Ahead of a meeting of UK and EU officials to discuss the Brexit deal’s protocol to avoid a hard border, it has emerged that the bloc has developed a strategy to counter Downing Street’s hardline approach to the talks. If Boris Johnson decides to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol to override EU-ordered trade checks, eurocrats will challenge that effort in a legal battle. EU diplomats have suggested this could also include slapping punitive tariffs on British products shipped to the bloc in retaliation.

       The European Commission was said to be preparing a "twin-track" approach to deal with a British attempt to scrap the post-Brexit border fix.

       It was reported that eurocrats do not believe there is a legal justification for Downing Street to take the nuclear option and blow up the divorce deal.

       A source told RTE: "The Commission is internally of the view that Article 16 could happen at any time, that it hasn't gone way, that it's a very serious possibility."

       It was claimed the bloc would continue to implement the Northern Ireland Protocol while dealing with any potential fallout from the Article 16 row.

       "In the second track they're looking at things like further infringement proceedings, arbitration mechanisms, and cross retaliation into the Trade and Cooperation Agreement," the source added.

       "There's a sort of hierarchy that gets more and more serious.

       "The Commission will challenge the UK invocation of the article legally, because the view would be the UK do not have the right to invoke it, that the conditions are not there to invoke it."