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

And I'm Colm Ongo Mungown, RTE's Deputy Foreign Editor in Dublin.

Each week, Brexit Republic assesses all the latest Brexit developments in Brussels, London and here in Dublin.

At 11pm on December 31st, Brexit finally happened for real.

And in typical cliff edge style, it came just one week after an agonising last gasp deal was struck on Christmas Eve. We'll look at how that deal was done, what ground was

gained and lost and how the critical stumbling blocks of the level playing field fisheries and

governance were finally and dramatically resolved.

And we'll assess how it's all going so far. The volume of heavy goods vehicles heading over

to Dover or Calais may have been down dramatically because of pre-Christmas stockpiling and

the COVID effect so the full impact may not yet have been fully felt. We look at that

and some of the other examples of where Brexit

was already beginning to bite. But first, for this first episode of Brexit Republic for the

new year, and indeed the first one since the deal was done, what's been going on, Sean, in the

south-east of the country you're living in? COVID is the big one, of course. I mean, in terms of

...