www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/irish-officials-unimpressed-with-boris-johsnsons-grasp-on-dangers-posed-by-brexit-36331044.html
Irish officials unimpressed with Boris Johsnson's grasp on dangers posed by Brexit
Civil servants had to clarify what Johnson said
In a worrying development, civil servants frequently had to clarify the Tory politician's statements during a series of meetings in Dublin.
"He wants Brexit and wants it now. He doesn't care if it's hard or soft. He just wants out," a well-placed source said.
Why would he 'just want out' with no interest in how? Would it be because of his own political ambition or because he believes in Brexit that much. But surely it if was because he believed in Brexit that much he'd have a preference for hard or soft Brexit...
...Oh.
Anyway this from Ireland's RTE
www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2017/1117/920981-long-read-brexit/
The Brexit Veto: How and why Ireland raised the stakes
In it, it says:
The Sun quoted unnamed Conservative ministers who whispered that "Sinn Féin/IRA" had leaned on Varadkar to ambush the UK.
Er wtf???
Anyway, this is key:
It also was becoming clear to officials in Brussels – and Dublin – that there were things outside the strict remit of the Good Friday Agreement where Brexit was going to have an adverse impact on daily life.
"The deeper you go," says one EU source familiar with the mapping exercise, "the more examples there are, more areas where you find out that actually a lot of the Good Friday Agreement requirements are more implicit than anything else.They rest on the status quo, and that status quo involves membership of the EU single market."
One example is cross-border health.
Look closely, and you can see where the single market is essential to its functioning.
It requires equality of patient rights, but also things like single standards for medical devices, the approval of medicines at EU level, mutual recognition of medical qualifications, mutual acceptance of cross border ambulance activity.
"All of this is completely aligned at the moment," says the source, "because Ireland and the UK are members of the EU."
In other words, there is a lot more at stake than simply the explicit North South cooperation established by the Good Friday Agreement.
This reality was carefully reflected in the Task Force working paper on Ireland.
"Already prior to undertaking this [mapping] exercise," the paper stated, "the EU's guiding principles underlined that an important part of political, economic, security, societal and agricultural activity on the island of Ireland currently operates on a cross-border basis, underpinned by joint EU membership of the UK and Ireland."
The paper went on: "The EU and the UK have committed to protecting and supporting the continuation and development of this cooperation and of the functioning of the institutions established by the Good Friday Agreement."
The fact that the paper divides the concept into two parts is subtle, but crucial: both the EU and UK were committed to safeguarding this cooperation, and the functioning of the institutions established by the Belfast Agreement.
^In other words, there were now two, not one, concepts to look after.
It was further strengthened in the final paragraph of the document.
"It consequently seems essential," the Task Force paper states, "for the UK to commit to ensuring that a hard border on the island of Ireland is avoided, including by ensuring no emergence of regulatory divergence from those rules of the internal market and the Customs Union which are (or may be in the future) necessary for meaningful North South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the Good Friday Agreement."^
Here, there is even a third notion: an all-island economy.
In other words, taken altogether, in order for the EU and UK to protect the Good Friday Agreement, and meaningful North-South Cooperation, and the all-island economy, there cannot be any "regulatory divergence" from the rules governing the single market and the customs union.
Therefore, to avoid a hard border, both sides of the island would have to maintain the same rules as codified in the EU customs union, and the single market.
One senior EU official has interpreted the text as follows: "No regulatory divergence means the same thing as being in the customs union and the single market.
"A guarantee of no legal divergence means some kind of legal obligation to follow [EU] rules. I just can’t understand it any other way."
Interestingly, it says that Brokenshire has been insistent on the we are leaving the single market and customs union as a whole country as recently as the 7th Nov. Yet ironically Gove seemed sympathetic to the idea of an 'all island economy' for agriculture although was otherwise not really listening.
Ireland are also nervous because Davis plankface Davis has said that this taskforce paper undermined the constitutional position of NI in the UK. (FFS!)