This episode is sponsored by Canacore Genuity Wealth Management, experienced wealth planners and investment managers who offer unwavering support in challenging times.

Visit candowealth.com for more information.

Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectators' daily politics podcaster.

I'm Cindy Yu and today I'm joined by Katie Bors and Charles Grant, Director of the Centre for European Reform.

It's a breakthrough coming on the Northern Ireland Protocol. London and Brussels have been locked in negotiations over amendments to the Protocol and today the Times reported that a partial agreement may have been made.

Charles to begin with, maybe you can remind listeners of what the disagreements over the Protocol were, what were the problems from the perspectives of London and Brussels that they had to kind of iron out were.

Well the reason why there's a Protocol is that when the British decided to leave the EU, everyone agreed it'd be a bad idea to have customs checks and other checks on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland because one of the reasons why we have a sort of peace process is because those border checks were reduced removed.

And the Protocol basically says that Northern Ireland, because it's staying in the EU single market, has to stay in the single market to remove those checks.

There needs to be checks on goods going from Great Britain into Northern Ireland and to some degree the other way.

There needs to be some customs checks and other sorts of checks on goods going across the Irish Sea.

But this obviously creates some inconvenience for businesses in Northern Ireland and also threatens the unionist sense of identity.

So the DUP, the largest unionist party and a lot of the people in the Conservative Party, particularly the ERG party, don't like the Protocol and would like it torn up.

But it's not going to be torn up, it's going to be interpreted in a different way but it won't be torn up.

And the landing zone that was being reported today talks about green and the red lane. Can you just explain whether or not something like that could work and what that looks like?

I think this is where the EU is going to give some ground to the British.

Goods going into Northern Ireland, if they are destined to stay in Northern Ireland, will go through a green lane with minimal checks.

But if they might have a risk of going into the Republic of Ireland, they'll have to go through the red lane with strict checks.

That's perfectly common sense and I think that you will give the British most of what they want in that respect.

The more difficult issue is probably the so-called governance of the agreement because for the EU, the European Court of Justice must be involved in policing its own single market in Northern Ireland and its many respects staying in the EU single market.

But the role of the Court of Justice is very controversial with some people in the Conservative Party and certainly with the DUP.

So I think the most difficult issue is whether we can find a way around that.

The EU will not agree to any deal which doesn't give the ECJ quite a large role in policing the single market.

...