Irish backstop
[8] On 29 March 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May commenced the two-year Brexit negotiation process by serving notice under Article 50 of the EU Treaty.
[9] In response, the remaining EU countries (EU27) published their "phased" negotiation strategy which postponed any negotiations on the future relationship with the UK (the non-binding "Political Declaration"), until a binding withdrawal agreement had been concluded, covering: The Republic of Ireland has, after Luxembourg, the second-highest gross domestic product per capita in the EU, thanks to a favorable corporate tax system, and its membership of the European Single Market.
[13] Using the UK as a "land bridge" is rapid (taking 10.5 hours for the route Dublin-Holyhead-Dover-Calais)[14] but could be compromised by customs checks in Wales and Calais in a no-deal Brexit.
From the time the referendum result was clear, the Irish government told other EU countries that (in the words of The Guardian) "the [open] border was not just about protecting the single market, it was about peace.
[16] In October 2016, The Guardian reported that British proposals to avoid a hard border (by having UK-compatible immigration controls introduced at Republic of Ireland ports and airports) had received "signals [of] support" by Enda Kenny's government.
[18] However, in 2017 a spokesperson for the new Irish government, under Leo Varadkar, stated that these reports had been "misinformed" and that there was "no question of UK officials acting as border agents in Ireland".
There was progress on the financial settlement and citizens' rights, but the meeting was abandoned after Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party objected to arrangements for the Irish border.
[23] Talks resumed on the following days, leading to publication on 8 December of a joint report setting out the commitments to be reflected in the Withdrawal Agreement.
Both the UK and the EU negotiating teams stated their preference to avoid a 'hard border'[24] and proposed an agreed draft for a Withdrawal Agreement that included a backstop: 49.
In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement.
This final withdrawal agreement of 2018 was initially approved by the British Prime Minister (Theresa May), but the DUP (on whose confidence-and-supply support the government's minority administration depended) vetoed it in the parliamentary vote of January 2019.
[32]The concept of a "hard border" is defined by 'physical infrastructure and checks', as noted in the protocol's preamble on page 303: RECALLING the commitment of the United Kingdom to protect North-South cooperation and its guarantee of "avoiding a hard border, including any physical infrastructure or related checks and controls, and bearing in mind...[32]The concept of "protecting" the 1998 Agreement is not further defined or referred to in the Northern Ireland Protocol or in the Withdrawal Agreement as a whole.
Article 2(2) of the protocol states that it is a temporary measure[37] while the United Kingdom identifies and develops a mutually satisfactory technology that operates customs, excise, phytosanitary and other controls on the frontier between the UK and the EU, without any evident border infrastructure.
[53] In April 2019, a report commissioned by the German Green Party concluded that the backstop could allow the UK to undermine EU environmental, consumer, and labour standards, because it lacks sufficiently detailed controls.
In late January 2019 many Brexit-supporting Conservative and DUP MPs continued to oppose a backstop without a specified end-date, concerned that it could tie the UK to many EU rules indefinitely.
[64] Barnier said to France's RTL radio: "Time is too short to find an alternative arrangement to the Irish backstop and Britain's divorce deal with the European Union will not be re-opened for negotiation.
"[65] A humble address was placed before the House of Commons on 13 November 2018, requiring release of the legal advice given to the government regarding the proposed EU withdrawal agreement.
However, the following day, it was deemed by MPs to be incomplete, which led to a vote in which, for the first time in history, the Government of the United Kingdom was found to be in contempt of Parliament.
[67] In March 2019 further advice was published saying that the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties could be used if the backstop was shown to have a "socially destabilising effect on Northern Ireland".
His third stated reason for the backstop being unviable is that it "risks weakening" the Good Friday Agreement and the Northern Ireland Peace process.
[77] Irish government "sources" considered "The very purpose of the backstop is to maintain the status quo, by ensuring free movement and no hard Border on the island of Ireland; which is central to the GFA.
