I am increasingly pessimistic about the brexit options for Ireland.

In December the UK government conceded that there were no technological solutions currently available to allow for a soft border within Ireland and under pressure from the DUP it agreed with the EU to “regulatory alignment”. It was a fudge of course because the meaning was never clearly defined but it allowed both parties to move forwards towards trade talks.

However. the UK cannot get a legally watertight transition deal until it resolves the status of the Irish border as part of a wider divorce settlement with the EU, sources have said, as  brexit talks move into an intense phase.

Senior UK and EU officials are due to meet this weekend in Brussels, ahead of an EU27 Brexit summit on Friday, when Theresa May hopes to bag the transition deal that UK business requires.

But firms will be denied certainty on the transition deal, as EU sources stress the best the UK can get in March is a political text, not a legally binding treaty giving cast-iron security for companies across Europe.

The EU have published a position paper that suggests as a fall back option setting a hard border between N Ireland and the rest of the UK, allowing N Ireland ‘special status” within the EU. Whilst certainly a practical alternative, the proposal is toxic to the Irish DUP as they see it as a stepping stone towards a re-unification of Ireland. Since the UK government is a minority government reliant upon the votes of the DUP to pass any legislation, this makes the “fall-back” option impossible to contemplate.

But no alternative has been proposed by the UK.

Let’s be clear, this is a problem that the UK have created and therefore it is the responsibility of the UK to come up with a workable solution.

The UK has voted to leave the EU in the referendum. The UK government has taken that a step or two further and decided to leave both the single market and customs union. The UK government has chosen to become a third party country. WTO rules require all third party countries to be treated on the same terms, without preference so when the UK leaves, it becomes a WTO requirement to have a hard border in Ireland unless we achieve the “holy grail” of a comprehensive free trade agreement.

Given a choice between a hard border within Ireland and one between N Ireland and the rest of the UK, it is likely that the DUP would opt for the latter despite the disastrous economic consequences for their electorate. One in three adults in N Ireland are already unemployed. A 10-20% hit to their economy resulting from a closed border would lead to a further loss of jobs. Add economic deprivation to a sectarian divide with such a recent history of violence, then the situation looks anything but good.

The alternatives, which would include Labour policy of keeping the entire UK within a customs union with the EU, effectively remove any chance of independent trade deals outside of the EU, seem equally unlikely unless the government falls and the UK electorate can be persuaded to vote Labour.

“The whole agreement on the withdrawal will be contingent on a solution on Ireland,” the EU source said to the Guardian newspaper. “And it is politically unthinkable that we would wrap up everything and that you wouldn’t have a solution on the Irish border. The Irish would never accept it, but also the rest of the union will not accept it, because it would be toying with the integrity of the single market.”

The EU has outlined three options for avoiding a hard border: a deep free-trade agreement with the UK; “specific solutions” that depend heavily on technology; or, failing both of those, Northern Ireland remaining in “full regulatory alignment” with the EU.

In Parliamentary Committee this week, David Davis the brexit Secretary acknowledged that there are no technological solutions currently available. There are no specific solutions to the border problem. In a border where a substantial number of crossings are agricultural, there will always be a need for physical inspection of livestock and other agricultural products such as milk – health and safety requirements for both countries will require a hard border.

Ireland, backed by some of the EU’s most senior leaders, is insisting the UK spells out its commitment to the fall-back insurance plan sooner rather than later, while stressing the first two options remain on the table as part of a future trade deal.

The president of the European council, Donald Tusk, said last week that London could not assume negotiations would move on to other issues without solving the issue. If that happened, “my response would be Ireland first”.

Other sources stress there is still a long way to go, with the Irish parts of the text still coloured red on an EU internal traffic light grid, rather than amber, which may allow talks to progress.

The content of the transition is less fraught for negotiators. EU diplomats expect the UK to accept the transition on the EU’s terms, meaning Britain would obey all EU rules with little or minimal say in the institutions.

Separately, a committee of MPs has warned in a report today that Britain is so unprepared for Brexit that it should consider postponing the UK’s leaving date.The Commons Brexit select committee is set to recommend that May should request an extension to the EU’s article 50 process beyond next March, the HuffPost reported.

Any extension of Brexit talks would have to be agreed unanimously by all 27 EU countries. It would be deeply unpopular with brexit campaigners within the Uk government.

Diplomats have indicated they would be open to rolling over negotiations for a few weeks, but a longer extension could run into problems. Several member states, especially France, and the European parliament, which will approve the final withdrawal agreement, have stressed that the UK should be out of the EU before the next European elections, due in May 2019.