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Leo Varadkar has played a nerve-racking game of chicken with the British Conservative Party for the past few months and this week they finally cracked.
There is now a better chance of a positive Brexit outcome for Ireland than appeared likely a few days ago but everything depends on the response of the British Labour Party to Theresa May's olive branch.
Of course the strength of Varadkar’s hand depended on the backing of 26 other EU states as well as the commission and the parliament. That is what forced the British prime minister into her last throw of the dice; reaching out to Jeremy Corbyn to help her save the United Kingdom from a no-deal Brexit.
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The unwavering nature of the EU’s support for the Irish position was summed up by French president Emmanuel Macron after his meeting with the Taoiseach in Paris on Tuesday. “We will never abandon Ireland or the Irish people, no matter what happens, because this solidarity is the very purpose of the European project.”
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German chancellor Angela Merkel will be in Dublin today and will undoubtedly reiterate the same message in public, even if like Macron she wants reassurances that Ireland will do what it takes to ensure that the integrity of the EU single market is protected in the event of a no-deal Brexit happening in spite of everything.
A potential pathway through the morass is now becoming clearer
The biggest weakness in the Irish position right through the process has been the inherent contradiction between the insistence that no hard border on the island of Ireland can be accepted and the EU imperative that some border controls will be necessary in the event of a no-deal.
The Government has skirted around this issue for fear of giving any comfort to right-wing Conservatives who were opposed to the Border backstop but it has moved into the open in the past few weeks as a no-deal outcome became a real possibility.
Tánaiste Simon Coveney was adamant that Brexit, in whatever form it takes, is not going to drag Ireland out of the single market but even yesterday he remained coy about what action the Government would take, apart from saying there was no question of the re-emergence of any physical infrastructure at the Border.
Clearly there will have to be checks of some sort in the event of no deal but much of that can be done at source in Ireland and the UK or places like Dublin port and Larne when it comes to traded goods. Animal checks will create more difficulty and ways will have to be found to complete them as far from the Border as possible.
For some this means that the backstop was a contrived issue all along, but the lesson of British politics over the past few years is that if Ireland had given way on the backstop, the Tory ultras would have found some other issue to rebel on so great is their antipathy to the EU.
The backstop will become irrelevant in any case if May and Corbyn can agree on a plan for the future relationship between the EU and the UK or, at the very least, agree a set of options to be put to the British parliament. Even if they do all sorts of obstacles will have to be cleared, such as the length of the extension the UK will seek, the question of UK participation in the European elections and the response of the EU 27 to whatever is being proposed.
Nonetheless, a potential pathway through the morass is now becoming clearer. It is likely to involve a customs arrangement between the UK and the EU and also some agreement on regulatory alignment.
Big unknown
One big unknown which has the capacity to undermine this benign scenario is the scale of the divisions in the Conservative Party.
The indicative votes in the Commons last week revealed that about half of the Conservative Party’s MPs would prefer a no-deal Brexit to the softer one that is likely to emerge from the contacts between May and Corbyn.
A furious reaction to the outcome of that process can be expected and there is a real possibility of a deep split in the Conservative Party.
What might deter the hardliners from actually breaking away is the commitment May has given to step down in the near future.
Most of them may reckon it is better to remain in the party and try and elect one of their own like Boris Johnson as leader to take them through the second phase of talks with the EU on a trade deal.
That would undoubtedly cause some apprehension here but if the Commons backs a softer Brexit in the next week it would be difficult for a new Tory leader to abandon it without first holding a general election.
There is also the fact that the EU has shown that it is able to run rings around the UK in any negotiation, not simply because of the disunity on the British side but because it has a much stronger hand to play.
There is no knowing where this unpredictable process will end but the outlook is certainly looking better now than it did a week ago for the people of Ireland and the UK.