Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made what he describes as a “fair and reasonable” offer to the European Union as the basis for a settlement of the Brexit negotiations. Britain, he says, has compromised; now it is the turn of the EU to do the same. Is it?

There is a fundamental misperception on the British side of what exactly the Irish position is. This has not been helped, and indeed to an extent has been created, by the influence of the Democratic Unionist Party, on whose votes in Parliament, since the 2017 general election, the Conservative government has come to rely. The DUP, founded by the late Dr Ian Paisley, has its own idea of the issues at stake, though it is out of step with majority opinion in Northern Ireland, including in the business community.