The Irish political class is getting increasingly nervous about the EU throwing them under the bus, with the Irish Independent coming out with a searing editorial today aimed at the EU after a “senior EU diplomat” reportedly said that the EU would force Ireland to “choose between setting up a physical Border with Northern Ireland and de facto leaving the single market” in the event of no deal. Ireland’s leaders slowly waking up to the realisation that the EU will happily toss them to one side once they stop being useful as a stick to beat the British with…

Simon Coveney’s office was forced to respond, pointing to the EU’s numerous public statements that there will be no harder border in the event of no deal. He’s right, it is simply not going to happen over a few gallons of milk and bags of aggregate. So why is the backstop necessary at all?

Leo Varadkar has since upped the rhetoric today, saying that anyone who expects the “solidarity” of the EU with Ireland to change was in for a “nasty surprise”. If Ireland had continued working with the UK to develop technological solutions instead of treating the UK as an adversary and knowingly going down the path of brinkmanship over the backstop, the whole impasse could have been amicably resolved months ago. Instead Varadkar is nervously watching his (chlorinated?) chickens starting to come home to roost…