What's It All About Then

I don't imagine a golden age of conservatism - either here or in the UK - but the degree to which the current leaders are completely incurious and incompetent is staggering. They were evil before, but now evil and lazy and dumb.

Boris Johnson expressed surprise to his advisers during lunch with Jean-Claude Juncker as he was informed about the scale of checks still needed on the island of Ireland under his alternative plan for the Irish border, according to EU sources.

The two-hour lunch in Luxembourg was said by both sides to have been “positive” but EU officials conceded the advantage for them had been in being able to spell out the problems directly to the prime minister. “It seems to have helped the penny drop,” said one diplomatic source.

During talks with Juncker and the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, the prime minister was shown in detail how allowing Northern Ireland to stick to common EU rules on food and livestock, known as sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS), would still fail to avoid checks on the vast majority of goods that cross the Irish border.