Why 'backstop' may botch Brexit withdrawal deal

ALBERT Einstein is sometimes credited with having said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The Brexit process may provide vindication of this over the Irish border issue.

Theresa May visited Belfast on Tuesday and Wednesday to stress her commitment, again, to ensuring there is no post-Brexit "hard border" in Ireland. With the odds stacked against her, in a bid to save her UK exit withdrawal deal, and possibly her prime ministership, she is desperately seeking again a breakthrough alternative to the so-called "Irish backstop".

The key challenge - which she will also discuss in Brussels on Thursday with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker - stems from the future status of the border between the Republic of Ireland (which will remain in the European Union) and Northern Ireland (which is scheduled next month to leave the Brussels-based club along with England, Scotland and Wales). The issue here is that because of the May government's "red-lines" to leave the European Single Market and Customs Union, her Brexit withdrawal deal contains a so-called Irish backstop designed to avoid a hard border (any kind of physical perimeter or visible customs checks) between the North and South.