The backstop strategy is in danger of backfiring

DAN O’Brien’s article (‘The backstop demand could end up bringing about that which it was designed to prevent’, Comment, December 13) is the most sensible analysis of Brexit and the backstop that I have read in recent weeks.

Forty years as a negotiator taught me never to push someone to make an agreement they could not deliver (even if they went there voluntarily) for the obvious reason that you end up with no agreement and back where you started – or, as in this case, in a worse place.

We can understandably stand around gloating at where the toffs in the Conservative Party have landed us all.

However, it is the job of our politicians, in this situation, to look out for our livelihoods and relations on this island.

A crash out of the EU will destroy jobs in key parts of the private sector here and reignite tribalism in Northern Ireland and between the north and south.

That’s why I agree with Dan O’Brien that the Government’s strategy should now be to support the UK to take back its notice to leave. We should accompany this with a commitment to work with them to address their concerns in Europe by other means. Peter Cassells

Kennedy Institute, Maynooth University