nicholas whyte, you have gone from shaking your head to nodding in agreement. he eu talks about totality, and is also signaling "creative solutions," what might those solutions be? nicholas: this will come down to us technical fixes for the customs administration, which i'm not that familiar with. i understand it will require functioning databases and access to those, but i also want to pick up another important point, consultation with northern ireland stakeholders. the eu's proposals today are apparently going to refute a certain level of conservation which so -- so far has been absent from the process. it would have been nice to have heard from them. peter: let's go back to graham gudgin. can the du p put the northern irish border on the north irish sea, between the ireland isles and the british isles? graham: they can't because it separates them from the rest of the u.k. as your viewers well know, there has been an ongoing campaign by nationalists and the republic of ireland to achieve in the long run a united ireland, that the majority in northern ireland d