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 Wheelan, RTE's correspondent in London. And I'm Colombeau-Mungain,

RTE's Deputy Foreign Editor, normally in Dublin, but these days at home in Kildare due to the coronavirus. Each week, Brexit Republic assesses all the latest Brexit developments in Brussels,

London and in Dublin. And what a week it's been. After three years of negotiations on the Irish border, thousands of meetings, countless crises, the resignation of one Prime Minister, and finally, finally a breakthrough treaty, Boris Johnson has decided at the last minute that he doesn't actually like the oven-ready deal he signed up to last October and which delivered him a landslide election victory.

In one of the most shocking developments in a journey already strewn with tumultuous political

dramas, Downing Street announced it would override parts of the protocol on Northern Ireland,

admitting it was breaking international law in the process.

Now we'll remind listeners what the protocol does,

what bits the UK doesn't like, and we'll try and figure out just what exactly Boris Johnson

hopes to achieve. But first, Tony and Sean, you can both pitch in on this. From memory,

the withdrawal agreement is substantially the same as the withdrawal agreement that was concluded by Theresa May with the

European Union. Boris Johnson particularly didn't like the parts about Ireland and Northern Ireland.

So he came up with a wheeze in the whirl himself and Leo Verradker in order to get over his objections

to this and he signed up to it. This was his design in collaboration with Leo Varadcoach, which was then run back by the European Union.

...