Hearing from multiple sources that the EU27 Northern Ireland draft legal text of the Phase 1 agreement to be released on Wednesday is going to be rather difficult for the PM... PM & Taoiseach spoke tonight say Dublin:
UK sources stressing that its only a draft... but the “backstop” NI option will now be worked through in a full legal form in wednesday’s document - some sources saying longer than the supposed first choice options
All this against a backdrop of the Opposition here coming up explicitly with what it says is a solution to the commitments made on the Ireland border in the phase 1 agreement - ie a new customs union...
... and meanwhile Sir John Major is also planning an intervention on Wednesday - we haven’t heard much from him since he heavily criticised the then prospect of a Tory-DUP deal re n Irish peace
Further detail about tomorrow’s draft on N. Ireland from one informed source: ‘"Option C" [full alignment] will be comprehensive and seek to end any ambiguity.... determined to have a backstop that provides an answer the Ireland question and avoid a hard border on the island’
Another senior EU27 source told me draft legal text tomorrow on the backstop option will refer only to Northern Ireland’s full alignment with Customs Union and Single Market rules - which raises same same issue that saw PM having to leave talks with Juncker after DUP phone call
