“Brexit deal hopes dashed.” So reads the headline in the London Sun, after Brexit minister Dominic Raab flies to Brussels for emergency talks with EU officials. Disappointment springs from the fount of so much angst for the United Kingdom — Ireland. Is the promise of Brexit coming undone?

Much ado about nothing, methinks.

Don’t get me wrong. Britain’s successful uncoupling from the European Union is very much a concern. It’s just that this latest crisis isn’t really much of a crisis. It’s a manufactured crisis.

The question of an “Irish backstop” is only one more obstacle thrown up to wrong-foot the British prime minister. And to the EU’s satisfaction, Theresa May has proven herself less than adept on the Brexit file.

Brinkmanship diplomacy, this isn’t.

The Irish backstop, EU defenders argue, is necessary to protect the integrity of the single market. The United Kingdom’s only contiguous link with the continent lies at the border between Northern Ireland and the independent Irish republic. Therefore a “hard” Irish border is required to apply tariffs and regulatory standards when Brexit becomes reality and Britain’s withdrawal complete.

So why this Irish tempest in a teapot? The Republic dislikes the border idea for fear of inflicting damaging tariffs with its largest trading partner, the UK. Both jurisdictions, meanwhile, are equally afraid that border controls will work against the Good Friday agreement and resuscitate sectarian hostilities between the two countries.

Meanwhile, Northern Ireland is against the idea of importing EU jurisdiction within its domain. It would mark the point where customs were applied on goods traveling between the UK and EU. Loyalists fear it would dilute their “Britishness” — and with time, prove an insidious break with the United Kingdom, as Britain progresses on its independent path while Northern Ireland remains enmeshed in continental red tape.

Benjamin Disraeli would sympathize. No one more appreciated Britain’s legacy and impact in molding future generations. Parliament. Rule of law. Convention and prescription, passing along the template of English rights and liberties down through time.

“So national are our institutions, so completely have they arisen from the temper and adapted themselves to the character of the people,” Disraeli wrote, contemplating the havoc unleashed when Oliver Cromwell executed Charles I, “that when for a season they were apparently annihilated, the people of England voluntarily returned to them, and established them with renewed strength and renovated vigor.”

Northern Ireland jealously safeguards its ties to Britain. Anxiety mounts that any prolongation of EU jurisdiction will prove unseasonable to these connections with kith and kin. As does gall, when Brexiteers consider what is at stake simply to satiate EU pique.

This may be the only time it’s worth quoting Hillary Clinton. “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about,” she told CNN.

As to the EU, Jacob Rees-Mogg comes to the same conclusion. There can be no compromise, he told a “Leave Means Leave” audience at the weekend. “If the EU is a mafia-style organization that says if you want to leave we will kneecap you, then all the better for leaving.”

More to the point, says The Mogg, the Irish backstop is a “bogus issue.” No one really thinks it requisite. It is a trap of Mrs. May’s own making. She it was who pressed for a transition period. The EU obliged, to the tune of £39 billion. “Who are we to refuse?” wily mandarins in Brussels doubtless mused.

With merely 24 weeks before formal Brexit, Britons are weary of EU shenanigans. Leaving the mendaciousness of Brussels behind becomes ever more evident and justified. A new rallying cry may soon rise to a crescendo. “No deal? No problem!”