IT looks like Boris Johnson will win back with big numbers – not to fulfil his claim to “Get Brexit Done” – but to move swiftly to the next phase of framing a new EU-UK trade deal.

Early today EU diplomats were sparing about formal comment. But, as the 27 other leaders closed day one of summit talks in Brussels there was a strong sense that the UK’s departure is now irreversible.

The 27 other leaders including Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will discuss the election outcome at lunch today on the second day of their summit.

But what else did this emerging UK election result signal for Ireland and the EU?

Two immediate things will result in Ireland. First is there will be an election in the Republic of Ireland in February or early March. The Brexit excuse to keep the minority Fine Gael Coalition in place by Fianna Fáil is now over.

Second is that the Democratic Unionist Party is surplus to requirements. They must join Sinn Féin in getting over themselves to make power-sharing in Belfast work again after three years of shameful idleness.

And, once the EU-UK draft divorce deal, finally agreed this past October, becomes law in London and Brussels, talks will open on a new trade deal between the two entities in a post-Brexit world. This has huge implications for Ireland north and south.

It opens a kind of circular situation which is reminiscent of Joseph Heller’s iconic novel “Catch 22”.  In that epic tale an airman could escape the US wartime air force by establishing insanity. But the rub was that, if you were together enough to plead insanity, you were deemed to be sane.

In a similar vein, the EU is ready to give the UK a free trade deal without quotas or tariffs, provided London stays close to Brussels product standards. But, if the UK is to mimic EU rules, why then did they ever bother to do Brexit in the first place?

Every time the UK talks about abandoning EU standards, they risk being penalised by quotas and tariffs. That would be really bad news for Ireland which does a cumulative east-west trade worth €1.5bn per week.  It’s even worse news for Northern Ireland business where seamless north-south trade depends on those EU standards.

A tough few years beckon. You can forget Boris Johnson’s campaign claims that a new EU-UK trade deal can be done by December 2020. Trade deals take years to put together – the EU-Canada trade deal took seven years.

Right enough, the man in the gap, the new EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan, has acknowledged that the UK starts with the EU after 46 years of membership. So, he is suggesting things should go more quickly – but nobody believes it can be done in the 11 months January-December 2020.

It will take a minimum of two more years taking us to 2022. Watch for a deadline of next July when the UK must seek any extension of the no-change transition regime. There is provision in the EU-UK divorce deal for a one or two-year prolongation but it is possible a longer period could be agreed.

The worrying thing for Ireland is that the UK has a serious lack of seasoned trade negotiators. There are many people in the Brussels machine who are veterans of big negotiations like the Canada deal and a more recent EU-Japan deal.

But there is one benefit from this vote outcome signalled by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar earlier yesterday. It is that for the first time since June 24, 2016, Ireland now knows what it is facing – for good or ill.

The challenge has not changed – it is still about minimising Brexit harm for all of Ireland. But from now on it must also be about maximising advantages – be they ever so unlikely at first view.

• Read More: The campaign trail: The funny, strange and surreal during the run up to the UK election
• Read More: UK election 2019: Final poll predicts victory for Boris – but one in four voters still wavering

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