What changes would Boris Johnson need to make to his Brexit proposals for the EU to accept them?

British Brexit negotiators presented a new legal text to the EU in Brussels on Monday, with the aim of “clarifying” their proposals.

A spate of ring-round diplomacy conducted Boris Johnson and his ministers over the last couple of days hasn’t gone well: EU capitals are adamant they won’t be convinced to back Johnson’s plan for the Irish border.

The new legal text, UK sources say, isn’t supposed to change anything about the plan – just explain how it works to the EU.

If that’s true, it’s unlikely that talks will be unblocked in time for a deal at the big summit next week. EU leaders are now swinging behind calls for new proposals from the UK by the end of the week.

There are two main areas that the UK needs to change to meet EU objections: customs checks and the Stormont veto.

Under British proposals, there would be customs checks on goods moving between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Despite vague UK promises that such checks wouldn’t have to be done at the border, as far as the EU is concerned this would breach the Good Friday Agreement – and commitments made by the British government to avoid a hard border.

UK suggestions that checks could be carried out at “designated locations” sound an awful lot to EU officials like the creation of customs posts. The UK has not been able to produce an adequate explanation of how these things are different – though it’s possible their legal text might address this.

The issue the EU has is that such locations could become a target for terrorists – as they were before when customs processing centres existed previously. There are also concerns that other EU countries could seek the kinds of exemptions given to Britain.

The operation of cross-border businesses and the “All-Ireland economy” would also be undermined by the plans.

The second big cause of concern with the UK proposals in Brussels is the stipulation that the Northern Ireland assembly has to approve the system once every four years and be given a full veto. This was introduced by the UK government to placate the DUP – whose votes Boris Johnson thinks he needs to pass any deal he gets. The unionists are also a weather vane for many hardcore Brexiteer Tory MPs, who have in the past suggested they will follow the Northern Irish party’s lead.

But in bending over backwards to appease the DUP, the UK has upset everyone else, including Brussels. One party would effectively be able to end the backstop: rendering it, in the words of EU officials passim, “not a backstop at all”.

As a result of these two objections, the EU points out, the UK proposals don’t prevent a hard border when they’re in effect, and wouldn’t even be able to consistently do that.

It’s notable that those two objections are essentially the differences between the UK plan and the EU’s original Northern Ireland only backstop, proposed to Theresa May during talks over a year ago. Ultimately, if there’s a landing zone both can agree on, it will probably look quite a lot like that policy – but whether the UK could sell such a plan back at home before an election looks unlikely.