Proposal on backstop a non-starter

IT is hardly surprising EU negotiator Michel Barnier has rejected Downing Street’s Uk-wide Brexit backstop plan.

Mr Barnier said the proposed temporary arrangement to avoid a hard border “does not work” and he is dead right.

Theresa May’s government is attempting to use the backstop for its own ends.

This has as much, if not more, to do with appeasing hardline Brexiteers than it has at reaching a solution to the crisis.

Mr Barnier has been straight in rejecting this half-baked proposal but unfortunately the Taoiseach has been less so.

Pointing out there is still another two years before the UK leaves the EU is not good enough as it gives the impression Ireland is content to accept whatever agreement is thrashed out.

Leo Varadkar should be making it known there can be no deal done until the question of the border is sorted out.

This is all the more important when the British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has been ridiculing and belittling the Irish Government’s approach to the backstop.

On the other hand the poll that shows almost as many people in the North back joining the Republic as remaining in the UK after Brexit is an eye-opener.

They know the decision to leave was a disaster from which there will be no winners but the biggest loser will be Britain.