Poll: Do you think Brexit will actually happen?

Some commentators branded the UK’s recent position papers as a flop.

By Conor McMahon Deputy editor, Fora

LAST WEEK, THE UK government published its long-awaited, 30-page position paper on the Irish border after Brexit – but some commentators branded it as a flop.

Writing for The Guardian, columnist Fintan O’Toole dismissed Britain’s proposals as “absurd” and nothing short of a litany of “sweet nothings”.

“The position paper, for all its nice words,” he wrote, “feels less like a serious attempt to find solutions and more like an early move in the blame game that will unfold when those solutions have not been found.”

Speaking to the Sunday Business Post, Kingspan boss Gene Murtagh said that it wasn’t clear if Brexit will happen at all. A few weeks ago, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that he was still hopeful it won’t.

There is a theme emerging. The task at hand is so enormous that it’s hard to imagine how Brexit will be pulled off by March 2019.

That said, the UK government has staunchly rejected criticisms of its progress on Brexit.

Britain’s Brexit minister, David Davis, insisted that the batch of position papers published last week “show beyond doubt” that enough progress has been made to move talks with the EU on to the next stage.

With that in mind, we’re asking Fora readers this week: Do you think Brexit will actually happen?