to ask if you know what the Irish backstop is and do you care

[HurricaneFloss]

If you know what it is, please explain it very simply to me.

If you care - why?

If you don't - why?

There’s already a border in so many ways. The Irish use the euro, have different tax rates , all sorts from one side of border to the either . This “sticking point” is just a sham to try and frustrate Brexit . NI could easily leave the EU without any kind of issue. It’s fake news that it’s a problem.

If they can’t overcome the backstop which will never be acceptable to the UK there will be a no deal Brexit which would mean there was a hard boarder anyway. It’s bonkers. The EU fudge their indivisible 4 freedoms in one way or another for the Swiss, Ukraine, Turks and couple of others, I suspect they are posturing and will sort it (fudge it) in the end.

I have no idea and I'm Irish (Republic) ???

My understanding is that it means NI will remain in the single market and customs union when the rest of the UK leaves the EU

Will the Scottish not be angry though and want the same thing? They voted remain didn't they? And Wales?

There’s already a border in so many ways. The Irish use the euro, have different tax rates , all sorts from one side of border to the either . This “sticking point” is just a sham to try and frustrate Brexit . NI could easily leave the EU without any kind of issue. It’s fake news that it’s a problem.

You haven't got a fucking clue have you?

People cross that border multiple times a day. People own property that straddles that border. People work on one side of the border and live on the other. People can live in NI and identify as Irish if they so choose.

The border is not manned currently. People cross it without any interference.

I cannot explain to such a clueless fuckwit what impact a manned border will have on people's lives. Psychologically it brings us back to the troubles era and distances NI from the Republic and many people's sense of identity. Practically, it will wreck havoc.

But all leavers care about us their fucking brexit (which no one could be arsed to think through).

Not the consequences for Ireland (where no one asked for this mess thank you very much).

You should see some of 5years other posts - hilarious!

I think NI should remain in the UK and have a border with Ireland.

Wil, you light the touch paper too?

Well if Chiffon says we should have a border, I guess we should have a border. Never mind the overwhelmingly negative impact it would have economically, socially and, most importantly, on the GFA.

As I understand it, the back stop would be border checks at the ports between UK and NI if a hard brexit goes through. This necessary to avoid breaking the good Friday agreement, which is in international law.

But I distinctly remember a law being passed in parliament a few months ago saying that a border between the UK and NI was illegal. What happened to that or did I misunderstand it? Noone mentions it all now.

So a soft brexit (BINO or norway) in which there is no hard border is seemimgly impossible because Rees Mogg and Boris somehow rule TM's decisions. A hard brexit with the Irish back stop as a solution seems impossible because it would appear to break the GFA or put a back stop between the UK and NI which appears to be illegal and pisses off the DUP who TM effectively paid to get the Tories in power.

Also I believe there is a time component to the back stop. As there is talk of a transition period, which the hard liners hate and remainers like.

What a self-inflicted mess.

I both understand the situation and care about it. It’s a fucking disaster waiting to happen and I cannot understand why the Brexit referendum was allowed to go ahead without any sort of plan whatsoever as to how these things would work in principle.

Depressingly though, both on MN and in daily life, a majority of people don’t know about or care about Ireland and Irish politics (even in so far as it affects Northern Ireland as part of the U.K.) as some of the posts on this thread demonstrate perfectly.

I'm guessing BackStop means Norn staying in the EEA and the UK (rUK could have a different status).
I care b/c I like travelling around the UK with low risk of IRA bomb threats, and not hearing about regular knee-capping & paramilitary violence in Norn.

I don't think the IRA would be a problem if there was a back stop.

I care that we're in this mess. A hard border bw the island of Ireland and the rest of the UK wouldn't bother me, in the sense that (if we leave the EU) there'd have to be one somewhere and that seems to me to be a better place than bw NI and the Republic. I'd be open to other solutions though like cancelling the whole thing.

What might come to light in the event however is just who the bad guys are.

The Irish Border has a Twitter account where it muses daily on the goings on @Borderirish

It's mostly gentle whimsy, where it pokes fun at the ineptness of the politicians who led us into this mess, or banters with its colleague @Bordergibralter. It ponders on the philosophical conundrum of it being there but not there. But underlying there's such frustration and grief that the peace that was so hard won is being put into danger. A couple of weeks ago whoever runs it broke character and talked about when they saw someone murdered back in the troubles.

It retweeted a FT made a film about it here: twitter.com/borderirish/status/1043056617368039424?s=21

The way I see this playing out ironically is the unionist paramilitaries having a little launch at England, rather than picking on the Irish. So maybe as a Londoner I should be worried. But I'm not. Maybe they'll just bomb Brussels or something. Who knows.

As sure as shit though, they'll bomb somewhere.

You're either a GF or just completely ignorant Chiffon but either way I'd recommend you stop giving your ill-informed opinions about the impact of Brexit on Ireland / NI / the GFA and maybe read a book or two.

Oh, you disagree? Then tell me why rather than having a pop.

I used to be an EU civil servant so I know a bit about this and care very much about it.

Essentially a backstop is a temporary solution that would see the UK stay in the customs union for a limited period after the end of the transition period - onwards from 2020. The idea is that it would work as a temporary customs arrangement whilst a more permanent solution takes shape. It also for the time being would resolve everyone's worst nightmare which is a hard border on the island of Ireland.

The problem is, thus far, no-one has been able to explain what would happen when the temporary backstop ceases to be temporary and more over, removing that backstop would bring us back to step one: how do you maintain a 'borderless' Ireland and indeed how could this be achieved without compromising the integrity of the UK/NI.

The boundary between NI and Ireland runs for miles and miles. It's so easy to traverse that it can never be wholly policed without very stringent and significant physical infrastructure. To build such a behemoth structure would require millions of pounds and security personnel. And that's before you even get to thinking about customs officials. I'll forgo elaborating on the social and political chaos it would most certainly cause.

A border in the Irish sea doesn't mean a flotilla somewhere in the middle of the sea. It means sea ports and airports in both NI and UK would become requisite customs check points for goods, immigration etc. The sea in itself therefore becomes the border. This is pretty much like trying to fuse bones back together using a bandage because whilst the border won't be on the NI/Ireland boundary, a border is a border is a border.

The UK had mooted the idea of using 'smart' technology to facilitate the customs on the NI/Ireland boundary but the problem with that is technology which could do that does not (yet) exist and to get it to a level of sophistication that could manage customs arrangements would take a lot longer to develop than the UK leave date of March 2019, and indeed a lot longer than any transition 2020-period.

LaurieMarlow already did. Countless journalists already have done.

I'm no unionist (I'd seriously consider voting for a united Ireland rather than have a hard border) but having a hard border OR a back stop will have a negative impact on everyone and would lead to ramifications on both sides.

Sorry I got snippy. It's just so frustrating seeing people who don't live in Ireland / NI giving their opinion on something which could have a significant impact on the safety and well-being of my child.

The only people it will effect are Northern Irish. It doesn't affect anyone else.

NI is part of Britain. They fought to remain thus. Thus they should remain. Ireland is in the EU. And thus it shall be. Sorry!

Chiff - enjoy the rest of your bottle