Can I ask a question about a "hard border"

[StartedEarly]

Forgive me if this has been done before or if it's a stupid question.

If there is no deal we are told there will be a hard border.

Leo Varadkar has said they will not be policing a hard border.
The UK doesn't want a hard border.

So who exactly is going to come along and build checkpoints?

@bellinisurge

To what end? They are toeing the party line. They've made it very clear.

And I don't agree with the WA as it stands so I'm not telling anyone to do anything.

Whatever the outcome I will accept but I'm not going to actively tell someone to do something that I have serious misgivings about.

So have you come up with an alternative that protects GFA or are you just on here for shits and giggles?

@bellinisurge

Firstly I am not here to perform at your command.

Secondly you paint a very simplistic view of the situation. The GDA is not as black and white as you portray it.

If the EU, the ROI government and the UK government wanted to a solution could be found.

@Weetabixandshreddies

If you meant something else by your use of the phrase "will of the people" then please explain what you meant?

This is not the time to renegotiate the GFA ffs. It is an international agreement we are signed up to. If we tear it up it doesn't bode well for our ability to negotiate other deals.

If I believe everything Rumboogie posted (about how EU & RoI are all acting in selfish bad faith), then how does No Deal make things better?

How does No Deal make Norn safe, or stop damage to Irish (& UK) economy, or stop the newIRA from doing their violence in Norn & GB?

How will Leaving make all those things better in medium-long term? I want to understand what sequence of events you expect things to follow NoDeal, that will make things better.

They found a solution. The WA.

If you meant something else by your use of the phrase "will of the people" then please explain what you meant?

I said what I meant. Out of the people who voted in the referendum the majority voted to leave.

You said that I stated that the majority voted to leave which I did not say.

The majority of the people who voted in the referendum voted to leave.

If they did not vote then that is on them. You can't just include them in the remain numbers.

This is not the time to renegotiate the GFA ffs. It is an international agreement we are signed up to. If we tear it up it doesn't bode well for our ability to negotiate other deals.

Why does anyone have to re negotiate or tear up the GFA?

If everyone is against a hard border ie check points then they can put up cameras. That won't affect anyone on a day to day basis. No queues at crossing points, no segregation.

How did the ROI manage to create a hard border during the foot and mouth epidemic without contravening the GFA?

So the will of the British people must always be ignored on this subject because of NI/ROI?
And I take it then that the ROI can also never leave the EU because of the GFA ?

Let’s Flip that Weetabix
If you think it’s such a bad thing then why are you proposing that the will of the Irish people (NI and RoI in respect of the much bigger majority GFA referendum) must be ignored for the sake of Brexit?

What’s good for the goose...

The differences between the two conflicting referenda include

1. GFA came first and was predicated on a set on conditions that depended on commonality across the 2 countries
2. GFA is an international peace treaty lodged in The Hague
3. GFA ref occurred in 2 separate countries and also included all the British people of NI (you seem to exclude them as some sort of ‘other’)
4. GFA has a much, much bigger majority in support
5. GFA brought me and my generation the first peace we’d ever known.

Now compare and contrast with Brexit referendum. If only one can stand which one do you honestly think it should be?

Why does anyone have to re negotiate or tear up the GFA?
If the commonality in which it is predicated goes then it’s gone, defunct. How can my rights as an Irish citizen continue the same as the person 2 miles down the road?!

If everyone is against a hard border ie check points then they can put up cameras. That won't affect anyone on a day to day basis. No queues at crossing points, no segregation.
Cameras constitute a hard border, physical infrastructure of any sort to observe or hinder our movement in our own country is anathema. And they’ll be pulled down as soon as they go up.

How did the ROI manage to create a hard border during the foot and mouth epidemic without contravening the GFA?
They didn’t, thet put big rugs with antiseptic on them along the road and invited people out to wipe their feet. Laughable as that sounds it is what happened. I crossed many times during that period

If they did not vote then that is on them. You can't just include them in the remain numbers

No, i am not including them in Remain numbers (that would be silly) what i think is that momentous decisions cannot be done on a minority of the electorate and that is what 36% (17m) is.

It is at the whole heart of why we are in this mess, there is no majority, a mistake was made in 2016 and all we are doing is compounding it.

Bribing Labour MPs with cash injections is beyond parody and shows how far this great nation has sunk.

I saw what happened when my cousin was killed in NI as a young soldier, to risk that again is selfish beyond measure, in fact its criminal.

I think Ken Clarke has come up with the best idea for Brexit, postpone A50 for 5 years and re think what we actually want and how to achieve it, then have another referendum.

Rumboogie I am sorry to say this but your entire post reads as though your source for informing yourself on the subject has been The Sun (or similar).

You are simply repeating old rhetoric with no analysis, no intelligent considerations and absolutely no empathy.

Wilful ignorance is, pitifully, what got us here in the first place.

HappyHugs

Part of the problem is that ROI is a separate country to the UK. You can't expect the UK to place the interests of another country above its own can you? Would ROI do the same?

The way that you want this played out is that the UK will always be controlled by Ireland.

A political solution could be found except that a small minority are threatening terrorist activity if they don't get what they want. Regardless of what that issue is, why should any government ever be dictated to by terrorists? Take away that threat what stops the governments of the UK and ROI from negotiating a mutually acceptable solution to this?

What is so unacceptable about having cameras on the border? What exactly is the issue with this?

If everyone is against a hard border ie check points then they can put up cameras. That won't affect anyone on a day to day basis. No queues at crossing points, no segregation.

What is the point of the cameras? To monitor the movement of goods across the border? That is a hard border then.

Also, aside from the legal and moral reasons not to do this, I don't think you understand the practical ones. There are more land crossings between NI and ROI than on the whole Eastern front of the EU. Are you going to put cameras in every field that has the border running through it? Every house, every pub?

Monitoring the border in any way is a physical impossibility. Which is why last time the British government literally blew up roads to reduce the number of crossings. Imagine if you tried to go to Tesco and the government (not terrorists, the government) had blown up the road and installed a checkpoint on the road a few miles away. It's unthinkable, but it was the norm in Northern Ireland, somehow.

Cameras constitute a hard border, physical infrastructure of any sort to observe or hinder our movement in our own country is anathema

How are cameras in anyway hindering your movement? We have cameras everywhere in London. I don't even notice them let aline have my movements hindered by them.

How can my rights as an Irish citizen continue the same as the person 2 miles down the road?!

So were the ROI to have decided to leave the EU they would have just accepted that they couldn't for these very reasons would they? If the Irish had voted to leave they would have accepted that they couldn't because the UK, with whom they share a border, wanted to remain?

Weetabix
Border infrastructure becomes symbol of separation from the ROI, this makes this a target for a nationalist hothead with a gun, then it needs Policing, which makes a bigger target, needs armed protection, then they'll be deaths on both sides, and it becomes 1968 all over again.

So were the ROI to have decided to leave the EU they would have just accepted that they couldn't for these very reasons would they? If the Irish had voted to leave they would have accepted that they couldn't because the UK, with whom they share a border, wanted to remain?

Yes. Either that they’d have made specific arrangements for NI. You know in an intelligent way that you’d expect of a well functioning government.

LivLemler

Then don't monitor the border.

Allow free movement across the border. What is the problem with that?

Either that they’d have made specific arrangements for NI.

Describe these arrangements then?

*Part of the problem is that ROI is a separate country to the UK. You can't expect the UK to place the interests of another country above its own can you? Would ROI do the same?
The way that you want this played out is that the UK will always be controlled by Ireland. *

Can you honestly not see that that is exactly what the UK is expecting from Ireland?

@HappyHugs

Then explain to me what arrangements the ROI would make were the situation reversed?

Can you honestly not see that that is exactly what the UK is expecting from Ireland?

And no I can't because I don't see how the ROI is going to be disadvantaged by the UK leaving.

What detriment will the ROI suffer if we leave with no deal and no hard border is imposed?

Describe these arrangements then?

Easy - full regulatory alignment.

Weetabix, you ve done this before, you are now just going around in circles :(