How the Irish backstop emerged as May's Brexit nemesis
The possibility of the UK leaving the European Union blared like an air-raid siren in Government Buildings, the quadrangle of Portland stone and Wicklow granite in central Dublin that houses the taoiseach’s office. Officials summoned politicians, diplomats, business leaders, farming groups, academics and others to the complex off Upper Merrion Street. The guests climbed a beechwood staircase with a stained glass window, My Four Green Fields, representing Ireland’s four provinces.
At the improvised summit all agreed that Britain’s exit from the EU would present an unprecedented threat to Irish interests. They agreed to meet monthly to brainstorm – discussions which led to a task force, a strategy, a plan.
This was 2015. Few people had even heard of the word Brexit. It was a year before David Cameron called the referendum, two years before Theresa May declared “red lines” over the UK’s withdrawal. It was three years before she agreed to the Irish border backstop as an option and signed the withdrawal agreement that triggered a breakdown in Westminster.
The roots of the UK’s political and constitutional crisis spread far and wide: decades of anti-EU propaganda, a Tory party civil war, a reckless Cameron gamble, a dogged, blinkered successor, a divided Labour party. And with a starring role, the .
