Monday 15 October 2018

Hard Border, Then

AS Boris has neatly put it, the EC thinks they have us between the prongs of a fork: "a choice between the break-up of this country, or the subjugation of this country, between separation or submission".  

So - hard border it is, then?

Discuss

ND

23 comments:

CityUnslicker said...

Hard is the appropriate response.

I have a feeling though that this is the theatre ordered by Barnier and May to make it look like the shit sandwich that will be agreed on is in fact lobster & caviar thermidor.

More challengingly, I have feeling the back bench Tories have the measure of this - not that it is going to do us much good descending into political civil war at the key moment.

Jan said...

This was obvious from the start and we could have been out by now and saved the 2 years of dithering and obfuscation we have endured plus the monumental costs of all the to-ing and fro-ing etc etc...........There is no compromise possible..........a border is a border. Why is that so difficult to grasp?

Steven_L said...

Let NI vote to stay or go.

Electro-Kevin said...

I'm with Steven L but May relies on the DUP.

Jan. I had expected to see borders, staff, admin, systems... all being organised the day after the referendum.

Alas we seem to have spent the last two years working out a way to stay in. The EU is right when it says "They've just spent 40 years trying to opt out of the EU, now their trying to opt in again."

It's fair enough but not what we voted for.

If a hard border in Ireland is an issue it's because of the spectre of the IRA and that is we're we are at. The mainland being forced into subjugation by a foreign state at gunpoint by republican terrorists.

A Major/Blair landmine that.

Bill Quango MP said...

I'd have the hard border.
Ireland has a long, long, history of ignoring the border anyway.

andrew said...


Pretty much no deal or remain.

Whatever.

Just, please, do not regret it or moan about it either way.

And move on to solve the problems that face the UK.

david morris said...

The UK political class has bent over backwards (no pun intended) to actively thwart the decision made by the electorate in 2016 to Leave the EU.

Interesting times......

Bill Quango MP said...

The idiocy here is that in almost living memory, all Ireland was one country, run from London.
Then there was a split. Which gives us a template for departing,generously.
And also gives us the existing,continuing, current agreement that fully explain the movement of goods and services and people from Ireland to the United Kingdom.
And predates the EU by some fifty years.

The change to the partition agreements are y the EU.Therefore the problem is for Eire to solve. Not the UK.

The UK's response all along was 'no hard border.'
While the EU's has ben - There must be a hard border.

So it up to THEM to arrange that. Without triggering a civil war within one of their nation states.

Raedwald said...

BQ is spot on.

At independence we said 'fine, but the Irish people still have the right to live, work, travel, move and VOTE in the UK as though Independence never happened"

These rights were enjoyed by the Irish long before the EU, and AFAIK remain the 'backstop' i.e. the UK is still willing to extend them to Irish citizens after Brexit.

It's up to the EU to ensure that Irish citizens are exempeted from EU diktats that prevent them from assuming their old rights. It's not the UK screwing Ireland; it's Brussels.

Pat said...

If we feel the need for a hard border we should build one. At present we don't do we don't.
Eire is as far as we're concerned an independent state. If they feel the need for a hard border that's their business. If the creation of a hard border breaks any agreements, that will be the responsibility of the creators.
It seems the effective situation is that Eire is threatening to break agreements unless we follow their wishes. Let them.

personalmusing said...

So May tries to ram through
1. common rule book but written by the EU puts the UK into a much worse position then today, or just being out
2. UK agrees that it can only leave when the EU determines that the UK plan is acceptable
3. for each extra year that the UK stays in it has to hand over an enormous sum of money

Anyone see the flaw with 2 and 3?

As a plan to set the UK up for a "we might as well beg to rejoin" this makes sense. On no other basis does it compute - this isn't may balancing two impossible positions, it is betrayal (and I hate strong language in arguments).

Question - by the next general election the scale of her cynical trashing of the UK position will be clear to everyone. How does she think we end up with anything other than a corbyn government (or even worse, one of the corbyn puppetmasters who have pushed him out to take direct control)? How many tory MPs understand that they will lose their jobs, and to the extent they have homes, assets and financial interests in the UK their livelihoods?


GridBot said...

Isn't there a clause within WTO rules; to the effect that if boarder/trade conditions are not offered on a consistent basis, a country who is in a less favorable position could open a trade dispute? effectively meaning that if there was an open boarder between Ireland/NI, we'd have to have open the boarder with rest of the world? I'm sure one of you folks can add some more detail to this?

GridBot said...

Edit* I think it's "non-discrimination" that stands in the way of a friction-less boarder with Ireland under a walk away scenario?

https://tradebetablog.wordpress.com/2018/07/18/does-the-wto-require-countries-to-control-their-borders/

Electro-Kevin said...

BQ. The problem with that is what we (I) voted for was a hard personal border. Uncontrolled immigration was the issue which caused Brexit.

Can we resume control of immigration without one ?

Bill Quango MP said...

Don't see it affects our immigration in any way.
Irish citizens have their arrangements. That exist already specifically with the UK.
Non Irish citizens have to pass all the usual immigration requirements.

Migrants who become Irish citizens, are Irish. And the existing agreements apply.

No difference EK.

Electro-Kevin said...

Rumour has it that a common way in is via Southern Ireland.

Charles said...

Obviously the thing to do is to invade Ireland, reunify it and have the border in the sea. Problem solved. Yes the micks will end up fighting again but you have to remember that it is their natural state and they enjoy it.

Simples really.

Thud said...

I don't care what happens as long as it doesn't let Corby and his even more dangerous backers anywhere near power.

Sebastian Weetabix said...

@Raedwald: HMG made those arrangements in 1921/22 because
A) back then a good 20% or so of the population of the south were Unionists loyal to the crown (not all of them Protestant, either, for that matter), and
B) The Irish Free State was getting more or less dominion status under the Crown. It would have been perverse to strip what Republicans disparagingly call ‘west Brits’ of their rights. Not that the EU give a shit about any of that of course.

I should declare my interest as a dual citizen of the U.K. & Ireland, I suppose. If you lot think the Irish hate the English, believe me it’s nothing compared to the hatred we have for each other. It is an eternal characteristic of the Irish that we could start a fight in an empty house.

Anonymous said...

I'll wait and see what happens but likely Conservative no more - ever.

Irish border is very dangerous:
1. They have their Ireland 2030 plan or whatever it is which is to fill their conntry with inmmigrants who will have citizenship.
2. Under the partition arrangements this gives free travel to said people and vote in UK(also benefits?
3. How can UK live with that? Travellers which Eire happilly send on their way to us are bad enough
4. Current arrangements will have to end.
5. Just wait for Republican/Unionist conflict in Scotland as this lot unfolds.

DJK said...

Anon 8:09: I'm with you on never again Conservative. No point in voting for this lot. We may as well get a Corbyn/Momentum government over with sooner rather than later and purge the batty ideas for another generation.

Anonymous said...

Interesting to see the DUP square the "We are British / No Hard Border" equation. I can only think that a £1bn or two would salve their conscience about having a hard border.

Watch that play.

Lord Blagger said...

One result of the Uruguay Round was countries’ commitments to cut tariffs and to “bind” their customs duty rates to levels which are difficult to raise.

https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tariffs_e/tariffs_e.htm

How are the EU going to increase from zero tariffs against the UK when their are committed to no increases?

Ditto for barriers.