Irish border in the event of no deal

[WankeyDoodle]

Genuine question.. what happens to Irish border in the event of a no deal? Presumably it would need to be a hard border because there's no trade deal? I'm struggling to understand the difference between no back stop with a WA and a no deal border.

TIA

If I could answer difficult questions like that, I wouldn't be wasting my time on MN!

🤣

I don't know. Nobody knows. Anyone who says that they do, are just pretending so that they look clever.

missangrypants Have the EU said they won’t “put up a border” ?
If the UK are no longer part of the EU then the only option is to have a border between ROI and NI (uk)
Typical that the Irish are being blamed for the problems the UK have created

You’re an arsehole

OkPedro 👏👏👏👏

I’m baffled that people from Britain are still asking these questions! Why didn’t you research and ask questions before the referendum?
Could it be because you didn’t and don’t give a shit about Ireland and many people voted leave because they are racist and xenophobic?

Typical that the Irish are being blamed for the problems the UK have created

Agreed. The nasty anti Irish sentiment of a lot of people has become very visible lately. How dare those upstarts have their own government and not just roll over and do what we tell them to.

It’s like banging your head against a brick wall OkPedro. At least that’s how I feel. Utterly sick of the whole Brexiteer idiots saying they won’t put a border up and blaming the EU. Not even going to dignify missangrypants with a response as I might get banned with what I’d like to say.

I’m fairly sure Ireland didn’t start this mess so why should we be required to comply with your hair-brained plans. We may be a small fish in a big pond but I think most people would agree we have only done what we perceive to the be the best for our future. Anyone who thinks the border situation is a non issue has never lived in that area during the troubles and has no perception of the true cost of the decision The UK has made.

Missangrypants it will be the one frontier between the EU and the UK. The UK will have to put in a border unless you want lots of immigrants using it as a back door? Why are people so stupid?

You’re an arsehole

Totally off topic, but I’ve never seen a poster call another poster an ‘arsehole’ followed by flowers.

This thread is a good example of why I went off MN for a while. No one’s fault but the Brexit stuff was polarised, uninformed and aggressive.

The time for this question was before June 23 2016, really. So on that basis YABU.

There has to be a hard border in the even of no deal. It will jeopardise the peace process but the whole Irish economy will be tanked otherwise. Ireland in a mass food producer and exporter, producing food for nearly ten times the population. And the reputation of Irish food, like most EU food - incl the UK at present, is mostly excellent. The trade deal the UK is looking at doing with the US means you are going to be getting some really fucking substandard food, which will be a disaster to your own agricultural export market. If there is a possibility of that shit crossing the British border in Ireland, then the same happens to Ireland. Ireland won't be committing economic suicide out of deference to the stupidity of it's neighbour doing the same.

So a hard border goes up. Massive problems are caused as there are hundreds of tiny border crossings and the border literally divides people's gardens. Fighting will almost certainly restart. More people will die, Lyra McKee was already a victim of the heightened tensions this stupidity has caused. On a practical level Northern Ireland's agricultural industry is dead on day one. Most dairy processing is done cross-border. So are the vast, vast, vast majority of their imports and exports and Larne can't handle all of it. Northern Ireland is reliant on imported electricity, potentially on no deal Brexit day, the lights in Northern Ireland go out.

The odds are any border will be temporary. No deal Brexit will be such a disaster for the UK that there will be a very, very quick move to make trade deals and the number one thing on the agenda will be Northern Ireland. There will also be enormous pressure from the US on to the UK to fix this before a trade deal can be negotiated. The Irish American lobby group is still one of the most powerful in the US and they are highly invested in Northern Ireland. Trump will still want his trade deal, it's a fantastic deal for the US (and super shit for the UK) but optics are important, and BoJo will be told in no uncertain terms to sort NI. The strong likelihood is a trade border in the sea. Which is what nearly everyone in Northern Ireland wants, even traditionally unionist groups like the UFU, because otherwise their livelihoods are gone.

Why Britain is so dead against the backstop is because NI was going to be their bargaining chip. Ireland has made sure it isn't. As for the absolute asshole 'minnows' comment. Well that's fucking standard shit for a bully who has to deal with their victim laying down boundaries and being powerful enough now to stick to them. Ireland isn't seizing a chance to be powerful, but it is using the power of being an EU member to stop itself from being destroyed by a bigger bully. Which is pretty much the main thing that the EU is about. Not losing sovereignty as the Brexiteers spout off about, but protecting it. And this hurts so much because Ireland being able to say a firm NO to the UK's attempts to ride roughshod over it, proves that lie.

missangrypants in simple terms many people died or were maimed as a result of Britain's insistence in keeping the 6 countries of Northern Ireland.

Does that help explain why there is a shocking ignorance in your comments about Ireland? Very few people on the island of Ireland want a hard border (and an inevitable return to the horrendous problems that will bring). Comments like yours are bringing to light the shocking ignorance and lack of education in some British people as well as the total disregard for their own people.

Thank you to the knowledgeable posters for responding.

It's a mess. I'm too depressed about it to read up and understand what is going on- bite size answers like these are much more manageable!
I can't understand how otherwise sensible kind people think this is a good idea

Jesus wept, I don’t think I can explain this again to English people or put up with the ‘it’ll all be fine’ bollocks or the Irish are ‘bullying’ is bollocks.
We are absolutely terrified of what might happen quite frankly, if you want to know why go and read some of Patrick tweets on it or better still read info on sites like the BBC who have very simple step by step explanations of what it could mean.

So, the UK wants to leave the EU to 'take control of our borders' and don't see any reason to enforce the only land border with the EU

Okaaaay

We do live in interesting times, don't we?

Why will fighting and terror restart if there is a border?

Maybe people have become so used to the constant threat of terror in the uk that it just doesn’t have the same impact anymore.

Also, nobody really mentioned Ireland during the referendum. There was no bus with “what the fuck do we do about Ireland?” On it

I’m not trying to inflame, just trying to think of why people voted the way they did

WTO rules are that no nation treats another nation more favourably than the rest, unless both nations have a customs union.

If the UK has no border to prevent goods crossing the border from ROI without tariffs, it will be treating ROI more favourably than the UK, and vice versa. To avoid breaching WTO rules, there needs to be either a border, or a CU.

The ROI is also obliged to comply with WTO rules.

The EU has a duty to all its members to preserve the integrity of the single market and to ensure that goods traded in the EU comply with EU rules. There will have to be a border to prevent non-compliant goods from entering the EU. They don't want to be awash with chlorinated chicken from the US, ffs.

The Good Friday Agreement was settled at a time when Brexit wasn't even thought of. It is entirely dependent on both sides being members of the EU, or having a close trading relationship (eg single market/CU).

The whole border thing wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't for the ERG headbangers, many of whom stand to make a lot of money from the UK leaving the EU, weren't so determined to wreck not just the economy, but also the fragile peace in NI. It probably wouldn't have been an issue if the GBP had paid attention in the run up to the referendum and not been so willing to believe that the border issue was a bit of nonsense made up up by Europhiles and part of some mythic Project Fear.

So, all you Brexit-supporting people, any blood split or lives lost as a result of the outcome of this will be on your hands. And I will remind you of that at every opportunity.

I also think that people who can't remember the horrors of the 70s and 80s need to learn some history. I can remember only too well, and it was terrible, and terrifying.

Why will fighting and terror restart if there is a border?

Because the peace that took decades to secure was based on the fact that the border is almost unnoticeable.

And everyone lives under a raised terror threat these days is frankly insulting to people who lived in N Ireland through the 70s and 80s. The terrorist events that have happened over the past decade in the UK are horrific but they are exceedingly rare. Those things were happening on an almost daily basis in N Ireland for 25 years. Can you imagine if bombs were going off once or twice a week all over the UK? That's what it was like here. They didn't always cause fatalities thankfully, but even when they didn't they weren't free of consequences as people's livelihoods destroyed. Over and over again.

Nobody in media or at number 10 said “if brexit happened Ireland will be a bloody disaster and there will be weekly terror”

It really wasn’t made into a huge deal. If you dug around you could find it but it wasn’t really the focus by most people.

I mean if someone had said... there will 100 percent be an increase in terror etc if we do this... maybe people would have voted differently

@Missangrypants maybe this will help clarify why the UK is responsible for a border.

If you get rid of the arrangements that allowed borders to be removed in the first place then they will return as an automatic consequence of your decisions. Yours and no-one else's. It really is as simple as that

Britain voted to leave the single market in the knowledge that they share a land border with the EU. Therefore you are fully responsible for what happens with the border. Please try engage your brain. This ‘well we won’t put a border up’ is rubbish coming from moron politicians.

Typical that the Irish are being blamed for the problems the UK have created

Yes but can we please modify this to "UK government". Not the UK as a whole. Lots of people voted remain, and lots of leave voters thought we'd stay in the Single Market and customs union. In fact if Johnson dropped May's red lines on immigration we could still do the latter and it would resolve the problem almost completely.