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Today, British Prime Minister Theresa May is delivering a speech at Belfast's Waterfront Hall. The contents of the speech have already been widely leaked. May is set to denounce the "backstop" negotiated by her government with the European Union as part of the Brexit agreement.
She will say that the proposal would breach the Belfast Agreement that secured peace in Northern Ireland, and leave the people of Northern Ireland without any representation in trade negotiations.
She will say "The economic and constitutional dislocation of a formal 'third country' customs border within our own country is something I will never accept and I believe no British prime minister could ever accept. And as they made clear this week, it is not something the House of Commons will accept either."
This speech is a very big deal.
The backstop arrangement is a crucial part of Brexit negotiations. It also may have major consequences for peace in Northern Ireland. May's hostility to the backstop probably doesn't have much to do with constitutional principle. It is more likely driven by politics within her own political party, and the demands of the Democratic Unionist Party, which is propping up May's minority government.
To understand what is going on, it's first necessary to understand the role that the EU played in the Irish peace process. The shared EU "customs union" and a "single market" avoided the need for border controls between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
This not only made it possible for the two economies to become highly integrated. It also had symbolic importance, in allowing people and goods to move back and forth between the two jurisdictions, without any necessary implication that Northern Ireland would become politically united with the Republic.
Britain's decision to leave the EU has politicized border controls, raising the question of how to reconcile the fact that the Republic of Ireland is still in the EU, and operates under EU customs and market rules, and Northern Ireland soon will not. Unionists - who want to stay part of Britain - do not want any arrangement in which Northern Ireland would have separate rules from Britain.
They fear that this might lead Northern Ireland to drift politically closer to the Republic. Republicans and nationalists - and the government of the Republic of Ireland - do not want any arrangement in which Northern Ireland would have a "hard border" with the Republic. The problem is that it is hard to avoid a hard border, without some kind of special rules and status for Northern Ireland.
This is why the Northern Ireland border question was supposed to be settled before Brexit negotiations proper began. It turned out to be impossible to reach a deal on what to do with Northern Ireland's status, but EU negotiators and the Republic of Ireland accepted a compromise under which Britain agreed on a "backstop" arrangement. The EU and Ireland interpreted this deal as saying that if no better mutually acceptable arrangement could be found, Northern Ireland would stay in the EU's Single Market and Customs Union, allowing the real negotiations to begin.
Britain always wanted to interpret the backstop commitment more flexibly than the EU It tried to persuade the EU to accept a deal under which Britain would stay inside EU customs and market arrangements for some period while it sorted out its own long-term status, but would not be bound by the broader commitments of EU membership. The EU made it clear that this proposal was unacceptable, since it would plausibly allow Britain an enormous degree of freedom both in terms of when it decided to leave, and how it interpreted its obligations toward Europe.
Furthermore, pro-Brexit members of the Conservative Party, who had once promised that Britain would remain part of the customs union, now want a much "harder" Brexit than they once said they did. Theresa May, fearing that pro-Brexiters would split her party and perhaps force her resignation as leader, agreed last week to terms imposed by the pro-Brexit faction. One of her concessions was a change to the British customs bill which declared that it would be unlawful for Northern Ireland to be "part of a separate customs territory to Great Britain." This meant that Britain has legally pre-committed itself to refusing to implement the backstop that the EU thought had already been agreed.
The politics of the backstop are not being driven by constitutional worries, but by Britain's inability to get the EU to agree to a fudged agreement on customs and single market membership, the intransigence of May's own party members, and the weakness of May's leadership. It is furthermore likely that the Democratic Unionist Party, which is propping up May's government, has also demanded that there be no arrangement that would distinguish Northern Ireland from the rest of Britain.
This may destabilize Brexit negotiations - and Northern Ireland
May's speech will have stark consequences for Britain's Brexit negotiations. She is presenting the EU with a fait accompli, binding her government to a negotiating position that the EU has already made it clear it will not accept.
It is theoretically possible that this will work to her advantage. Sometimes, as political scientists like Robert Putnam have argued, weakness at home may turn into strength abroad. If you are too weak, you won't be able to implement concessions that other governments would like you to make. However, the danger of weakness is that you may be caught in a position that is simply unacceptable to other countries' negotiators, so that no deal is possible. This is the big risk that May is taking.
If her new demands are unacceptable to the EU, Britain will find itself in a "no deal" Brexit that could have very damaging consequences for the British economy.
Furthermore, the speech's intransigence is likely to have consequences within Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland's peace deal was already in serious danger, thanks to distrust between the major parties. May's speech is likely to be interpreted by nationalists as a strong signal that she is in the pocket of the Democratic Unionist Party. Already, nationalists are having difficulty in restraining radicals from returning to "the armed struggle." May's speech is likely to add greatly to their difficulties.
Farrell is associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. He works on a variety of topics, including trust, the politics of the Internet and international and comparative political economy.