The 'Malthouse compromise': Everything you need to know

Sam Lowe, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, said an agreement like that would be possible under the current terms of the backstop. “The EU has said they will consider technical fixes as part of the means of replacing the backstop. But the issue is that lots of this is untried and untested,” he said. “We don’t know if it would alleviate the need for physical infrastructure so it cannot, in itself, work as an alternative backstop. The whole point of the backstop is that it would work under any circumstances.”