Sufficient progress on Irish Border

[user1471441738]

Donald Tusk said today although he welcomed the end if cake and eat it we'd still not made enough progress to move to a trade deal.

I'm wondering if we can ever get there. Guaranting citizens rights SHOULD be simple enough. The "divorce payment" is just about money.

However, what position would work on the border question?

For me, workable ideas are:

1: Cancel Brexit
2: United Ireland
3: EEA/single market membership
4: Single market for Northern Ireland but not Britain, hard border with Britain (border is the coast) and Northern Irish businesses wishing to trade must generally meet both EU and British standards.
5: Hard border with customs and passport checks between Northern Ireland and Eire.

Are there any others?

All 5 would surely massively anger lots of people

NI is unique & must be treated as such

That's for the patronising 'you are and you always do'

Would you care to give any other examples where I've conflated things because you're not even right about this one?

Yes NI is a unique situation but that doesn't mean it can be treated as being independent of the UK.

We need a solution which takes into account the fact we will not have FOM of the 4 freedoms once we leave the EU.

I agree with Somerville

I'm still so annoyed that we're effectively held to ransom by England and Wales. We had an election that broke the DUP's ability to use the Petition of Concern so there was a chance at actually making some progress and then then Brexit caused chaos. And for what? Nothing at this point.

So I'd really like to see Brexit scrapped or rerun using a independent referendum committee to provide facts on both sides of the argument like in Irish elections. Although there still doesn't seem to be any facts on leave so I'm not sure how it would work.

Sorry Faith but that opinion is staggering in its naiveness. The DUP know it would be a favourable deal, but that doesn't matter to them. It would mean a cultural step away from Britain and towards Ireland, when the reason they campaigned for Leave was for quite the opposite.

To say someone is conflating the UK and Northern Ireland is a bit like saying someone is conflating cake with the ingredients in it. And having it and eating it too.

Lol borntobequiet

Fervent Brexiteers are trying to keep the attention on trade in an attempt to back up their desire for parallel trade talks.

They are both right and wrong. Trade is the really, really tough nut to crack here, but brexiters are wrong re parallel trade talks. They seem to think that there is still a question mark over whether there will be a hard border, but there isn't: you cannot reconcile any brexit that takes us out of the single market/ ECJ jurisdiction with a soft border. Even an EEA style transition implies physical border checks, as between Norway and Sweden.

The only possible solution to the customs border issue is for NI to remain in the single market and customs union, but that would I think hasten unification and be resisted be unionist parties.

I personally don't think that FOM issues will be hard to resolve, at last not compared with the customs border issues.

I didn’t say she was conflating NI & UK though born, so your analogy makes no sense.

If you must use that rather tortuous analogy, then only if you make both a cake and scrambled eggs with the same ingredients and are then surprised to find they're different.

I love a tortuous analogy.

What did you think I was conflating then faith?

How's that list of other things I've conflated too?

I'd like to think you're right, Mistigri, and that trade proves the toughest part to solve. But both sides of the political spectrum in NI have much to lose if that isn't resolved. Whereas there is only one group who is affected by the growing discrimination against EU passport holders, and if it continues it will massively undermine the GFA and, in turn, peace. This feels to me like the hardest issue to resolve. (Though perhaps because I've been on the receiving end of the discrimination personally, of late.)

It wouldn't be safe for anyone to patrol the border, and any physical infrastructure such as cameras would immediately be destroyed. So another solution has to be found.

Flavia is right that it feels like we're being held to ransom.

What did you think I was conflating then faith?

How's that list of other things I've conflated too?

You don’t seem to be able to separate the myriad different strands involved with Brexit - you continually bundle them all up together as one blob.

Whilst a full member of the EU, they are indeed one blob of stuff, but leaving the EU means that they will not continue to be.

If you cannot separate them out then you will never be able to deal with any one of them & there is no solution.
This is perhaps why you are so dogmatic wrt anything to do with Brexit?

I'm not bundling anything into 1 blob, in fact it's you who is doing that really. For you it just boils down to sovereignty and us being able to make our own decisions.

This is why Leavers are still throwing around the 'no deal is better than a bad deal'. It is they who don't understand how complicated Brexit is, not me or many other Remainers.

There is still this arrogant notion that we could walk away and it will all be fine.

This completely fails to understand that we cannot make decisions about our future in isolation. The 4 freedoms are indivisible, the EU has made that very clear.

The EU are not going to allow FOM on 3 but not the 4th so there will have to be tariffs and NTB's, which are a minefield without the added complication of NI as we simply don't have the infrastructure to deal with them.

The alternative would be continuing to pay for access to the Single Market but that's not what most of your fellow leavers want.

I'd like to think you're right, Mistigri, and that trade proves the toughest part to solve. But both sides of the political spectrum in NI have much to lose if that isn't resolved. Whereas there is only one group who is affected by the growing discrimination against EU passport holders, and if it continues it will massively undermine the GFA and, in turn, peace. This feels to me like the hardest issue to resolve. (Though perhaps because I've been on the receiving end of the discrimination personally, of late.)

The difference though is that there is room for flexibility on freedom of movement across borders, on both sides, whereas there is absolutely no room for flexibility on trade once the UK becomes a third country.

After brexit, it is reasonable to assume that EU citizens will be able to come and go across the UK border (or at least the NI:EU border) as they do now - even if they no longer have an automatic right to remain and to work. I think there is reason to be optimistic that both sides will be flexible about border controls on individual travellers at the NI border. They have little to lose and much to gain.

Trade is a different matter though. If there is no hard border, the EU risks allowing access to goods that do not meet internal regulations. It would become a back door into the EU single market. And is not just the integrity of the EU that is at stake here: allowing free access to goods from the UK would be in breach of WTO rules (unless rules were relaxed for all WTO members at the same time, which I think we can safely assume is not going to happen).

I don't have anything to add but wanted to join. I've been worried about Ireland right from when the idea of Brexit reared its horrible head.

I think NI is one of the many questions for which there is no workable answer apart from 'no Brexit'. The UK government's tardiness at coming up with ideas is screaming this.

Imoverlyengaged

I guess that 6th option of R o I following UK out would "work" from a UK perspective. However, it is opposed by 84% of their population and isn't an option the UK can offer anyway.

I think we're in a choose two of these three situation:
1 UK leaves single market
2 NI stays part of UK
3 No hard border in Ireland

If we want items 2 and 3 we can't leave the single market

@user

I think if you look at the interdependence of the R o I and UK economies it may be very difficult for R o I if the UK leaves the single market and or customs union. For example many R o I goods cross the border several times during the production process. If tariffs are imposed on each crossing - which will be the case if UK moves to WTO rules- these companies may well go out of business.
R o I followed UK into the E U.
Economic factors may force it to follow UK out regardless of what the population may want.
Complete mess all round.

One of the big claims of Leave was that we would be able to control our borders. Yet if it's being seriously suggested that there is no border between RoI and NI, then we only have a partial border, which almost by definition will be got round. Why that is the EU's fault is beyond me.

I appreciate that David Davis thinks the Republic is the 'south of Ireland' and hasn't apparently taken on board that it's a separate country.

None of those options actually work.

And Ireland please, not Eire, unless you would like to post fully as Gaeilge.

The RoI, UK and Denmark all went into the EEC at the same time.
As to RoI businesses suffering, a Dublin friend has already told me of one firm he knows which has gone out of business, due to Brexit.

I'm puzzled by Faith's idea that we can have Freedom of Movement from the Republic into Northern Ireland, justified on the basis that this is fine because it's "our idea" and not "imposed" on us. Actually it would be even more "imposed" on us than the EU treaties, since we would have boxed ourselves into a corner to come up with this ludicrous solution, simply to make 17.5 million people "feel" more sovereign. Once again, it comes down to what "freedom", "power" and "sovereignty" actually mean.

At the same time, there would be a backdoor into the UK via Northern Ireland, rendering the entire fiasco completely pointless.

I must be missing something.

I must be missing something.

You and me both figment. I've been pondering this all day and genuinely don't understand faiths thought process.

I've come to the disturbing conclusion that it really is just a case of wanting to do exactly what we did before, because it was the best option, but wanting to make that decision ourselves in order to say we are sovereign.

The fact that that is impossible and cannot happen isn't even entering into it.

So let me understand this 4 Freedoms thing. I understand that we can't be in the single market without signing up to all 4 freedoms. So we can't be in the single market. But if we say that we are going to be a tariff free area then any other country could have a free trade agreement with us or trade on WTO rules.
So can we say that we would allow freedom of movement of people from the EU across the Irish/NI border then it would be up to the EU what they wanted to do on the Irish side?

Why should we say that we wanted Freedom of Movement from the EU when May has explicitly ruled it out?

A possible solution (other than giving NI a special status) is a soft border with customs and passport controls at embarkation points on the island of Ireland, using the Irish Sea as a hard border.

But, unionists will be unhappy as it requires Britain to treat the island of Ireland as a single entity with border and possibly customs checks at ports and airports and would mean people travelling from Northern Ireland to "mainland" Britain would need to show their passports.