Can someone explain the Irish backstop to me in very simple words?

[Apolloanddaphne]

I am an intelligent woman with multiple degrees but i have to confess i have no idea what the back stop is. I am too scared to ask my DH or my friends lest they think i am an imbecile (lighthearted). I have tried googling it to read articles about it but i just don't get it.

One of my friends is Irish and has a piece in a newspaper today related this today. If it comes up in conversation next time i see him i would at least like to be able to say something semi intelligent about it!

Help me please. Use easy words. Thanks.

@bellinisurge I started this thread and I have never made the 'didn't learn it in school' excuse. I was having trouble understanding this aspect of Brexit and googling was making me more confused. Seems like I wasn't alone. It is good to have people who can share their knowledge. I've shared my knowledge of other things on MN. Sharing information is a great thing.

Arlene today, "Yes Boris, no Boris, three bags full Boris". Look out for buses Arlene and don't stand too close to the kerb if he's standing next to you.

And I know Brexiters aren’t an amorphous mass, I don’t understand what any individual Brexit supporter wants in relation to Deal/No Deal.
Nor do they
except the super rich disaster capitalists who drove it
and Putin who wants to destabilise the EU, UK and USA

Polls are not always reliable, but results suggest that almost half of UK does not agree with suspension of parliament. Some MPs have stated that suspension is not related to brexit and an attempt to force a no deal exit from the EU, but I think most would see through that as being a lie.

The UK already has a plan that would break the Brexit backstop deadlock
via The Irish Times
www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/the-uk-already-has-a-plan-that-would-break-the-brexit-backstop-deadlock-1.4001590

I love this. The UK is already establishing a number of free ports in the where goods can be imported tariff free into the area and then exported again. They are looking at areas like Milford Haven.
No one is objecting to this, not even the DUP.
Add Northern Ireland to the list of free ports, with a few extra regulations, and you can avoid the hard border, the back stop and the UK stays as British as Milford Haven

@Inniu

How does that satisfy EU regulations over borders with non EU Countries? Would all goods that presently cross the invisible border between North and South have to pass through the freeports on UK mainland?

No, all of Northern Ireland would become a free port. Effectively keeping regulations compatible with the EU and tariffs only applying when goods leave the free port.
Basically the special status people have argued for but. it would not be constitutionally different to a number of other free ports in England so acceptable to the DUP.

The journalist who wrote the piece is John Fitzgerald. Very respected economist and son of former Irish Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald who signed the AngloIrish agreement with Margaret Thatcher.

No, all of Northern Ireland would become a free port

Is that not the same as an NI only backstop that DUP did not like?

What stops smuggling between NI and UK mainland or Companies moving from ROI to NI if NI to take advantage of NI special status?

If it works and DUP are not objecting bring it on.

I hope nothing stops UK or EU companies setting up in NI to benefit from its special status. We will need the influx of jobs and money to help protect us against paramilitaries.

Are Ireland be used by EU for the purpose of trying to cancel Brexit, or EU genuinely worried about a treaty they are not party to?

The EU is a party to the Good Friday Agreement, at least by extension.

As a member state, Ireland is part of a bloc with a great many resources to keep their members safe and the EU has been very clear that they will protect Ireland against any return to pre-GFA violence. Or against being hassled in general as a result of Britain's decision to leave the EU.

I'm baffled as to why the UK government isn't shitting itself at the thought of the EU coming in to stomp on them for messing with one of 'the family' if this shredding of the GFA continues.

The EU is a party to the Good Friday Agreement

Incorrect. EU are not a signatory to the Good Friday Agreement. Article 50 which allows any member to leave the EU does not make reference to the Good Friday Agreement.

British Irish Council who are referenced in the Good Friday Agreement have failed in their duties ass described in GFA. As soon as Article 50 was passed in 2009 the GFA should have been revisited and a protocol added to describe how to preserve GFA if either ROI or UK left the EU.

All comes down to the assumption that nobody would vote to leave the EU. If the assumption was correct why was Article 50 developed?

the back stop and the UK stays as British as Milford Haven

The U.K. had a free port in Belfast (among other places) until the legislation expired in 2012. However, would the DUP really buy the idea that NI is just another part of the U.K. and also a free port?

Checks and tariffs would still need to be implemented between NI and the rest of the U.K.

For comparison I think people would have a few things to say if the Scottish parliament declared that Scotland had become a free port.

EU genuinely worried about a treaty they are not party to?

As Ireland (like any other member state) can veto any agreement with the U.K., Irelands’ concerns are the EU’s concerns.

This is the crunch bit. Yes, I think Johnson will throw the DUP under the bus sooner or later. Throw the ERG under with them? No chance.

Agree - if it were possible for a Conservative PM to throw the ERG types under a bus, Cameron wouldn’t have felt it necessary to call a referendum in the first place.

However, take away the DUP and do the ERG care about checks in the Irish Sea?

We know what the DUP MPs in Westminster think about checks in the Irish Sea, but how much resistance is there in NI?

Incorrect. EU are not a signatory to the Good Friday Agreement.

True, but I didn't say signatory, I said party, as in interested party. Ireland, an EU country, signed a peace treaty. That makes the EU a fairly significant stakeholder wouldn't you say?

While the EU has been hugely patient with the UK throwing its toys out of the pram, I don't believe for a moment that it will allow civil unrest at the NI/ROI border as a result of Brexit.

For anyone wanting to learn more about the Troubles - a programme called “50 Years of the Troubles: A Journey Through Film is recommended in the Times. On Sunday night, Channel 4 at 10.20.

I don't believe for a moment that it will allow civil unrest at the NI/ROI border as a result of Brexit

EU can’t prevent UK from leaving the EU without a deal. Article 50, which was signed by all 28 members of the EU allows any member to leave the EU and states that if Agreement is made then all laws and treaties between the EU and the member that has left lapse instantly.

Error has been made by British Irish Council not following their duties specified in the Good Friday Agreement which was to take into account changes in the EU policy and laws that could affect North or South Ireland.

Article 50 was passed in 2009, but Good Friday Agreement was not revisited to include a protocol that detailed how to preserve the GFA if either ROI or UK exercised their entitlement to leave the EU.

All comes down to the assumption that nobody would want to leave the EU.

www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/ready-for-what-it-is-completely-unknown-brexit-and-the-border-1.4002694?mode=amp&fbclid=IwAR04wh44LuU4YFCkCxTfGTDQWKjeY04LTakpZX4QUoMLOfljHMnL9z_I58o

@MysteryTripAgain yes, you're completely correct that the GFA wasn't addressed in Article 50, any more than the squillions of other agreements in all the EU countries were addressed. Why would they be, when Article 50 was about all the countries, not just the UK?

I was probably unclear so here is a breakdown of my biggest worry over the border. It's a worst-case-scenario and there are still a thousand ways to avoid it...

• Let's say the worst happens and a hard land border is recreated between NI and the RoI, shredding the GFA.

• The border will be chaos, for eg running straight down the middle of the gentleman's house in the article posted by @Apileofballyhoo

• The chaos causes unrest, perhaps violence

• BloJob and his cronies send in troops to 'keep the peace.' I fully appreciate that this is a stretch, but everything Brexit-related has seemed unthinkable until it actually happened.

• Irish citizens are hurt or killed by British troops, either deliberately or accidentally.

• The EU takes exception to this, in the most extreme case seeing the aggression as something like an undeclared war against Ireland and therefore against the EU.

• The collective military forces of the EU (CSDP) are legally obliged to defend the EU. So those troops are sent in.

• In essence, war breaks out between the UK and EU. Boris Johnson gets to play out his weird Churchill fantasies, only this time the UK gets thumped, no-one will ever again come to the table for GFA-style talks, and it takes a century to even begin to recover.

The situation we're in now (we = all of us in the EU, including the UK) is exactly how all the previous European wars have started.

It's potentially a lot bigger than the already-huge problems of trade, and from the outside perspective of being an immigrant to the EU I'm incredulous that the UK-Irish border was treated like some kind of barely-mentioned afterthought.

Should be clear, the novel above isn't for the sake of arguing. I'm interested in learning from yours and everyone's thoughts!

Why would they be, when Article 50 was about all the countries, not just the UK?

GFA should have been revisited when Article 50 was passed. No need to have a separate reference in Article 50 as GFA is between ROI and UK

And what form would this "revisiting" take @MysteryTripAgain ?. Bleating about soverin'y and "the [english] people have spoken ".