What to make of the Polish Foreign Minister’s remarks that a way out of the impasse over the backstop would be to time-limit it to five years?

According to the Belfast Telegraph, Jacek Czaputowicz warned that Britain and Ireland were playing a “game of chicken” over the border that would end with a “frontal collision.”

Speaking to a Polish newspaper, he is reported to have said that if Ireland agreed to a backstop of “let’s say five years,” the issue could be resolved.

“Of course, this would be less beneficial for Ireland than an indefinite backstop, but much more favourable than the non-contractual Brexit, which inevitably approaches,” he added.

I suspect these are diplomatic noises off, with the Polish Government frustrated at the prospect of ‘no deal,’ given they have a million nationals living and working in the UK and, like the Commission, will be glad the divorce bill is boxed off, with only the border/backstop remaining as major stumbling block to ruin it all.

For now, though, the Commission and EU-27’s best tactic is to ‘wait and see’ as Tory MPs do what they always do: talk tough before relenting. We are certainly not at the stage where Europe needs to blink, especially as Poland, like the rest of the EU, is solidly signed-up to the Withdrawal Agreement as its currently drafted and there’s precious little time for any renegotiations unless Theresa May rescinds Article 50.

But here’s a thought.

What if a time-limited backstop did emerge as the way forward? Obviously, it would be chalked up, in the zero-sum calculus that now applies, as a victory for the British Government at the expense of the Irish. It would doubtless please unionists and help Theresa May get her Withdrawal Agreement across the line in Westminster, but it could well cost Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney their jobs.

But for the sake of the remainder of this post, let’s skip past the immediate political fallout. What else could it mean?

Well, it might help bring about Irish unity for one thing.

That probably sounds counter-intuitive. After all, isn’t a guarantee over ending the backstop a DUP ‘blood red’ line? Surely if they were in favour of it, Irish unity is the very last thing that would result.

But a time-limited backstop creates a powerful new incentive for the Irish Government to resolve the border issue once and for all.

The backstop is only needed while Northern Ireland exists. In a single state, the problem of managing two jurisdictions which will have different tariff and regulatory arrangements automatically disappears.

So far, Dublin’s parties have been noticeably reluctant to set out any firm proposals about how and when they intend to deal with the question of Irish unity. Like St Augustine’s prayer, they cleave towards chastity, but not yet.

They will don the broad black brimmer when it suits them politically but display no real commitment the rest of the time. With the prospect of the backstop ending at a specific point in the future, they would suddenly inherit the mess of having to install a border regime.

But if the end of the backstop dovetailed with a border poll on Irish unity, (a realistic prospect in the next few years anyway) the timing could be fortuitous. If successful, two problems would be resolved in one neat piece of economic and constitutional choreography. And with a level of predictability about both events, it might help to focus minds and shape the debate, both north and south.

I hasten to add this article is largely theoretical. There are two perfectly good reasons the backstop should apply, above and beyond protecting Ireland from a damaging hard border arrangement.

The first is that is that under the universally-applied rule of ‘you broke it, you fix it,’ the British Government should have to sort its own mess. The second is that the backstop is an entirely reasonable and rational response to maintaining the integrity of the single market, even if the presentation is difficult for the DUP and Tory hardliners.

In the Brexit hall of mirrors, nothing is quite what it seems. But it would be ironic indeed if a tactic that is superficially beneficial to maintaining the constitutional status quo instead resulted in the exact opposite.