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. Hello. 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 Wheeler, RTE's correspondent, normally in London, but currently in Edinburgh.

And I'm Colom O'Mongown, RTE's Deputy Foreign Editor, normally in Dublin, but currently in Kildare.

Each week, Brexit Republic assesses all the latest Brexit developments in Brussels, London and Dublin. This week, the Brexit gods have been hard at work. There is Michel Barnier's tell-all secret Brexit diary,

with candid revelations about his four years at the helm

as the EU's chief negotiator during not one but two Brexit treaties.

And Boris Johnson sends in the Navy,

or as social media would have it,

we've had the closest thing to an Anglo-French

naval battle since Trafalgar, all over new fishing licences issued by the tiny crown dependency

of Jersey. Don't ring Bergerac, Brexit Republic will follow the clues to determine who's the

villain in the latest fish wars. And as the votes are counted in England, Scotland and Wales, we'll assess the Brexit effect

in Hartleypool and beyond. But first, Sean, to you as you sit in Edinburgh and we're

recording this on Friday afternoon, we haven't seen anything approaching an exit poll yet.

...