Can someone explain the current backstop position

[Bearbehind]

Because I'm confused!

I thought that TM originally proposed a backstop of NI remaining in CU/SM, the the DUP immediately vetoed that so we reverted to saying the whole of the UK would remain aligned with SM /CU wrt issues affecting the border.

Barnier said in his speech they never wanted to create a border in the North Sea either.

So WTF is TM on about now saying the EU need to 'evolve' on the backstop?

This has been agreed already.

What am I missing here?

I apologise if you are confused. The duty borders exist between all EU states, without physical infrastructure. This is the point, that we can have a customs border between NI and Ireland without physical infrastucture.

An apology for ducking the question or not explaining yourself in the first place would be better, but never mind. The point is not worth pursuing.

that we can have a customs border between NI and Ireland without physical infrastucture.

You can't simply claim this without evidence, and the evidence is that countries (even EEA/EFTA) countries outside the EU customs union have physical border infrastructure.

This is the point, that we can have a customs border between NI and Ireland without physical infrastucture

It astounds me that Leavers are still spouting this kind of bollocks.

Just because you think you can stamp your feet and make it true, doesn't mean it is.

Here's a great article. www.newstatesman.com/politics/brexit/2018/07/i-m-tory-mep-hardline-brexiteers-my-party-are-destroying-british-union#amp

Why can we have duty borders without infrastructure, EFTA borders without infrastructure but not one customs border?
A border that covers c£5bn of trade, compared to £600bn between UK and EU.

caroldecker that sounds very much like the 'they need us more than we need them' argument.

Which is not only arrogant and obnoxious, it's also wrong.

It's incompatible with WTO rules anyway.

You need single market and a customs union to avoid physical controls at the border, which is what the backstop is about. The only dispute is whether this should apply UK-wide (UK govt position, which is obviously bollocks, because of the potential for regulatory divergence) or to NI only (EU position, workable but unpalatable to the DUP).

@pere

By the way, the Lords can't amend it. They can only reject it entirely, and they won't do that. :(

Misti
There is no law, international or otherwise that requires infrastructure at a border. It is up to the area on each side how they choose to police a border.
Bear
Nothing to do with they needs us more than we need them, just an illustration of how little trade goes over this specific border. As all border control is a risk based assessment of needs for checks, the low volume makes this low risk and thus no need for infrastructure. Exactly like smaller road crossing between Norway and Sweden and USA and Canada.

Carole, this would have been excusable 2 years ago, but everyone knows you are bullshitting now.

Show us some evidence of a border, anywhere in the developed world, between two countries that are not in a customs union and do not have regulatory convergence, that does not have physical border controls.

Mistigri Carol has already been asked that having declared that it happens within the EU, and came up with the answer that smuggling happens anyway, border controls or not. Yes true, but not the question asked.

misti
Apart from duty borders in the EU, which you still have not said why they are irrelevant?

See here

I am not sure what you are trying to prove with that link caroldecker

The first paragraph says:
The Land ports of entry list is limited to places where CBSA and/or CBP now provide border inspection services. Crossings where border inspection services were once provided, but have since been barricaded are listed in the Closed Land Ports of Entry section. Unstaffed crossings are listed in the Unstaffed Road Crossings section.

The Unstaffed crossings section says:
This is a list of roads that cross the U.S.-Canada border that do not have border inspection services. In prior years, there were dozens of such roads where one could legally cross the border and then proceed to an open Customs office to report for inspection, but most have since been barricaded. Requirements for reporting to CBSA or CBP for inspection are noted.

most have since been barricaded does not to my mind, read like a frictionless border. Nor does provide border inspection services.

The Good Friday Agreement was written in the context of both parts of Ireland being in the EU. We can't crash out of the EU and maintain it.

Something has to give somewhere, it will probably be messy. My personal favourite is to put the hard borders around England and let the populace choose where to live. Not a sensible solution, but no less sensible than any other that has been put on the table.

The EU is looking out for the 26 other countries. Our loses are our problem.

peragrina

I was asked Show us some evidence of a border, anywhere in the developed world, between two countries that are not in a customs union and do not have regulatory convergence, that does not have physical border controls.
I provided evidence of such in the link.
Border controls are risk based - small borders with low volume of trade aren't policed.
The UK currently examines around 3% of non-EU imports into the UK. The EU imports €1.8 trillion (€1,800 billion) from outside the EU. €1,746 bn of this is not checked.
€1 bn is imported from NI. A risk based assessment means no infrastructure required.

Going round in circles here - which two countries? It ought to be possible to name an example since it's so obvious to you.

At the moment the UK is in the EU, if we leave it won't be, it will be a third country, so all imports and exports will be EU/non EU. No, I know that this is something which Theresa May doesn't yet appear to have got her head round.

If it were all so simple the talks would not be bogged down and there would be no talk of backstops.

So all those unmanned roads the British Army cratered/blocked before?

Hard border Moldova and Romania. Hard border Belarus/Ukraine and Poland.

As for not testing most imports from outside the EU. It may not be checked at the border and is checked elsewhere. Take pharmaceuticals. They are imported by someone with an import licence who has to do batch control testing. They create a certificate that the batch complies with EU standards. This will be done for each batch imported.

A lot of checks that take place on the border are phyto sanitary and there will be a need for EU countries to build border inspection posts at ports where UK goods will have to be inspected.

Peregrina

I am not saying no infrastructure borders between UK and EU. What i am saying is that you do not need infrastructure at every border crossing. The NI/Ireland border is a tiny part of UK/EU trade, so could be the crossing without infrastructure.
0.3% of UK to EU trade goes over that border crossing.

Products or components in the manufacture of a product can criss cross the border between NI/Irl a few times. Over and back Same with animal/dairy. I read somewhere that 30% of NI trade is to Irl. I don't know if that takes account of 'all island' produce. I'll try to find it.

Trade across the Irish border is not simply each side selling goods to one another. A European Parliament paper notes how businesses which operate across the border “often have highly interconnected supply chains covering the island of Ireland and often involving movements across the border throughout the manufacturing process”.

fullfact.org/europe/irish-border-trade/

30% of trade outside the UK.

I am not saying no infrastructure borders between UK and EU. What i am saying is that you do not need infrastructure at every border crossing. The NI/Ireland border is a tiny part of UK/EU trade, so could be the crossing without infrastructure

And

Border controls are risk based - small borders with low volume of trade aren't policed

I'm really intrigued. Could you tell me which two countries, one in the EU, one out, have no customs infrastructure at any point along the border?

It's not really about border controls for many people, or economics, or customs or VAT, though those things are obviously very important.

It's about not wanting a border full stop. So that Irish people can come and go in their own country whenever and wherever they like, provided they are breaking no law, without customs checks, cameras, flashing a passport, or any of the other suggestions. Under the GFA, any person from NI is fully entitled to consider themselves as Irish or British or both. If you impose a border you are affecting people's right to be Irish whilst living in Northern Ireland. I think this is what many of the Brexiteers are failing to understand.

Can you imagine putting a border around any part of the UK that interrupted or impeded people's movement in any way shape or form?

Can you imagine putting a border around any part of the UK that interrupted or impeded people's movement in any way shape or form?

No of course they can't, they lack the imagination to do so but even more than that is the lack of any interest in understanding the issue. It's only Ireland after all, even the ones who are actually UK citizens don't really count in the minds of many British people.

The same MNers who go fucking apoplectic if a school dares try to "police" their child's lunchbox are perfectly content to tell the people of Ireland to just suck up whatever another country dictates .