Welcome to Coffee House Shots for Spectators' Daily Politics Podcast.

Is Portis Johnson's deal finally dead?

There's been lots of pretty negative sounds coming out from Europe over the weekend,

and the chances of it being passed by next week's EU summit seem to be virtually nil.

I'm Fraser Nelson, and I'm joined by James

Forsyth and Katie Bowles to discuss. So James, talk us through the negative sounds we've been hearing.

The negative sounds are the European Union, say that this deal would still require checks on the

island of Ireland, and that is unacceptable to them. and so it fails one of their tests.

They also object to the fact that they say that they don't like the idea that this whole

arrangement is dependent on Stormont because they say they don't want to be dependent on a kind

of regional assembly that has been in abeyance for the last few years. So I mean I think it is not

looking hopeful for the deal. I think one of the

reasons, I mean, there are two main reasons why it's not looking hopeful of a deal. One of them is

that the UK has undoubtedly gone back on commitments it made in the joint report under Theresa May and in

the withdrawal agreement. And the problem is because Theresa May gave away so much in those agreements,

that anything that isn't that seems to the EU and Dublin to be reneging or to be unreasonable.

I think the idea that the UK should be able to leave the European Union of its customs

territory intact is a kind of thoroughly reasonable proposition, but it feels unreasonable.

But we always knew that the backstop was going. That was the whole point of Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister.

So surely if they're saying we're not going to accept anything but doesn't have Theresa May's backstop,

that means there's almost no point in discussing anything.

Certainly at the moment because of the Ben Act, because the EU know it's not choosing between

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