Leo Varadkar, the Indian-origin prime minister of Ireland, has emerged as a key player as British prime minister Theresa May tries to get her controversial withdrawal agreement though parliament next week in the face of continuing opposition.

The obstacle to the agreement being passed is the so-called ‘backstop’ that affects Ireland and Northern Ireland. Varadkar has insisted and secured May’s agreement in previous talks that there cannot be a hard border between the two in the island of Ireland.

German chancellor Angela Merkel held prolonged talks with Varadkar last week as the latter tries to find a ‘fix’ so that May’s agreement wins the support of recalcitrant MPs, who believe the ‘backstop’ will tie the UK to EU rules indefinitely.

EU officials in Brussels insisted that the agreement is not open for re-negotiations, but May claimed on Monday that there was ‘further movement’ on the ‘backstop’. A likely statement from EU that the ‘backstop’ will not be in place indefinitely is expected to assuage concerns.

Germany foreign affairs minister Heiko Maas is to fly to Dublin on Tuesday for Brexit talks with Varadkar, who believes a hard border between the two regions will jeopardise the Good Friday Agreement that has kept peace since 1998.

Since Ireland and the UK are currently both EU members, movement of people and goods between Ireland and Northern Ireland is frictionless in the absence of a border, but the situation may change after March 29, when the UK leaves the EU.

Varadkar has a key position in the Brexit discourse given the unique and conflict-ridden history of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Britain. Achieving a balance between not having a hard border and the UK leaving the European single market and the customs union is central to the current impasse in Westminster.

The Northern Ireland-based Democratic Unionist Party that props up the May government is opposed to the agreement, along with several pro and anti-Brexit ministers, MPs and lobbies that continue to put forth the version of Brexit they would like to see.

Meanwhile, anticipating new checks at the UK-France border in the event of a no-deal Brexit, British authorities on Monday tested measures to deal with traffic queues at Dover in east England, which is the entry point for thousands of lorries from France and Europe.

The lorries crucial to trade currently move in and out of the UK without border checks, but after March 29 the UK will become a non-EU country, necessitating new border checks if future arrangements are not agreed.

A large number of lorries joined the test, but Conservative MP for Dover, Charlie Elphicke, questioned its usefulness: “We’ve got to remember 10,000 lorries visit the Channel ports every single day so a test with less than 100 is not even a drop in the ocean”.

Parliament resumed its session on Monday with ministers and MPs intensely debating the way out of the impasse on the controversial withdrawal agreement, which will be put to vote on January 15. If it is passed, it will take the form of a treaty with the EU, but strong opposition to it continues.

Fervent Brexiteer Boris Johnson reiterated his opposition to the agreement, insisting that leaving the EU without a deal would be the “closest to what people actually voted for” in the 2016 EU referendum.

A ‘no-deal Brexit’ is deemed to be the worst-case scenario, with serious implications for the UK’s GDP, prices, stock and supply of medicines produced in Europe, movement of British and European citizens within Europe, and the ability of major UK-based banks and financial institutions to operate across Europe.

Johnson wrote in his column in the Daily Telegraph: “Of all the options suggested by pollsters – staying in the EU, coming out on Theresa May’s terms, or coming out on World Trade terms – it is the last, the so-called no-deal option, that is gaining in popularity”.

“In spite of – or perhaps because of – everything they have been told, it is this future that is by some margin preferred by the British public. What is going on? What is it that gives so many of the electorate the confidence to dismiss these prognostications?”

“The most obvious answer, perhaps, is that this option is closest to what people actually voted for. When 17.4 million chose to leave the EU, they didn’t vote to stay locked in the customs union or the single market. There was no suggestion that we would pay £39 billion for nothing, without even a sniff of a trade deal with Brussels”.

First Published: Jan 07, 2019 18:42 IST