The main roadblock to the current deal (and let's be honest, with the whole Brexit process from the beginning) is Ireland.
EU is adamant that there not be a hard border between Ireland and North Ireland, in support of the Good Friday Agreement that ended the Troubles. They didn't buy May's promises that technology would spontaneously appear to magically create a hard but premeable border, so they insisted in including the backstop into the deal, ensuring that frontiers would still be transitable for years to come while the problem is solved. But British Conservatives reject the backstop because they see it as a way for the EU to de facto keep Britain into their zone without an exit date. (OK, other parties and/or individual legislators have other issues with May's deal, but this was the main reason why May couldn't sell her deal to her own party. If they had bought it they would have had enough votes to approve the deal in parliament, and we wouldn't now have Boris at the helm playing chicken with the iceberg).
Of course there is an answer to the Ireland issue so simple that a five-year old could think of it: keep the land border with NI open as the Good Friday Agreement demands, and put all border and customs controls on the much easier to police sea frontier between NI and England. This would of course be a bit inconvenient for the british citizens of NI, but it should be an acceptable price to pay for keeping the peace and delivering an orderly Brexit, no?
Not for the north irish ultra-right-wing UKIP, unfortunately, because they rejected offhand any deal that used that mechanism. Thay see it a first step in slippery slope towards leaving the UK and reunifying with Ireland. and since May depended on their votes to keep the conservative majority in parliament, she had to bend over and do their bidding.
Still, yesterday conservatives lost their majority anyway, and therefore UKIP should have lost all their kingmaking powers. So changing the backstop for the NI sea frontier should be back on the table. It is unlikely that Boris would go there, since what he actually wants is No Deal, but parliament or an election could force his hand.
EU is adamant that there not be a hard border between Ireland and North Ireland, in support of the Good Friday Agreement that ended the Troubles. They didn't buy May's promises that technology would spontaneously appear to magically create a hard but premeable border, so they insisted in including the backstop into the deal, ensuring that frontiers would still be transitable for years to come while the problem is solved. But British Conservatives reject the backstop because they see it as a way for the EU to de facto keep Britain into their zone without an exit date. (OK, other parties and/or individual legislators have other issues with May's deal, but this was the main reason why May couldn't sell her deal to her own party. If they had bought it they would have had enough votes to approve the deal in parliament, and we wouldn't now have Boris at the helm playing chicken with the iceberg).
Of course there is an answer to the Ireland issue so simple that a five-year old could think of it: keep the land border with NI open as the Good Friday Agreement demands, and put all border and customs controls on the much easier to police sea frontier between NI and England. This would of course be a bit inconvenient for the british citizens of NI, but it should be an acceptable price to pay for keeping the peace and delivering an orderly Brexit, no?
Not for the north irish ultra-right-wing UKIP, unfortunately, because they rejected offhand any deal that used that mechanism. Thay see it a first step in slippery slope towards leaving the UK and reunifying with Ireland. and since May depended on their votes to keep the conservative majority in parliament, she had to bend over and do their bidding.
Still, yesterday conservatives lost their majority anyway, and therefore UKIP should have lost all their kingmaking powers. So changing the backstop for the NI sea frontier should be back on the table. It is unlikely that Boris would go there, since what he actually wants is No Deal, but parliament or an election could force his hand.