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THE IRISH BACKSTOP.
It’s almost been a year since the UK government and the EU agreed to a political safety net for Ireland, and we’re still no closer to agreeing the details of what it would look like.
Further than that, the UK government has created uncertainty over whether the final Withdrawal Agreement will include a backstop, which is why the EU and Irish government have been so staunch in repeating that it was a vital, “cast iron guarantee” of no border in a final Brexit deal.
Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, who’s among the candidates to become the next Tory leader, has said that the backstop should be scrapped completely.
On the latest episode of the Guardian ‘Politics Weekly’ podcast, one contributor Jonathan Lis said that there needed to be “less illusion” at this “11th hour, or five minutes to midnight” about the backstop that Theresa May signed up to in December.
“Michael Gove, who is not a stupid man, and Boris Johnson and others have been falling over themselves to say that they didn’t understand what their own government signed up to in December. Now that is not acceptable.
This idea that there’s no unified government position at the end of the negotiations, is unprecedented in its level of incompetence.
So if you haven’t quite grasped what exactly the backstop is, you’d be forgiven.
Here’s what it is
The backstop is a sort of Plan B, insurance policy, or safety net that would kick in if a better deal isn’t agreed in the second stage of Brexit talks, which will focus on trade (a part of the Future Relationship).
The backstop would kick in at the end of the transition period – which starts on 29 March and ends on 31 December 2020 - if a final deal is agreed.
Put simply, the backstop ensures that Northern Ireland would stay “aligned” to the regulations of the single market and the customs union if there is still no other solution that would avoid infrastructure along the Irish border.
To avoid a border, it means there would have to be the same or similar custom rules and regulations for products, food, animals, people and vehicles between the UK and the EU – or Northern Ireland and the EU.
“Regulatory alignment” is the guarantee, which is important: it doesn’t mean the regulations would be the exact same, but similar enough to avoid a hard border.
Until talks between the EU and UK on trade begin, it won’t be clear how many regulations and customs checks will be the same or different, and because of that it isn’t clear whether the backstop is necessary.
But almost immediately after the deal was struck, there’s been disagreement over what the backstop is. For example:
Should be for a limited period of time or not? The UK says it should be time limited, the EU responded by saying it needed to be an “all-weather” backstop, and would be pointless if it were temporary.
Would it apply to the UK as a whole, or just Northern Ireland? The UK wants it to apply to the whole of the UK until a better deal is made. But the EU say that it can only apply to Northern Ireland, as its whole point is to preserve the peace process. It also says that it’s less of a hassle for the backstop to apply to a small region than it would the entire UK.
If there’s no agreement on the backstop – as in, if they can’t agree on “regulatory alignment” on the island of Ireland that would mean no infrastructure is needed – then there is no Brexit deal and the UK will go crashing out of the EU.
Ironically, if the UK does go crashing out of the EU, it’s most likely that a hard border will automatically reappear on the island of Ireland anyway – which is something German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted to last week.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar warned EU leaders at the end of the October summit, that if a hard border does return to the island of Ireland, it could see a return to Troubles-era violence.
Political influence on the backstop
The backstop was first decided upon in early December 2017, but although the EU and UK came to an agreement, the final signing was delayed after the DUP said it was unhappy with the wording.
The party wanted an assurance that a border would not appear along the Irish Sea, which the backstop wording had remained helpfully vague on before the DUP’s input.
But last December, as the EU and UK were on the cusp of an agreed backstop, Theresa May flew out from Brussels to meet the DUP leadership to hear their concerns (as its 10 Westminster MPs are propping up her Tory government).
After this, the backstop included a line confirming that there would be “no new regulatory barriers develop (sic) between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom”.
If the EU negotiators thought that the UK’s stance on this would soften, they were wrong. Theresa May has repeatedly said that she wouldn’t accept a deal that would “carve off” Northern Ireland from Great Britain, and that she would preserve the integrity of the United Kingdom.
Barnier tried to “de-dramatize” the idea of customs checks on trade between Great Britain and Ireland, saying that it would simply increase the number of goods and vehicles checked at ports and airports.
But as recently as yesterday, May told the House of Commons: “Anything that effectively creates a customs border along the Irish Sea is not acceptable.”
Many theorise that the DUP is a major part of May’s inability to strike a deal: although there are already differences in social policies between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, unionists fear that if the EU were to treat the North as an exception for peace-keeping reasons, that it could eventually lead to a united Ireland.
So, what’s the latest?
Among the discarded solutions to the Northern Irish border issue that have been shot down over the past year are “Oyster-card-like technology” to check the movement of goods and people; the Canada border which was dismissed by the Irish government as “efficient, but it’s still a hard border” and a backstop to the backstop.
Yesterday in the House of Commons, May said that they were 95% agreed on a Brexit deal, but that there remained ”one real sticking point”. The backstop.
She said that four things needed to happen now, just five months before her country leaves the European Union.
Firstly, she wants the UK and EU to agree to a temporary customs deal so that the Northern Ireland only proposal is no longer needed, adding that the relationship between the North and the UK was integral to the Good Friday Agreement and that “nothing we agree with EU under Article 50 should risk a return to a hard border”.
Secondly, and most importantly, she said that she wanted the option to extend the implementation period as an alternative to the backstop, despite describing an extension as “undesirable”.
“By far the best outcome for the UK, for Ireland and for the EU – is that our future relationship is agreed and in place by 1st January 2021… But the impasse we are trying to resolve is about the insurance policy if this does not happen.”
If at the end of 2020 our future relationship was not quite ready, the proposal is that the UK would be able to make a sovereign choice between the UK-wide customs backstop or a short extension of the implementation period.
There are some limited circumstances in which it could be argued that an extension to the implementation period might be preferable, if we were certain it was only for a short time.
(The third point she made was that neither of these options could be indefinite, and the fourth was that Northern Irish businesses enjoy full access to Great Britain.)
“We have to explore every possible option to break the impasse and that is what I am doing,” she said. So for now, the ball is in the EU’s court.
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Brexausted.
Just get on with it.
The world will continue.
Too much drama.
@Trevor Hayden: So sorry for your troubles. Maybe have a sit-down and a cup of tea while the economic, social and political future of our home is decided by a shower of faithless opportunists to whom we are either an inconvenience or a means to an end. “Getting on with” is getting back to a century of shite that no-one wants.
@Tordel Back: The EU will throw us under a bus to protect their coffers.
We are merely an insignificant little plot of land on the edge of Europe, no matter how many times leo or simon tell us we have the backing of our EU counterparts.
@Tordel Back: I agree with you, but I also agree with the sentiment expressed by @Trevor Hayden.. We, well most of us, agree that what is finally agreed upon has repercussions for Ireland, but, at this stage I have to admit that I am imagining a group more like what you’d expect at the Mad Hatters tea party than a group of seasoned politicians.
@Trevor Hayden: call me naive, call me blindingly hopeful, but I have hopes that this will not happen.
@David Stapleton: Me too David, but we have to look back at the bailout, when Mr Sarkozy said we have to give up our corporation tax to get a bailout and we still need oir budgets approved by the EU before going ahead with them.
I hope I’m wrong too but I can see the EU telling Ireland they fdo not get involved in “personal matters” and to sort it ourselves similar to the water charges fiasco.
We’ve been a drain on the EU coffers since the bailout and are still taking the “Oliver Twist” approach every year with begging bo
@Trevor Hayden: bowl.
@Trevor Hayden: Trevor, you’re missing that we had the EU by the short and curlies when it came to the bailout. The EU banks were so heavily invested in our banks that if our banks had gone under it would’ve started a domino effect across Europe and sunk the EU. The idea that the EU isn’t glad to pay us off for not sinking them is a stretch, considering we have to pay back the bailouts anyway. The crap deal we got is down to the incompetence of Cowen and Lenihan.
What’s happening with the UK is that the EU are dumbfounded by the sheer buffoonery of the Tories and are aghast at the backwardness of the DUP. They see us as part of the club, an attack on us is an attack on them. We’re a poster boy as far as the EU are concerned. If we get treated badly in this and the UK are seen as getting a good deal, it will set off whispers of dissent in other countries over what use is there being in the EU. They simply won’t let that happen.
@Trevor Hayden: Our politicians ha e sold out all our resources to the EU like ,sugar,oil, gas, electricity,and fisheries. Most of our food comes from the UK including milk, butter, sugar, meat and flour and not forgetting electricity. Our Irish corrupt government and politicians don’t want to leave the gravy train of the EU richmans club
DUP say they don’t want a hard border but then they also say they want Northern Ireland to be treated like the rest of the UK which will have a hard border.
Theresa May wants to keep the EU/Ireland happy so they will sign off on the deals.
Boris wants to go back on a prior agreement, probably because if Theresa May pulls this off she has done the impossible.
@Stephen Devlin: The British Government have proven time and time again that their word is worth nothing.
Bit deluded that they think they can establish their own bi-lateral trade agreements in compettion to the EU as well as WITH the EU no?
The world won’t trust them even as far as you can throw them.
@Colm A. Corcoran: In regards to the backstop the EU wants it in legal form, not an agreement.
@Stephen Devlin: I think everyone will want everything in Legal form when dealing with the British in future.
Sad really, economics works best in a climate of trust. Attitudes like what the British are displaying seem to be becoming a thing lately and if thats true then we’re hurtling fast towards a world depression. It takes a couple of years to recover from bad financial decisions, it will take at least a generation to dispell the unilateral “Why can’t I have my cake and eat it?” attitudes that are growing.
@Stephen Devlin: Thought the backstop was already in legal form as per paragraph 45
@Joe Johnson: No it’s just a draft agreement I don’t think it can be held to account legally, it specifically states that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
@Stephen Devlin: When did the DUP say they never wanted a hard border?
If the EU accept a deal with UK so they can keep some kind of advantages with Europe,then many other countries will just do the same.
This can not be accepted.
They wanted out they are out.
The last hope of agreement is to accept another referendum in UK.
And because this is a European matter allow the European in UK to vote as well. If the No wins the matter is over. If it is a yes then off they go. But they cannot be allow to have a special treatment.
@Dominic Leleu: http://flip.it/IQJP5I
Trying to put a border up north again is going to be interesting to watch.
@Sean Conway: we can pull it down
It’s a method by which political and regulatory policy over NI can be removed from London and placed with Brussels and Dublin.
The status changes are such that the main requirement of the rest of the UK to NI will be continued subsidy by the Barnett formula.
All without having to ask the people. A messy business that the EU would rather do without.
Effective reunification of Ireland without the mess of cost and democracy.
Gosh, I wonder what the EU will want in return for all this help.
@Damocles: We ARE the EU, it’s not them and us. We even have more influence proportionally to our population then Germany or France in the EU.
But let’s put that aside for the moment. What do you propose to resolve the NI situation, outside also leaving the EU that is because I get a bit of a whiff of euroscepticism from you.
And by the way, leaving the EU would instantly mean rejoining the UK if we’re to have ANY chance of establishing bilateral trade agreements. Technically you’d solve the NI issue but I don’t think it’s worth it.
@Colm A. Corcoran: I think it would be terrible for Ireland to leave the EU. The formula for Ireland is a low corporate tax rate and in Europe. Break that and you’d be stuffed.
As for joining the UK. You have to ask, after this shindig would the UK have you? And if they did, on what terms? Hiding to nothing if you ask me.
I’ve made plenty of suggestions as to how the NI border could be resolved. But it’ll need political will and cooperation from Dublin. Which I would have thought would be in the spirit of the GFA, but seems not to be forthcoming.
And yes, you do seem to have a fair amount of influence in Brussels right now, but quid pro quo.
@Damocles: Hahaha! The notion of joining the UK. Look what’s happened to NI under U.K. rule from being the economic powerhouse on the island of Ireland to being an economic basket case, which can’t govern or pay its own way and requires subvention from England. The Republic exports €100 billion, the UK exports €6.5 billion. The Republic has emerged into a modern, liberal European society with a broad economic base, while NI’s main city has shrunk in size along with its economy set in a society that is riven with division.
@Damocles: The GFA doesn’t absolve Britain from making a decision that so obviously puts it in danger. In the realm of sanity the situation calls for Britain to take responsibility and solve the challenge to the GFA, that they introduced, themselves.
This could all have been resolved if the Briitish Government agreed to regulatory alignment in the north with increased customs controls between NI and Britain. A solution I’d bet that would be supported by the majority of NI.
We’re only in this situation because the Tories value their jobs over the good of their nation.
@Colm A. Corcoran: There’s an underlying sense of a need for cooperation within the GFA of different parties putting aside their differences to work together for a common good.
That’s being ignored in any attempt to resolve this new dispute.
I think that’s a shame.
I don’t think a spirit of “You caused this, you sort it out.” would have ever led to an end to the Troubles.
@Damocles: If the parties involved didn’t take responsibility for their own actions then the GFA could be misused as a means of economical warfare.
No matter how you sell it you can’t convince me that Ireland should pay for Britain’s irresponsibility.
I really can’t believe how so many people are happy that their country is fast earning the reputation of being dishonourable, ungrateful and distrustable.
The six counties are effectively beyond the realistic reach of Brexit, because no one there wants to go back to a hard border, with customs posts & ancillary security, the Brits cannot afford the costs involved even if they had the will or resources for it, & the Republic can comply with any external trade & immigration controls at its own ports.
The sea oh the sea, is brea geal mo chroi!
When this is over the words brexit and backstop should be eradicated from the planet
Independence for the UK is simply not allowed.
@Martin Lintzgy: they have independence, they’ve always had it.
I assume you are incorrectly using the word and instead referring to UK leaving EU, they UK can leave. Nobody is stopping them.
They however cannot have the benefits of being in the EU without being a member of the EU. It’s that simple.
The UK is like a person quitting a gym membership but then demanding the gym still allows the person to use its equipment etc but without following its rules or paying for the use.
It’s been agreed, it’s simple.
BACKSTOP MEANS BACKSTOP.
@Peadar Farrell: Remarks: This report is put forward with a view to the meeting of the European Council (Article 50) of 14-15 December 2017. Under the caveat that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, the joint commitments set out in this joint report shall be reflected in the Withdrawal Agreement in full detail. This does not prejudge any adaptations that might be appropriate in case transitional arrangements were to be agreed in the second phase of the negotiations, and is without prejudice to discussions on the framework of the future relationship.
Note: The caveat
The problem with the backstop, from a UK perspective, is that it isn’t a backstop. It isn’t an insurance policy in case other means fail because it appears that it has already been decided that those means will fail.
It is not beyond the ken of reasonable people working together in good faith to come up with a solution that would work on this island, within the WTO, that would remove the need for a hard goods border. This is doable and only requires political will and cooperation from both sides of the border.
However reasonable suggestions so far have been dismissed out of hand without the slightest sign of will or cooperation.
So it is inevitable that the backstop would become the permanent default.
It is felt that the EU and Ireland are not negotiating in good faith here.
@Damocles: it’s not a negotiation. The UK is leaving the EU. There are agreements to be made to arrange for that but don’t fool yourself that the UK has any leverage at all.
@Colm A. Corcoran: there’s that spectacular lack of good faith again.
You talk about not trusting the UK but the EU and RoI are displaying a spectacular lack of ability to act in good faith here.
Trust has to go two ways.
Too many tea parties with Boris.
have your say