and in parliament.

But it's probably too soon to write him off.

Here with me is Robert Shrimsley,

our political commentator, to talk about what might be billed

as the 'Great Escape'.

Well, as you say, it's too soon to be confident,

but what is very clear and what's

become very clear in the last few days

is that there are sort of two Downing Street operations going

on.

There's the one that everyone's hearing about and talking

about.

Dominic Cummings, his chief strategist,

all of the noise and all of the standing firm

and playing tough.

Then there's the other thing, which is going on a little bit

below the waterline which is the efforts

to see if there is a deal to be done with the European Union.

And that deal is to be done around

whether you can create a Northern Ireland

only backstop or something that falls a little bit short

of that.

You remember that obviously Theresa May's deal

had a backstop that caught the whole of the United Kingdom

in its web.

What Boris Johnson is looking at is

to see whether he can carve out a Northern Ireland

only solution.

And that's what's going on.

Right.

So we'll look at that in a bit more detail, but the really

interesting thing you've said there is that we've

got a two-tier Downing Street.

We've got Dominic Cummings, who's

this Svengali figure who's attracting all the publicity,

but there's something much more serious and less noisy

going on, which is really quite serious

- all hands to the deck to try and get a deal.

Yeah.

I don't think the two sides are in conflict with each other

necessarily, but I think that a lot of reporting,

the eyes of the reporting world, have

been drawn by this very interesting strategist who's

very newsworthy and very reportable.

And what's been going on quietly is somewhere else.

And I think that's what we're seeing

is a lot of the diplomatic work beginning below the waterline.

Now, how serious it is we're not yet sure.

There's a long, long way to go.

And there's 27-plus countries and parliaments that

have to ratify any future deal.

Yeah.

But again, the key is that the main obstacle to an agreement

is this question of Northern Ireland.

It's not the divorce bill, 40bn euros, 39bn euros.

It's not about illegal issues on EU citizens, right?

Yeah, that's right.

And the fundamental problem with the all-UK backstop

was that the whole of the United Kingdom

could be caught forever under the EU purview.

Caught in a customs unit, in particular,

for all of the rules that it would have to obey.

Boris Johnson couldn't stomach that.

He talked about a vassal state.

Exactly.

What he's looking at is whether he can come up

with a special arrangement for Northern Ireland which,

it's worth remembering, is what the European Union proposed

in the first place.

And Theresa May said no, I'm not going

to have the union broken up.

I'm not going to have a line in the union drawn

along the Irish Sea, and Northern Ireland

on the other side of it.

Now, I don't think Boris Johnson is

ready to countenance a full Northern Ireland being treated

entirely differently from the rest of the UK,

entirely subject to the rulings of the European Court.

But what he is prepared to look at

is some kind of compromise where, in some areas,

it might be.

And the most obvious one, the one

where he's clearly prepared to move,

is on agri-products, what's known

as the sanitary and phytosanitary area,

which, interestingly, although people

say it only accounts for 30 per cent

to 40 per cent of the value of trade between Northern

Ireland and the republic, it's 80 per cent of the volume.

So if you can get something done on that,

if you can have freedom of movement

for agricultural products, that's

a big chunk of the puzzle taken care of.

It's not all of it, by any stretch of the imagination.

There are lots of other issues.

But it's a starting point.

Now, you know I don't like putting you

on the spot, penalty spot, or any other football metaphor,

but here's the big question.

Is Brussels, Paris, Berlin prepared

to allow Boris the 'Great Escape' and strike a deal?

Well, I think they will, in large part,

take their lead from Ireland on this matter.

But what's been proposed so far is not enough.

That's clear to me.

What Boris Johnson is talking about so far

isn't enough, because you've got issues of tariffs, VAT,

regulatory controls, governance, dispute mechanisms, lots

of other things that aren't settled.

The question is how far he's prepared to move.

And if they sense he's prepared to move quite a long way

on this might they be prepared to give him

a little bit of wiggle room.

So I don't know is the answer to your question,

but what I do know is that the conversations are happening

and it's not impossible.

And chapter two...

There's very little time.

Yeah.

And obviously, he's then got to win a parliamentary vote with

the backing of the...

Well, the political side...

...hardliners...

...of it is a whole other area of...

And we're going to come to that.

He's had six votes that he's lost so far, six out of six.

It's a flawless record.

But don't write him off just yet.

Thank you, Robert Shrimsley.