A year to Brexit so much to do and so little time

STARTING from today, it’s 363 days and counting downwards. Brexit will formally happen at 11pm Irish time on March 29, 2019. However, the real deadline is just over six months away as an EU leaders’ summit fixed for Brussels on October 18 and 19 must sign off on the EU-UK divorce deal.

That is to give the European Parliament time to sign off on the deal which will be called the “Withdrawal Agreement” or WA to the Euro-anoraks.

The EU leaders must agree the WA by a so-called “super qualified majority” – in simple terms, 20 of the 27 member governments representing 65pc of the EU population.

In extremis, that could give Ireland some leverage but very far from a veto at this point.

Blocking an unacceptable deal would involve having to recruit half a dozen allies, some with a sizeable population.

Working the European Parliament, whose MEPs have often taken a strident line, may also be an option.

Negotiations have so far been slow, described “as a game of inches” – never centimetres – by some observers.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the future of the Irish Border is now the most difficult item remaining.

There was considerable talk that in a post-Brexit world, the Border could be kept as invisible as it is now and that this could be sorted definitively at the EU leaders’ summit next June.

However, it is increasingly likely it will slide all the way to the October endgame.

Fianna Fáil’s former Brexit spokesman, Stephen Donnelly – who has himself just exited the job to fight battles about health – rightly warned that leaving the Border unsettled until the finale was replete with risk.

Just how strong would all that EU resolve to stand by Ireland be if the only impediment to a big picture EU-UK trade deal was the Irish Border?

It is hard to argue with that, but it is equally hard to argue with a negotiating reality that the hardest nuts are more usually the last cracked.

A cursory glance at the timeline will show how slow things have been.

On June 23, 2016, the British people voted by 52pc to 48pc to end 40-plus years of EU membership.

It took a full nine months, until March 29, 2017, for British Prime Minister Theresa May to trigger the so-called Article 50 divorce mechanism, starting a two-year countdown.

The exit mechanism is scant, designed by people who never believed it would have to be used, since there is always a queue of EU applicant states.

The only other exit precedent was when a newly autonomous Greenland parted company in 1985. Greenland, still linked to Denmark, has a population comparable to Waterford’s.

The UK has 65 million people, the world’s sixth largest economy, and in the EU is second only to Germany in economic scale. Disentangling

The so-called backstop is really a comfort blanket. Few in Brussels think it can work. The DUP and Tories want it taken off the table.

four decades of EU membership in under the two years allowed for by Article 50 is a suicide mission, but it continues oh so slowly.

It is, however, easy to be despondent about negotiations. The Brexit glass may not be entirely half-full, but it does contain some things.

You will have heard Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s new recounting of the old deal-maker’s mantra: nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, but some significant things have actually been provisionally agreed and are likely to stay tidied away.

Significantly, the EU and the UK have agreed a divorce settlement of about €55bn to cover commitments already made by London up to 2020 and beyond, and for recurring things like pensions and salaries for British EU staff.

Let’s recall that one began with some in London utter- ing boorishly that they would leave and pay nothing. The EU and the UK have also squared away a deal on equal reciprocal rights to live, work and enjoy “exportable” social welfare and pension rights for citizens who settle in the other jurisdictions before Brexit. Their families will also have the right to join them.

EU citizens living in the UK will see their rights transposed into UK law and upheld by its domestic courts which will have

to take account of the EU Court. The two sides have also agreed a transition period, ending in December 2021, during which nothing will change as the UK steps up preparations to leave.

During that time, Britain will be completely bound by EU rules and will have no voting rights at the EU talks table.

This basket of items, admittedly with loose ends and lacking implementation detail, is not bad, given the difficulties.

Last December 8, we thought the Irish Border was at least half-squared away alongside the divorce bill, EU and British citizens’ reciprocal rights and the transition period.

Mr Varadkar, and Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney, will continue to be reminded that they described what they had got on the Border as “bulletproof ” and “bombproof.”

In fact, there were three options. The first, and preferred, is a hoped-for comprehensive EU-UK trade agreement leaving no question of a Border.

The second is based on technical means of avoiding checkpoints, from automatic vehicle registration recognition to “trusted trader” schemes and widespread small trader exemptions. It is a high-tech Border – which is still a border.

The third option, the “backstop”, is a fallback position.

Simon Coveney calls it “our insurance policy.” It effectively sees the North mimicking EU rules and standards.

When the EU legally codified the December 8 deal in February, London kicked and the DUP, who are underpinning the current Conservative government, hit the ceiling.

The backstop is a comfort blanket. Few in Brussels think it can work. The DUP and Tories want it taken off the table. Scarily, it’s still all to play for.