Brexit negotiations advance: Small step in the right direction
In a process as fraught, and occasionally as rudderless, as Brexit negotiations, any good news must be embraced with almost inordinate enthusiasm.
The confirmation yesterday that Britain has agreed that the “backstop” guarantee to avoid the reintroduction of a hard border on this island should be included in the draft Brexit treaty and that it will apply unless another solution is found seems one such moment.
There is, of course, many a slip between cup and lip but at this stage of that tortured process, it would be unwise to expect a more unequivocal position.
However, that welcome must be tempered by a recognition that this agreement may provoke strident opposition from Brextemists — an uber vocal minority punching far above its weight — and the more virulent strand of northern unionism represented by the Democratic Unionist Party.
Whether moderate Britain, with the support and insistence of the EU and Ireland, can overcome this stumbling block will test the integrity of many relationships.
Yesterday’s agreement came more than two weeks after prime minister Theresa May rejected the EU’s draft agreement that would have maintained a “common regulatory area” to avert a hard border.
Ms May rejected it as “unacceptable” as it would create a border in the Irish Sea. It seems difficult to reconcile these positions but that is the art of the deal — small steps towards an agreed solution as it were.
