The Irish ‘Backstop’ in Simple Language

* The Northern Ireland – Republic of Ireland have a ‘soft border’. This is partially because a lot of people live in one country and work in another, partially to fudge the conflict over whether Ireland should be united – to calm tensions.

* If the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is to leave the EU and ‘take back control of our borders’, we will need to have a ‘hard border’ with the Republic of Ireland. Otherwise goods could be easily smuggled across the border, and any EU member could fly to Ireland and walk or drive to the UK.

* The first two points contradict each other.

* Most pro-Brexit arguments about how to solve the contradiction rest on ‘technology’ which doesn’t seem to exist yet, or misrepresentations of how the Swiss border works.

* The ‘backstop’ was an idea proposed by Theresa May and the UK government to the EU, as a backup plan until the contradictions of the Irish border are solved.

* After Theresa May’s government agreed this deal with the EU, it was voted down by the UK parliament in January.

* None of the above has changed since then.

* The conflict over the ‘Irish backstop’ is a conflict between different groups of UK politicians, over an idea invented and agreed by UK politicians. Nobody on the EU side of negotiations is behaving awkwardly about this – they simply want clarity over the nature of the Irish border.

* Professor Michael Duggan, one of the UK’s leading EU law experts, has written today that “it seems remarkable for the Government to openly threaten to breach an international treaty even before it has been approved and ratified.” If we behave in this way, we are advertising to the world that there is no reason to trust that we will keep our promises and commitments.

* We’re pretty much fucked.