Insisting on backstop got us Johnson
Ireland’s intransigence on the issue of the border has brought us to the verge of the worst-case scenario. But there may still be time to salvage a soft Brexit from this mess
It should now be clear that the backstop has been a disaster for Ireland. It has poisoned relations with unionism and helped to propel an untested, radical Tory faction to power. Worst of all, it has brought us to the cliff edge of a no-deal Brexit, and with it the inevitability of border friction – the very thing the backstop was supposed to prevent.
The backstop was absurd from the beginning. As a fallback ...
