Thread by @gavreilly

🚨 NEW: Senior Irish source says this No.10 claim - via @thetimes’ @hzeffman - that Varadkar told Johnson he’d compromise on Brexit, if Northern Ireland stayed in the EU’s single market, is either “untrue or a major misunderstanding”

They point out that the current British proposals would NOT see Northern Ireland remain in the EU’s own customs union, but rather a member of a ‘customs union compromised of the EU and the UK’

No Irish reaction yet to the separate @TheTimes story this morning that the EU will agree to a Northern Ireland-only backstop which could be revoked only if both communities agreed to it in Stormont thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/b…

^ Above story was by Times’ @oliver_wright, not Henry

Also new: I understand that this new Times story about a ‘Stormont double-veto to end a NI-only backstop’ is news to the ears of the Irish govt, who hadn’t heard it before @BrunoBrussels’ report this morning

NEW: Taoiseach tells #Dáil that anonymous briefings aren’t always reliable, and EU’s negotiating guidelines haven’t changed… but that any solution on #Brexit for NI must have the consent of the people of NI. Not explicitly slapping down the notion of a ‘double veto’ at all

VIDEO: Varadkar doesn't quite kill the notion of giving Stormont the power to end a NI-only backstop

MORE: Varadkar says the big current problem with the UK's proposal is that it insists NI must leave the customs union even when the NI public want to stay