So, Boris is beetling across to Brussels to have a face to face Brexit chat over dinner with Ursula von der Leyen.

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Brexit: Boris Johnson is off to Brussels to see Ursula von der Leyen.

The UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson is set to travel to Brussels later today to have a face to face meeting with the President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

This comes after a tortuous final few weeks of Brexit negotiations where it became apparent that the two sides would never be able to get to common ground, given the negotiating mandates that Michel Barnier and Lord David Frost were given.

The idea is for the chief negotiators to compile a list of outstanding issues and for Boris and Ursula to chat about it.

And there are, of course, worries in the UK that Boris is off to secretly agree on some sort of sell-out deal with the EU.

And this comes on the back of the decision yesterday on the UK side to drop the extremely contentious Withdrawal Agreement bashing clauses from the UK Internal Market Bill.

This to many looks like the start of a UK climb-down, and will especially worry the unionist community in Northern Ireland.

But the UK government is arguing that the efforts by Michael Gove as one of the co-chairs of the Withdrawal Agreement oversight Joint Committee, has ensured that the clauses are no longer needed because all the issues have been addressed.

In fact, the claim is that now these issues have been ironed out it will make a no-deal Brexit outcome a less problematic for the UK.

But if you read the Joint Committee press release, it does talk about border control posts and entry points for the checking of goods. Presumably between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. How does that square with the Good Friday Agreement?

I'm also told that, despite protestations by the UK government to the opposite, there will be EU boots on the ground in Northern Ireland to monitor our new internal border.

Welcome to the new divided UK.

And I will remind people of something. The Joint Committee met on Monday the 7th of December but only announced the outcome of their discussions the next day, yesterday, Tuesday the 8th.

But on Monday, late in the day, just as the debate on the Internal Market Bill clauses was starting, Boris declared that he would drop those clauses if the EU agreed to a deal.

But I would hazard a guess that Michael Gove might already have informed him that he was recommending they be dropped anyway. Or is it all just to pave the way to the big sell-out deal.

Remember, MPs voted to put those clauses back on Monday evening, the same day the Joint Committee met. So was the House of Commons 'allowed' to follow through on voting for those clauses to stay in the Internal Market Bill, just to show Brussels the strength of feeling?

Which came first? The decision by Gove to drop the clauses, or the vote after 9 pm in the House of Commons?

It would be interesting to see the minutes of that Joint Committee meeting.

So, are we being played?

Now the story coming out of the EU is that they are divided and that Michel Barnier and the French President Emmanuel Macron are non too happy that Boris and Ursula have taken the talks over.

The story is that many in the EU are very unhappy because they fear Ursula von der Leyen will sell them out by giving the UK an easy ride.

But many pundits point to the history of Tory Prime Ministers travelling to Brussels. Where they get ambushed into agreeing to put the UK into yet another disadvantageous position.

And they also point to a very recent attempted ambush by the EU.

The Times reported last week that Michel Barnier introduced a late document saying it was a way to break the deadlock.

And suddenly no-one's talking about fishing - wonder why?

But Michael Gove is saying that the ditching of those contentious Internal Market clauses will give us all a 'smoother glide path, towards a post-Brexit trade deal.

And speaking on Sky News, he said that the new Joint Committee agreement would prevent the need for tariffs on goods going to Northern Ireland and allow the supermarkets to be stocked from UK suppliers:

"The price of everything from a pint of milk to a Nissan Qashqai would have been greater for citizens in Northern Ireland," he said.

And now all that's been done I would assume it blows a big hole in the case going up in front of the Belfast High Court today for a judicial review claiming Boris never intended to be bound by the Withdrawal Agreement.



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