Brexiteer Tory MP Dominic Raab quizzed on live TV over ‘unicorn’ ideas on Irish backstop

One of the biggest challenges to Brexit is what to do about the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, and Channel 4 journalist Cathy Newman likened Dominic Raab’s position on it to "unicorns".

Newman spoke to the former Brexit secretary, who resigned from his role over the backstop last year, after the Commons vote. He appeared optimistic about Brexit.

He said: “I think you’ve seen and you will see the parliamentary party and the House of Commons row in behind her [Theresa May].”

Catherine: “But the EU’s not going to row behind her, Jean-Claude Juncker has made that abundantly clear, she’s chosen to ignore that.”

Raab insisted the backstop can still be "changed".

Michel Barnier made it very clear that the backstop can be changed.

But Newman called his bluff.

Sabine Weyand [EU deputy negotiator], all sorts of other people including the Irish PM, all of them have made clear that that backstop is non-negotiable, it’s an absolute red line.

Raab went on to suggest there will be a "backstop of sorts" and suggested technology would help, despite many people shooting that idea down. Cathy shot it down, too.

There will be a backstop of sorts, the question is whether it can be done through technology, operational matters through goodwill between both sides, rather than pegging the UK top wholesale legislative alignment over a bunch of rules we’ve got no say over.

Newman said that was "unicorns".

But the technology option has time and again been put up by people like yourself, time and again it’s been rejected. What makes you think people can suddenly make it work now? I mean, it’s unicorns again, isn’t it?

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