The Irish border problem is the ultimate barrier to hard Brexit

[Soph0571]

Is Northern Ireland the first crack in the dam? There is no solution to hard Brexit along the Irish border. Negotiators have been chasing this will-o-the-wisp for over a year. They have not found it because it does not exist. A border is a border, it is not “not-a-border”. It means barriers, checks, queues, papers, regulations, tariffs. No one wants it in practice. Does anyone want it in theory?

The trouble is politics. If Theresa May agrees special status for Northern Ireland to remain in a trading union with Ireland it will effectively “move the border” to Belfast. Her fragile Unionist coalition collapses. If the Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, fails to win such special status and sees a border installed, his confidence and supply government collapses. There is no way round this. It is the Schleswig-Holstein question of the age.

There can be no iron curtain across the Irish countryside. Not 10% of the British public would want that. Even the fiendishly complex use of electronic tags would still leave in place the fact that leaving a customs union would mean monitoring different tariffs and regulations north and south of the border. It would be a licence to smuggling and piracy.

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/24/irish-border-hard-brexit-ireland|

[OnDoutside]

1. Potentially, the Irish Government could collapse next Tuesday if they lose a No Confidence Motion

in their Deputy Leader, all over a stupid political point scoring fight.

If that happens, it puts the December EU leaders Brexit meeting in doubt, because nobody is yet sure if Leo Varadkar will have the authority of the State to represent the nation at this meeting.

I mentioned the smuggling and piracy here previously. The IRA/Sinn Fein and Loyalists wouldn't be just smuggling washed diesel, cigarettes and alcohol, but ANYTHING they put their minds to. They spent 30 years building up that knowledge.

[Jim Lane]

2. I wonder if the outcome might be Stormontexit

The linked article talks about a UK-EU customs union as a solution. If that can't be negotiated, though, there is (at least in theory) another alternative: Northern Ireland leaves the UK and becomes an independent country.

Northern Ireland, governed by its parliament at Stormont, already has considerable autonomy. Its Unionists are fiercely attached to Britain, but Brexit without a customs union would confront them with the horrific practical problems of their border with the Irish Republic. They would never want Irish reunification. Independence might seem to them to be a lesser evil than staying in the UK after Brexit.

[OnDoutside]

4. No that's not going to happen. They can't even agree to a new NI assembly as it is !

[Jim Lane]

8. What do you think they'll do?

Per the linked article, they could be caught in a real squeeze. If they stay in the UK, the boundary with the Republic becomes a full-fledged international border, with customs duties, passport checks, and everything else. That seems as if it would be an economic disaster.

[OnDoutside]

9. Yes it would be not only an economic disaster, as it's completely

unworkable, but it will heighten tensions between the nationalists and Unionists again.

I'm still holding out hope that the full stupidity of Brexit will force the British people to demand another referendum.

If that doesn't happen, the only workable solution is to have a single customs authority for the island of Ireland, and that means the UK remains in the customs union. This will enrage the DUP and the Tory Brexiteers, and might force another General Election next year.

There are no easy solutions to this, and has a long way to go. One thing to note is that the farmers from the Unionist side are realizing that they stand to lose substantially if there is a hard border and they're outside the customs union, so there's that pressure at play as well.

[Soph0571]

10. Not going to happen

The fact is that the unionists hold the power card in the UK right now. Sadly. Remember that the DUP wanted Brexit. NI as a whole did not vote for Brexit, but the party with the most seats wanted it because they see an ever encroaching all Ireland influence in Ulster. They want a border, and now they might well get one. We might end up with a hard brexit because the Tories are about survival in power above all else and the DUP will not allow a border in the sea, or anything that sets up any kind of border between NI and the rest of the UK.

If NI became independent it would be bankrupt within about 3 minutes. Over 50% of the jobs are public sector, there is no tax base for shit, we have some of the highest poverty areas in the UK.....some of the reasons that Ireland would rather cut of its own head and eat it than actually welcome the six counties into the state.

[FarCenter]

3. If there is no border, the DUP pulls out of the coalition and the May government collapses.

[OnDoutside]

5. But if there is a border (i.e. a practical solution that is agreed to by the Irish Government), then

the Irish Government will veto the move on to the second strand of Brexit negotiations.

[Soph0571]

11. One has to think

For these hardliners that is exactly what they want, hard border, hard Brexit......mini empire wannabees

[OnDoutside]

21. 100% right.

The similarities between the GOP and the Tories are striking, moderates terrified of taking on the rwnjs for fear of splitting the party, to the detriment of their country.

[FarCenter]

14. That's not a bug, that's a feature.

[alarimer]

6. Why is this travesty even being allowed to go through?

It was a non-binding resolution in which a sizable number of voters did not even vote.

[Soph0571]

12. We have been hijacked by the right much like America

At least you can get rid of orange wanker in 3 years, this shit lasts a life time

[roamer65]

7. The UK just needs to abandon the referendum result.

Given the USA’s waning influence, Britain is far better off to stay in the EU.

[Soph0571]

13. Britain is far better off to stay in the EU.

Ya think?!?!?!
My country is fucked

[FarCenter]

15. The EU is far better off without Britain.

In fact, the EU has quite a few countries to get rid of before it reaches a politically and economically coherent core based on the Benelux, France, Germany, and Northern Italy.

[Aristus]

16. I crossed the border from Northern Ireland into the Republic once when visiting friends.

For my friends, it was pretty routine. For me, it was a tense few moments. The British soldiers in camouflage gear and rifles at port-arms, standing around in the cold, wary, looking over each others' shoulders; frightfully polite, but all business as they asked where we were coming from and why we were crossing the border.

It felt slightly surreal, the cold wind blowing in through the open driver's-side window, the flashlight shining in our eyes, a feeling of tense expectation.

And then we were through. Driving along as if nothing had happened. Cruising through the drop-dead-gorgeous green ocean of the Irish countryside.

This was in 1993. I wonder if it has gotten better or worse since then?

I wonder how much worse it would be with a hard Brexit?

[Soph0571]

19. It is much better now

No soldiers, no patrols, no checks - absolutely free movement. All part of the peace. Putting a border back up really risks the peace hugely

[gratuitous]

17. Britain got suckered by the same forces that suckered America

Atrios has been on this story, mostly from his perspective as an economist. His take has been consistent that once the vote went in favor of Brexit, Britain lost all power to negotiate its withdrawal from the European Union. Think of South Carolina seceding in 1861, then demanding that Lincoln's government do what South Carolina dictated. Britain has no leverage, no standing to dictate terms to the EU.

[Takket]

18. they don't want brexit anymore

http://www.thenational.scot/news/15682631.Voters_across_the_UK_are_changing_their_minds_about_Brexit__says_latest_poll/

according to that site, 47% now oppose brexit and 42% want it. People too dumb to understand the consequences who only voted on "because freeDUMB!!!" are waking up. and i think a large part of t is they are watching the USA crumble under the drumpf regime, all the russia news, and realizing they have been HAD just like they were by russian forces pushing to destroy the north america/europe strongholds.

i wish the UK would just revote to erase this HORRIBLE mistake.

[kcr]

22. I guess Vote is Just a Means of Expressing Yourself isn't just a US thing.

It seems we never learn it here. Lots of anger and pain over all the damage being done by Trump, but I don't hold out any hope the same stupidity will play out again. I have no idea where it came from, but somehow votes became equivalent to protest posters.

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. Irish EU agriculture commissioner suggests staying in customs union to solve border problem

Phil Hogan, the EU’s agriculture commissioner, told the Observer that it was a “very simple fact” that remaining inside the single market and customs union, or allowing Northern Ireland to do so, would end the standoff.

Hogan warned there was “blind faith” from some UK ministers that Britain would secure a comprehensive Brexit free trade deal. He warned that Ireland would “continue to play tough to the end” over its threat to veto trade talks until it had guarantees over the border.

“If the UK or Northern Ireland remained in the EU customs union, or better still the single market, there would be no border issue,” he said. “That’s a very simple fact. I continue to be amazed at the blind faith that some in London place in theoretical future free trade agreements. First, the best possible FTA with the EU will fall far short of the benefits of being in the single market. This fact is simply not understood in the UK. Most real costs to cross-border business today are not tariffs – they are about standards, about customs procedures, about red tape. These are solved by the single market, but not in an FTA.”

The Irish government wants a written guarantee that there will be no hard border with Northern Ireland, something Dublin believes can only be achieved, in effect, by keeping the region within the single market and customs union. However, the Democratic Unionist party, whose support is propping up May’s government, warned on Saturday it would never accept a post-Brexit deal that would effectively see a customs border pushed back to the Irish Sea. May has repeatedly made clear Britain will leave the single market and customs union.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/25/phil-hogan-ireland-eu-commissioner-brexit-chaos