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The border backstop: a history

The backstop has been a constant feature of the Brexit negotiations
The backstop has been a constant feature of the Brexit negotiations The backstop has been a constant feature of the Brexit negotiations

YOU wouldn't know it from listening to some Tory MPs but the backstop has been a constant throughout the torturous Brexit negotiations...

:: The first time the term 'backstop' appeared in relation to Brexit was back in the December Joint Report of 2017, when the EU and UK unveiled their draft deal. Up until that point the expression was only familiar to baseball fans and referred to a protective fence behind the batter.

:: The backstop is a contingency or insurance measure to keep the border open in the event of no free trade agreement or other bespoke arrangements post-Brexit. Otherwise there is a threat that different trade and customs regimes on either side of the UK's only land frontier with the EU will result in checks on goods.

:: It proved controversial from the off, as the original proposal floated the prospect of "regulatory divergence" between Northern Ireland and Britain - an 'Irish Sea border' which the DUP and fellow Brexiteers found unpalatable. Nonetheless, the UK and the EU agreed that a backstop was needed, with both signing up alongside pledges to maintain cross-border cooperation, support the all-island economy and protect the Good Friday Agreement.

:: While the prospect of Northern Ireland being treated as discrete from the rest of the UK is anathema to the DUP and other unionists, business groups saw advantages to the 'best of both worlds' scenario. In addition to their ideological opposition, unionist concern centred on the fact that the EU would making the rules but that the UK would have no direct representation in Brussels. Arlene Foster has also claimed any such arrangement would be "economically catastrophic for Northern Ireland".

:: When the draft withdrawal agreement was published last February it effectively put the December Joint Report into legal terms. But Mrs May, conscious that her minority government was being propped up by the DUP, said "no prime minister could ever agree to it" as it threatened the constitutional integrity of the UK. There are also concerns that the backstop potentially has no end date and that the UK could not unilaterally withdraw.

:: Last July's Chequers plan proposed a close relationship between the UK and the EU, while addressing the vexed issue of the border through a "facilitated customs agreement" that would remove the need for customs checks. However, its publication saw several high profile figures, including Brexit secretary David Davis and foreign secretary Boris Johnson, resign from the cabinet. Michel Barnier suggested the UK was seeking to "cherry pick" elements of the single market ahead of the EU rejecting Chequers in September.

:: The withdrawal agreement signed off in November, which included the backstop, was heralded by Mrs May as a deal that "delivered for the British people" and set the UK "on course for a prosperous future". The prime minister told MPs that the best way to ensure the backstop was never needed was "to get the future relationship into place" before the end of the post-Brexit transition phase in December 2020.

:: As Sabine Weyand, the EU’s deputy chief negotiator said earlier this week, the British government had significant input into shaping the backstop and it was its preference for the whole of the UK to remain in the customs union rather than having a specific arrangement for Northern Ireland. However, failure to get the necessary support in parliament for the withdrawal agreement has forced Mrs May to seek an alternative time-limited backstop.

:: With less than 60 days to go before B-day on March 29 Mrs May is looking to reopen negotiations with the EU, seeking a "significant and legally binding change" to the backstop proposal. The EU has said it will not change the legal text already agreed.