We could be biggest loser

‘BACKSTOP’ must be one of the most illused and misunderstood words of the negotiations between the UK and the EU.

It has been used mainly to keep the Irish quiet and facilitate progress in what were always going to be difficult and bad-tempered negotiations.

Now chickens are coming home to roost and the word is being shown to be worthless as both sides face up to only two Brexit options being possible.

Either the UK will depart the EU with a deal so meaningless as to equate with not departing at all on all major matters, or departure will be without any agreement or commitment whatsoever, which will force the EU to locate a very rigid Border between the North and the Republic.

Mrs May has no real problem with a “frictionless” Border, as the smugglers’ paradise it creates will operate one way only; cheap world produce traded legally into Britain flooding merrily into the EU through the Irish loophole. The Border, which to be effective should be more rigid than Mr Trump’s Great Wall, will be insisted on by the EU, but erected and operated by the Irish State with some fiscal compensation from good friends in Europe.

A frightening vista but inevitable to anyone who thought the matter through at the beginning of negotiations.

But the Irish Government did not think matters through and allowed the Irish Border be used as a battering ram to bludgeon the Brits into submission.

It appears now the Brits are not going to submit and Ireland could be an enormous loser. Padraic Neary

Tubbercurry, Co Sligo