FT editor Lionel Barber and political commentator Robert Shrimsley discuss whether changes to the Irish backstop can help the prime minister make a ‘Great Escape.’
Boris johnson is reeling from defeat to defeat in the courts and in parliament but it’s probably too soon to write him off here with me is robert schrems lee our political commentator to talk about what might be billed as the great escape well as you say it’s too soon to be confident but what is very clear what’s become very clear in the last few days is that there
Are sort to downing street operations going on this the one that everyone’s hearing about and talking about dominic cummings is chief strategist all of the noise and all of the standing firm and playing tough then there’s the other thing which is going on a little bit below the water line which is the efforts to see if there is a deal to be done with the european
Union and that deal is to be done around whether you can create a northern ireland only backstop or something that falls a little bit short of that you remember that obviously teresa mays deal had a backstop that caught the whole of the united kingdom in its web but boris johnson is looking at is to see whether he can carve out a northern ireland only solution
And that’s what’s going on right so we’ll look at that in a bit more detail but the really interesting thing you’ve said there is that we’ve got a two-tier downing street we’ve got dominic cummings who’s this svengali figure is attracting all the publicity but there’s something much more serious and less noisy going on which is really quite serious all hands to
The deck to try and get a deal yeah i don’t think the two sides are in conflict with each other necessarily but i think that a lot of reporting the the eyes of the reporting world have been drawn by you know this very interesting strategist who’s very newsworthy and very reportable and what’s been going on quietly is somewhere else and i think that’s what we’re
Seeing is a lot of the diplomatic work beginning on below the waterline now how serious it is we’re not yet sure there’s a long long way to go and i mean there’s 27 plus countries and parliament’s that have to ratify any future deal yeah but again the key is that the main obstacle to an agreement is this question of northern ireland it’s not the divorce bill 40
Billion euros 39 billion euros it’s not about illegal issues on the you citizens right yep that’s right the fundamental problem with the all uk backstop war that the whole of united kingdom could be caught forever under the eu purview caught in a customs union particular forever with all of the rules that it would have to be boris johnson couldn’t stomach that he
Talked about vessel stay exactly what he’s looking at is whether he can come up with a special arrangement for the north island which it’s worth remembering is what the european union proposed in the first place and theresa may said no i’m not going to have the union broken up i’m not going to have a lime in the union drawn along the irish sea and long land on the
Other side of it now i don’t think boris johnson is ready to countenance a full northern ireland being treated entirely differently from the rest of the uk entirely subject to the rulings of the european court but what he is prepared to look at is some kind of compromise where in some areas it might be and the most obvious one the one where he’s clearly prepared to
Move he’s on a grip on a grits what’s known as the sanitary and phytosanitary area which interestingly although people say it only accounts for 30 to 40 cent of the value of trade between northern ireland and the republic it’s 80 percent of the volume so if you can get something done on that if you can have freedom of movement for agricultural products that’s a
Big chunk of the puzzle taken care of it’s not all of it by any stretch of the imagination there are lots of other issues but it’s a starting point now you know i i don’t like putting you on the spot penalty spot or any other football metaphor but here’s the big question is brussels if paris berlin prepared to allow boris the great escape and strike a deal well i
Think they will in large part take their lead from ireland on this matter but what’s been proposed so far is not enough that’s clear to me what ronson talked about so far isn’t enough because you’ve got issues of terrace v80 regulatory controls governance dispute mechanism lots of other things that aren’t settled the question is how far he’s prepared to move and
If they sense he’s prepared to move quite a long way on this might they be prepared to give him a little bit of wiggle room so i don’t know is the answer to a question but what i do know is that the conversations are happening and it’s not impossible and chap that’s very little time yet and obviously is then gonna win a parliamentary vote with my backing in the
Past it is a whole other area and we’re going to come to that he said lot six votes he’s lost so far six out of six to floor by record but don’t write him off just yet thank you robert shrooms leigh
Transcribed from video
Brexit: why it's too soon to write off a Boris Johnson deal I FT By Financial Times
