Friend shared video of Irish PM stating contingency plans for No Deal Brexit are no longer contingency and are instead being legislated for

[almutasakieun]

I'm not sure how to share the link as it's on Facebook?
So it's looking like they want to extend the deadline.

Preparations for checks at ports and airports, not preparation for checks at land border.

Saddens me so much. Glad my Irish mum isn't around to see it.

It's looking like it's going to be a no deal.

The thing I'm wondering is if the Irish side isn't preparing for checks at the land border, are the British planning to check from their end?

The Irish government doesn't want to put checks on the land border. Let's hope it doesn't come to it.

Or is it that the Uk will have checks at ports and airports too? I'm just wondering what it means.
Logistically speaking, you could easily get a flight to Ireland, cross the land border and then you're in the UK.

I'm trying to figure out how it's going to work.

The main issue is goods not people and in a way, the EU are 'sort of' OK without a border check as the value and volume of goods is not huge.
It would be a massive fudge for a duration before something more defined can be put in place. A 'trusted trader' type scheme may be deemed adequate for regular large shipments for example.
Obviously no good long term but considering the chaos that will be starting on March 30th it could be a reasonable compromise.

The EU seems willing to extend deadline for a further quarter.

I think no 10 just said they don't want an extension.

The biggest issue will be as UK diverges from EU rules and standards and tariffs. Which is the up-side of no-deal Brexit, according to much of the Tory party. Larger corporations or even countries could move goods to NI to get it into the EU. (Gross simplication there but you see what I’m getting at.) Theoretically it could happen the other way around too, if UK standards and tariffs were higher than EU. At that point a hard border will be attempted, at least on the major roads. Smaller scale smuggling will take place on back roads and across fields as it always used to. In the meantime there will be pressure from WTO to have a border but I imagine RoI and UO will just ignore that?
Another immediate issue will be that the GFA will be considered by many to be defunct, by the nature of no-deal. How quickly the rights of Irish citizens in NI will be trampled as a result is anyone’s guess, but we know the government already tried, when they wanted to make having a British passport a requirement for new roles in customs.

I guess out of all the EU countries, Ireland has most at stake here. They're used to the NI border I guess, but becoming an EU border is probably more than they want to take on!

And from my reading of it, Ireland doesn't take well to borders at all!

They're not used to the NI border, because it hasn't been in operation for 20 years.

It's not just the border we are preparing for. We can no longer legally drive in the north with a green card. The insurance companies are now starting to roll out the issuing of green cards.

We have extended all our import and export shipping ports and hired over 1000 extra people to mam them.

We also had to hire extra people in our airports and passport office.

The rental market is about to collapse due to demand of companies leaving the UK and moving to ROI. Legislation is bring changed to help this.

As for the border issue not a hope that we are taking on that cost.

Imagine Scotland goes rouge and builds a wall but demands Britain pay for it and patrol it. But you won't be allowed in without a visa !!

Oh yeah we got that huge ship so all our imports and exports don't need to through the UK

What annoys me is the cavalier attitude of No Dealers to the border. Would they be quite so blase if there was even the smallest threat to their own family’s lives. I watched Question Time last night and was not surprised that the impact on Ireland (NI or South) was not directly mentioned once in respect of No Deal discussions.

It's not just the border we are preparing for. We can no longer legally drive in the north with a green card.

without a green card you mean, surely? And that's only in the case of a no-deal Brexit and assuming that the UK doesn't continue to participate in the CoB/MID system.

The EU directive which brought in automatic compulsory minimum 3rd party cover throughout the EU was only brought in a few years ago. Many people don't even know it exists and continue to contact their insurers for 'green card cover' whenever they drive abroad - generally what they're actually getting when the ask for that is an extension of their comprehensive insurance - something that neither the Green Card nor the CoB/MID system gives them.

IIRC prior to the CoB/MID being introduced it was common for policies to be written on a 'British Isles' basis - cover was restricted to use in GB&NI, IOM, Channel Islands and ROI. Maybe we'll start to see policies like that again.

They're used to the NI border I guess, but becoming an EU border is probably more than they want to take on!

And from my reading of it, Ireland doesn't take well to borders at all!

I'm struggling to see these two remarks in any way other than extremely under-informed.

I think the Irish government are doing the right thing looking at no deal and preparing for that.
It certainly wouldn't do our roads/traffic any harm if they had a fair proportion of their goods shipped in direct rather than trundling through England and Wales.

I think that what needs to be remembered as far as the Irish border is concerned and goods going in and out of the EU/non EU at the moment the EU only physically checks 3% of all non EU goods coming in so that is hardly going to be a problem on the Irish border. As for the idea up thread that somehow goods were going to be shipped to NI and then into ROI to get into the EU! How would that happen? Nothing comes into NI without coming through Britain, there are no direct routes to NI as far as I know.

the EU only physically checks 3% of all non EU goods coming in

'The EU' doesn't check anything, the member states do.

so that is hardly going to be a problem on the Irish border

It's having a physical border, with checks, that's the problem, not the number of checks.

As for the idea up thread that somehow goods were going to be shipped to NI and then into ROI to get into the EU! How would that happen? Nothing comes into NI without coming through Britain, there are no direct routes to NI as far as I know.

Here's an example: if the UK drops its tariff on Widgets from the EU's 25% down to 0% then rather than import Widgets direct from the USA and pay 25% extra they could be imported into NI from the USA (and it doesn't matter whether they come direct from the US, through the UK or even through ROI) and then (in the absence of border controls) be shipped from NI to the ROI and then on to anywhere in the EU without paying that 25% import duty.

As for 'Nothing comes into NI without coming through Britain', you're talking rubbish.

The backstop was agreed in December 2017. Rejecting it basically puts the negotiations all the back to where we were in December 2017.

I suppose Parliament should have voted on Backstop IN December 2017.

"It's having a physical border, with checks, that's the problem, not the number of checks."

Precisely!

The backstop was agreed in December 2017. Rejecting it basically puts the negotiations all the back to where we were in December 2017.

David Davis got off the plane, just a few hours later, and told the press that the agreement was meaningless. The agreement that he'd just signed, hours before! And the British wonder why nobody trusts them?

Perfidious Albion!

This is what he actually said: that the plans were a “statement of intent more than anything else. Much more a statement of intent than it was a legally enforceable thing.”

Despite having just signed a legally enforceable agreement. This is why Britain isn't trusted in negotiations.