Last Thursday, Leo Varadkar rhetorically dug up Famine graves in a last desperate attempt to distract from the following frightening truth.

Unless we bin our fraudulent backstop, Boris Johnson will crash out of the EU, leaving our economy in ruins and our relations with England, our nearest neighbour, in rag order.

Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney say that Boris Johnson and the Brits are to blame. That is not true. We are to blame and I can prove that proposition.

Last December, Dan O'Brien told the Irish people that the backstop would lead to exactly what we pretended it was meant to avoid - a hard border.

He spelled out the two problems. First, the backstop meant that Britain could only leave the EU provided it stayed in the customs union until we and the EU were happy there was no hard border.

Now walk in England's shoes. Suppose the EU told Ireland we could only leave if we stayed in the customs union until the British were satisfied that border unionists were happy with the new situation?

Second, Dan said it changed the constitutional position of Northern unionists. We pretended that only the "dinosaur" DUP had a problem when all unionists had a problem.

Although I agreed with Dan's points, I had other problems with the backstop.

I believe the backstop was part of the baggage of Irish nationalism; would feed a fresh series of Sinn Fein demands; was a fraudulent issue because it would lead to the hard border it pretended to prevent; was a bullying device to force the UK to stay in the EU, or dump the unionists, or hold a second referendum; was a straitjacket devised by the Department of Foreign Affairs and approved by the EU, which wanted to punish the Brits for leaving and was delighted to find foolish Irish puppets willing to do its dirty work

No self-respecting country would take that kind of coercion. Theresa May only took it because she was weak. And we let the backstop break her.

A few months ago, I predicted the British would find someone tough enough to exit Europe if Dublin did not tweak the backstop.

The British found Boris Johnson. But Varadkar and Coveney and their mad green media cheerleaders misjudged him, did not offer him a tweak in time - and now it is far too late.

How could the Irish Government and the Guardianistas of the Irish media be so blind to the determination of Boris Johnson to deliver Brexit?

Last week Lisa Chambers jibed he had been reading too many Churchill biographies, recycling the view of Ronan McGreevy in The Irish Times who found Churchillian comparisons risible.

Yet for much of his life, Churchill too was dismissed as a drunkard, messer and all-round chancer.

As a long-time student of men and history, I have reached more complex conclusions about Johnson.

I believe Boris Johnson knows well he has been a liar, a lout and a layabout. But, like Churchill, he sees one last chance to redeem a feckless life and he means to grab it with both hands.

Accordingly, I cannot believe the Irish media are still waffling about him blustering and bluffing.

From his campaign speech, the composition of his "war cabinet", and, above all, the appointment of Dominic Cummings, the best spin doctor in Europe, I can categorically predict the following will happen as night follows day.

First, Boris Johnson is determined to deliver the democratic result of the Brexit referendum even if it means no deal.

Second, he has pledged to put up no physical borders, will challenge the EU to do the same and will require the EU (meaning us) to bin the backstop.

Third, if the EU refuses, he will fight and win a general election on a Cummings campaign slogan of standing up to EU bullying on the backstop.

Fourth, he will take a massive chunk out of Labour's working class vote and end with a big majority.

Fifth, even if he does not need the DUP he still will not dump on unionists because the new Boris believes in the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom.

Accordingly, anyone who still thinks Boris Johnson is bluffing is either a fool or a frightened media cheerleader fearful of being found out.

Last week, I appealed to the Taoiseach to offer to tweak the backstop before Boris Johnson bedded down as prime minister.

But as the Taoiseach was pondering a compromise of the sort floated by Pat Leahy, the Tanaiste went on Andrew Marr's BBC show and raised the backstop bar even higher for Varadkar.

Coveney's dogmatic and intransigent backstop stance, then and since, strikes me as a reckless and selfish long-term green bid for the leadership of Fine Gael.

Getting tetchy with Marr, he used a controlling slap-down hand gesture. Jon Williams, head of RTE News, tweeted about his "punchy" performance.

The Taoiseach panicked and ran up the green flag, RTE closed ranks in support, and Pat Leahy, having put his head out briefly, took it back in again.

Only Miriam O'Callaghan on RTE and Matt Cooper on The Tonight Show continued to probe for a compromise.

On Tonight, when Fergus O'Dowd of FG brazenly tried to blame the DUP for Johnson's hard line, Cooper coolly and correctly told him Dominic Cummings was doing the driving.

This weekend the nationalist consensus to blame the Brits is being backed by 99pc of the Irish media. So why are some still complaining about the five - there are only five - critics of the backstop?

Because they are terrified of being challenged by an angry public. With good reason. From now on the Irish people will begin to ponder two core questions.

How come the backstop has caused the hard border it was supposed to prevent? How can the Government say the Brits are to blame when we could easily have stopped a crash-out by tweaking the backstop?

As we faced Armageddon, Fintan O'Toole tried to console us on a recent Irish Times podcast with the prospect of being "flooded with money" from the EU.

But surely it would have been better to make a backstop deal with our English neighbours instead of busking around Brussels with a begging bowl?

Naturally my views will be attacked by craven contributors on RTE programmes to which I am disgracefully denied access. But I have heard all that tribal sneering before.

When I reached out to David Trimble, I was called a unionist. When I publicised the sufferings of Protestants, I was called a West Brit. And when I warned, week after week, the backstop would end in a bad place, I was called a traitor by posh nationalists on Twitter.

But the whataboutery and Brit-bashing cannot conceal the raw facts now revealed. The backstop has brought us to a bad place and the Irish Government and media lacked the guts to shout stop.

This weekend they will still try to blame the British for their own mistakes. But deep down I believe a silent majority is not happy with how a hopeful national consensus has turned into a sour nationalist consensus.

I have done my duty and told the truth. I am braced for the backlash. Those who tell the truth to their tribe are seldom forgiven.

Sunday Independent