Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney and Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe TD in the Courtyard of Government Buildings today, as they gave an update on Brexit following a Cabinet meeting.

Via Prospect magazine:

There are myriad reasons why the UK doesn’t like the backstop. They can be simply summarised thus: because it entails compromise.

The EU doesn’t like it for the same reason, but from a different perspective. It entails compromise of the EU’s customs union.

The UK would have tariff free and quota free access to the EU, to avoid customs controls on the Irish land or sea border.

And it entails compromise of the single market. For it breaks up the four freedoms: effectively allowing free movement of goods to and from Northern Ireland but not the other three.

It also means that Northern Ireland would be outside the EU but treated as if it were part of the single market in some areas, including agriculture—a privilege that even the non-EU members of the European Economic Area do not have.

This is a huge ask of the EU, which is so protective of its single market and so suspicious (with no small cause) of British agri-food, especially meat products.

And there is second irony in all of this. Whilst British MPs complain about being “trapped” in a customs union or Northern Ireland “tied into” the single market, they miss the fundamental point: that as Article 1.3 of the [Protocol [on Ireland/Northern Ireland in the Withdrawal Agrtement] makes clear, what we see in the backstop is purely what the EU is prepared to do for the “unique circumstances on the island of Ireland.”

Be in no doubt that when the negotiations on the future relationship begin, we will see far less ambiguity and flexibility from the EU. It is not only the UK that is interested in “taking back control.”

The true cause of our backstop obsession (Kathy Hayward, Prospect)

Meeting possible between May and Juncker – reports (RTÉ)

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and British Prime Minister Theresa May at No. 10 Downing Street in 2017

“Where they see perfidious Albion, the British see duplicitous Hibernia, and have been given just as much reason to do so.

A guarantee against a hard border, perfectly legitimate for stand-alone economic and security reasons, has instead been demanded to “protect the Belfast Agreement in all its parts”, although no part of the agreement requires it.

Securing this demand via Brussels has been proclaimed by the Irish Government as a diplomatic triumph and the centrepiece of its Brexit strategy.

At the same time Stormont has collapsed and Sinn Féin is demanding a Border poll; the Taoiseach has erroneously threatened “a form of joint authority” via the agreement’s east-west body, the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference; Brexit has been described as breaching the consent principle, although the legal inaccuracy of this could scarcely be clearer; and every effect on cross-Border co-operation has been portrayed as violating the agreement rather than just impacting certain bodies within their remit.

No wonder unionists in particular suspect the Irish of seizing their moment…”

Backstop has backfired and poisoned UK-Irish links (Newton Emerson, Irish Times)

Irish PM denies having secret no-deal Brexit plan for border checks (The Guardian)

Meanwhile…

Motorists may soon be obliged to carry ‘proof of insurance’ Green Cards for travel in the UK and Northern Ireland in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

The Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland has advised that insurers and insurance brokers will provide ‘Green Cards’ to motor insurance policyholders who travel to the UK, including to Northern Ireland.

MIBI issues no-deal Brexit warning to motorists (RTÉ)

Sam Boal/Rollingnews