade expert Shanker Singham made clear during a presentation in Brussels in July. Their proposals rely on a different interpretation of the UK's obligations.
