A no-deal on January 1st now looks more likely than at any time since the dawn of Brexit

The familiar rituals of the season: Christmas trees were going up all over Europe and Brexit returned to dominate the political agenda in Dublin, London and Brussels.

It will continue to dominate in the coming days as the clock ticks down towards December 31st, when, finally, after months of prevarication and procrastination, decisions will have to be taken.

The Irish Government followed closely the progress of the stuttering negotiations in Brussels between Michel Barnier's European Commission team and the British negotiators led by Sir David Frost.

In government, officialdom and business, Dublin is far more attuned to the realities of a no-deal Brexit in comparison to London. People in constant contact with their counterparts in London say that the British on the whole are astonishingly complacent about a no-deal. One person compares it to the insouciance of the British Covid response. That bodes well neither for the prospects of a deal nor for the management of a no-deal if it comes.

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Taoiseach Micheál Martin has quietly cultivated a relationship with Ursula von der Leyen – giving her the commissioner she wanted in Maireád McGuinness was important in that process – and he remained in close contact with the European Commission president early in the week through texts and calls until the two met in Brussels on Friday.

More surprisingly, perhaps, he has also maintained personal contact with Boris Johnson, and the two men also kept in touch during the week.

At one stage Martin missed a call from the British prime minister while he was on his feet in the Dáil, indicating the informal nature of the communications channel – it was not a call set up by officials – and perhaps the impulsive nature of Johnson’s management of these things. That’s one of the things that alarms the highly process-driven Brussels bureaucracy.

Much of the detail of the negotiations was shrouded in secrecy, but it was plain early in the week that the difficulties over fisheries, the “level playing field” – the need for the UK not to gain a competitive advantage over EU products by lowering standards – and governance of any new agreement were as acute as ever. They may yet turn out to be insurmountable.

The tense exchanges and diplomatic efforts to read the tea leaves were reminiscent of the past Christmas crunches over Brexit – last year and 2017 – but there was one important difference this time: the question of the Irish Border was not centre stage.

Critical deadline

Each time the Brexit negotiations have come to a critical deadline – in the countdown to the joint declaration of 2017, and to the Withdrawal Agreement of last year – the Irish question has been central. But not now. The signing of the Northern Irish protocol last year and the agreement of the British government this week to implement its provisions meant that Ireland has no longer been in the crosshairs.

Many observers – including such veterans of EU deal-making as former taoiseach Bertie Ahern – had warned that there was an acute danger for Ireland if the Border became the last obstacle to a final agreement. But that danger has been averted by two things.

Firstly, by the agreement of last year in which Johnson reversed his aversion to treating the North substantially differently from the rest of the UK , and, secondly, by US pressure in recent weeks, pushing the British into agreement on the implementation plan. That has taken Ireland out of spotlight , much to the relief of the Government.

Last year’s withdrawal agreement represents one of the most significant foreign policy achievements of any Irish government, says one Minister. It gave concrete form to the EU’s adoption of Irish interests as core EU priorities since Brexit began.

After three years of patient Irish diplomacy and politics, the full weight of the EU was thrown behind Irish interests to at times British incomprehension and irritation. “People miss the significance of that,” the Minister says.

The agreement on the implementation of that plan this week, when British minister Michael Gove and commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic issued a joint plan, demonstrated not just that EU support was unwavering, but that Irish diplomacy could be effective on the other side of the Atlantic as well. The warnings from Washington were clear: that the UK failing to keep its word on Northern Ireland would have consequences when it came to a US-UK trade deal in the future.

That some of these warnings came directly from the president-elect of the United States piled further pressure on the British government.

Pretty muted

But such satisfaction as there is in Dublin about all this is pretty muted. The truth is that a no-deal on January 1st now looks more likely than at any time since the dawn of Brexit.

For much of the last four years few people in the wider government circle have believed it would come to pass: now they do. Taoiseach Micheál Martin has told people privately that he thinks it the more likely outcome, and has been urging his fellow EU leaders to keep the space open for a deal.

At home Ministers were left in no doubt about the scale of the potential disruption to trade and the economy when Simon Coveney briefed them at Tuesday's Cabinet meeting.

Despite the mitigating measures in the Northern Ireland protocol, which mean the Government is not facing the reality of conducting checks on good at or near the Border, many Irish exporters face crippling tariffs entering the UK market. The consequences for the agri-food industry are especially grim. Many businesses will be pitched into a full-scale crisis. The Government has plans to help, but the shock will be severe.

It is not yet unavoidable. If Martin is pessimistic, some senior officials still believe a deal is more likely, not least because they believe it is so self-evidently in both the UK’s national interest and Johnson’s political interest.

There is great focus on the personality and psychology of the British prime minister. Borisology. However, it remains an inexact science. While both von der Leyen and Martin say privately that they believe Johnson wants a deal, it is also clear that he is willing to flirt with – even if he is not logistically prepared for – a no-deal.

Moral character

There is general agreement on the assessment of Johnson’s moral character – it is not favourable – in Dublin, in Brussels and in European capitals. But there is no fixed view on what he is likely to do in the coming days.

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar essayed on Morning Ireland this week the view that the "real" Boris was "much closer to the more liberal London mayor that he was than the more conservative Brexiteer". But this was based on hope as much as analysis.

The “real Boris”, according to several Irish figures close to the issue, is the one who famously described his attitude to cake as “pro-having it and pro-eating it”. But he will now have to decide between those two alternatives.

The UK can have access to the EU’s single market and observe its rules, or it can decide on its own rules and have its access to the single market duly restricted – it can’t have both. And it never could.

The overriding attitude at the summit, according to insiders, is not a desire to get a deal at all costs, but impatience that Brexit is still paralysing so much of the EU’s bandwidth.

For most it is a minor issue, with little direct effect. Von der Leyen and others wanted no talk about Brexit at the summit, believing that tempers would only harden.

There is still an opening for a deal, but it is closing, and closing fast.