Last minute push: The three problems with Johnson's Brexit plan

United Kingdom and Gibraltar European Union membership referendum

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It was like so often with Boris Johnson: big sounds on stage, small check behind the scenes. "We will pull through Brexit," the British Prime Minister called the Tories at the party congress in Manchester. On October 31, he would lead his country out of the EU - with agreements, if the EU bowed to his will. Or without a deal, if she does not give in.

At the same time, Johnson's negotiators in Brussels presented the prime minister's Brexit plan - finally as a legal text rather than as a discussion paper. And what was there was much more conciliatory than what Johnson put on stage in Manchester.

However: Whether it is enough to avert a chaos Brexit without agreement, is in the stars. Although the EU officially responded diplomatically to Johnson's proposal. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker welcomed Johnson's determination to "move towards a deal". There is "positive progress" in the British push, but also "problematic points" that need to be addressed. Behind the scenes, diplomats and politicians became clearer: although British ideas are progress, they are basically not new and at least difficult to implement.

There is progress - after all

The main problem is still the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. The EU insists that no new hard border be created between the two parts of the country after Brexit. Should the British want to get rid of the already agreed backstop, they would have to suggest something that fulfills the same functions. But in Brussels hardly anyone believes that Johnson's proposal is sufficient.

Nevertheless, EU diplomats are not so easy this time to reject the British offer. Because there is progress compared to the previous negotiating status. It is no longer just agricultural goods and foodstuffs that will now be treated in Northern Ireland for a while under the rules and standards of the EU single market, but also other goods - as the EU has always demanded.

Video analysis: Johnson's fairytale at the party congress

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Paul ELLIS / AFP; THE MIRROR

Accordingly, the EU will not keep its fingers crossed over the proposals. Why? What Johnson can do, they can do in Brussels as well: to give the appearance of a will to compromise until it is clear that the other side is to blame for the failure. Because there are still big, possibly unbridgeable problems.

A criticism in Brussels on Wednesday afternoon was that the British in Northern Ireland want to separate two things that are closely intertwined in the EU: the internal market and the customs union. In the EU single market, there is no border control just because regulatory checks - for example, on whether food complies with EU standards - and customs controls are fully "integrated", officials say.

But the British now want Northern Ireland to stay in the single market, even if they do not call it that. The aim is to create a "regulatory zone that covers the entire Irish island," states an explanatory note to the previously unpublished London legal text. At the same time, the Northern Irish are to leave the EU Customs Union together with Great Britain. This brings back the problems that negotiators have been wrestling with for months.

Two big problems - and an even bigger one

One thing is, how do you raise tariffs without having turnpikes between Ireland and Northern Ireland? The British claim that their proposal makes controls at the border or even near them superfluous. Instead, goods should be declared before crossing the border and then prosecuted by either Irish or British authorities. The few physical examinations that would still be necessary are to take place on the dealers' premises. But that, says an EU expert, would not only mean a "tremendous bureaucratic effort", because you would have to create completely new structures. It would also open wide possibilities of abuse.

In addition, there would be another problem: how do you keep goods that come from outside the UK and do not comply with EU standards - such as chlorine chickens from the USA - from Northern Ireland in the future? From there, if the British plan were to be implemented, they would be able to enter the Republic of Ireland and the rest of the EU unhindered. London suggests that British authorities inspect goods on British soil, on the basis of EU law, although the UK is no longer bound by it. "We certainly will not outsource sensitive controls to the British or anyone else," says an EU diplomat.

But there is an even bigger problem. The British Government wants to put the entire plan under a reservation: the consent of the Northern Irish. Their parliament and the government should approve the agreements - not once but over and over again. A first vote should be made after the end of the two-year transitional phase after Brexit, followed by another every four years.

Northern Ireland veto could bring back hard frontier

It would de facto be the time limit for the Irish backstop that the British have always called for and the EU has always categorically rejected. For if the consent of the Northern Irishmen fails to materialize, the entire agreement would become obsolete after one year. Then it could come what the EU and Ireland want to prevent at any cost: a new hard border with Northern Ireland.

Even British officials admit this on demand. But they emphasize that the vote is a democratic necessity to give Northern Ireland the right to co-determine regulations that otherwise would not influence them. In addition, they could also vote again and again for the continuation of the agreement. Then Northern Ireland would remain practically permanent in the EU internal market. This, it says from British government circles, bring London a great sacrifice.

Of course, that is different in Brussels. In the EU Parliament, for example, the Brexit steering group met with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier on Wednesday evening to discuss the British paper. The mood among the representatives of the factions was bleak, report participants. Too many holes left the British proposals open, the EU's core demands remained unfulfilled.

Barnier already raised a very different problem at the EU Commission's regular Wednesday morning meeting: how can the postponement of the Brexit deadline be postponed at the end of October if Premier Johnson refuses to apply? "We will continue to work," said the Frenchman later on his way to parliament, "to reach a deal."