In all areas, the UK continues to backtrack.

The European Union argues that we should be subject to rules of the club that we have left.

The precondition is the level playing field.

We can deliver a real Brexit that achieves our objectives.

But if there is not a deal, we still need the Irish protocol or the Northern Irish protocol fully implemented.

I'm going to miss being the pantomime villain. protocol or the Northern Irish protocol fully implemented.

I'm going to miss being the pantomime villain.

Hello and welcome to Brexit Republic, RTE's podcast on Brexit.

I'm Tony Connolly, RTE's Europe editor, normally in Brussels, but currently in Rome.

I'm Sean Whelan, RTE's correspondent in London.

And I'm Colom O Mungown, RTE's Deputy Foreign Editor.

In Dublin, each week Brexit Republic assesses all the latest Brexit developments in Brussels,

London and in Dublin.

This week, the fallout over the UK's unilateral move on the Northern Ireland protocol continues with legal action by the EU

imminent.

We'll be looking at what form that might take and what its impact might be.

And with the House of Commons debating the protocol, we'll explore if the plunge in relations

is down to David Frost taking over as the front seat driver of the UK's policy on how

both sides should get along in the future and on the protocol.

Yes indeed it's been another week of megaphone diplomacy between both sides with another falling out over the vaccines issue and sniping over the Erasmus scheme.

And in the midst of all that Theresa May's special advisor on Europe has lamented that if only someone from the Irish Embassy in London had taken him out for a pint back in 2017,

then the whole Irish border calamity wouldn't have been so bothersome.

...