Ireland announced what is being called a ‘Boris budget’ yesterday, as Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe delivered his budget on the basis of a No Deal Brexit scenario. Donohoe told the Today Programme this morning that the decision to do so was made “a number of weeks ago”, evidently before Boris’ New Deal was proposed. This will not quell noises from London that Brussels and Dublin are not acting in good faith towards UK proposals…

Ireland’s budget used figures showing that under No Deal, Ireland would suffer a drop in growth rate from 5% to less than 1%. As a consequence and in order to build up a Brexit war chest, no changes to personal taxation or increases in social welfare spending were announced.

Despite the No Deal bravado from Dublin, a tentative meeting is being arranged between the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach, likely to be hosted in Liverpool tomorrow. The UK side is not expecting great things from it…