You’re aware that the NI devolved administration hasn’t existed since March 2017, yes ? Apart from all the other entirely obvious reasons that make this totally unworkable, who exactly would Dublin negotiate with ? The Ulster Farmer’s Union ?
And if the NI Assembly was sitting, it would be in utter,unbreakable deadlock about post EU borders. The Nationalists would propose a totally open North-South border, and East-West restrictions, the Unionists would propose the reverse, and each side would perpetually vote Petitions of Concern and block the other side.
As someone trying to catch-up rather belatedly on the Brexit issue, can you explain to me (or provide a link that does) why it necessarily follows that the ‘Troubles’ will arise again with such a change to the border.
My understanding is that the “hard border” that used to exist between NI and the Republic, with armed custom guards, was a major point of contention, emphasising the division of Ireland removing the hard border was a major step in the peace accord. Re-creating it would not necessarily re-ignite the troubles, but would be a major retrograde step.
But, that’s just my impression. Would love to hear from Irish posters about it.
Which leads to a question: has the Irish government weighed in on the WA? Presumably they would have been heavily involved in the negotiations from the EU side, since this is such an important issue?
Because the Troubles were settled by the Good Friday Agreement and this was a constitutional settlement whereby both the Irish and UK constitution were altered to recognise cross border institutions and the creation of a power sharing devolved assembly in Northern Ireland between the Unionists and the Republicans. There are still fringe paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland and the return of a guarded, secure border with customs checks that are required by the EU would be target for Republican groups, should political tensions rise in the Northern Ireland. Moreover May relies in the votes of the Democratic Unionist Party in NI to stay in power and they have strong objections to an EU border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK as was suggested by the EU. There is also the Common travel Area that exists between the UK and Ireland within the EU. Both countries would want to retain that. The NI Assembly is in deadlock and has not been functioning for some time now. While it is peaceful, the political system is not working.
The Irish and UK governments are very sensitive about this. Both sides expended huge political and financial resources coming to a settlement that delivered peace in Northern Ireland after decades of conflict. Neither side wants to open up this constitutional fault line because of Brexit.
It is recognised that this conundrum cannot be solved in the time available. So May has provided a temporary solution that allows the UK to be able to claim that it has left the EU but still remain in a customs arrangement that looks very like it is still part of the EU so requires no border for the time being.
It is a temporary fudge, a compromise and every side can find fault with it (except maybe Ireland) but no-one has a better idea. As it stands it looks very much like still being in EU as far as a customs border is concerned, much to the consternation of the Brexiteers, they will have to wait a while for these troublesome details to be resolved.
I don’t disagree with anything filmstar_en wrote :- I would just add the mere possibility of the idiots going back to bombing and killing is the worst thing that could happen on this island this century.
I am Irish :- I voted to relinquish our Constitutional claim on the North for a mature, settled relationship where noone got killed. I was happy with that vote. Now total mediocrities and morons have pushed their masturbatory fantasies to the point where my island’s settled peace is threatened.
There is the further point that the Good Friday Agreement is enshrined in both national and international law, so aside from the estimating the risks of creating a series of border control points as targets for terrorists, to do anything that contravenes the GFA’s commitments is a whole heap of legal trouble for all concerned, so yes, the whole business of the “backstop” has involved a great deal of input from the Republic. Everyone else in the EU would just as soon not have had to deal with the question at all.
NI contains two communities; those - the majority - who identify first and foremost as British, and those who identify first and foremost as Irish.
The key to the peace settlement has been to avoid compelling people to choose between one or other identity, and to afford equal respect, validation and accommodation to both - “parity of esteem” is the buzz-word for this.
In this regard shared EU membership has been hugely helpful, since it tends to erode the distinctions between different nationalities and different territories that would normally apply. And Brexit, of its very nature, threatens this.
The Good Friday Agreement doesn’t actually say, in as many words, that there is to be no hard border between NI and the Republic. That’s because, by the time the GFA was negotiated, there was already no hard border in Ireland; it had been progressively eliminated by common EU travel arrangements, the European Customs Union, the Single Market. The things that would normally need to be controlled at a border did not need to be controlled at the RoI/NI border because of these shared arrangements. The result was that British-identifying NI residents were not separated from their compatriots (in Great Britain) by any kind of border control, and Irish-identifying NI residents were similarly not separated from their compatriots in the Republic. And this helped to create and sustain the climate in which the GFA could be negotiated, agreed and made operational.
So reinstating border controls at this point doesn’t so much violate the terms of the GFA as cut away the ground on which it has been constructed.
Yes. Re-erecting divisions between Irish people in NI and RoI obviously doesn’t affect only Irish people in NI. This is an issue of huge significance for RoI, and RoI is of course a continuing member state of the Union, so the Union is attentive to its vital interests. (Brexit in fact creates a situation in which the EU is highly incentivized to desmonstrate that it protects the concerns and interests of its members.) Ireland played a large role in drawing this issue to the attention of the EU, and it’s acknowledged on all sides that, on this particular issue, the EU won’t make a deal with the UK except on terms to which the Irish government assents. There is close and continuing liaison between the European officials concerned and the Irish government.
The principle of subsidiarity is not that decisions are made by a lower-level entity “on behalf of the rest”. It’s that decisions should be made at the lowest appropriate level.
“Appropriate” is the key word here. The NI/RoI border isn’t just a border between NI and the RoI. It’s also a border between the EU and the UK. Any goods that cross from NI into RoI can circulate freely throughout the Union. Any goods crossing the other way can circulate freely throughout the UK. A decision not to police the NI border from the UK side is not a decision to forego NI customs revenue for goods imported into NI; it’s a decision to forego UK customs revenue from goods imported into the UK via NI. A decision not to apply migration controls at the NI border is not a decision to allow the world free entry into NI; it’s a decision to allow the world free entry into the UK via NI. And so forth. And similar considerations apply from the EU side.
So, it isn’t appropriate that this border be regulated by the NI institutions and the RoI institutions. The concerns and interests of larger communities are involved here. The principle of subsidiarity would say that the question shouldn’t be handed by the NI and RoI authorities, but at a higher level.
There were some news articles last spring that Irish and British gov’t reps were each visiting the US-Canada border crossings in the Detroit and Niagara regions, to check out the “world’s longest undefended border” and see if it could be a model.
The Taoiseach made a trip and flatly rejected it. Said that it wasn’t a military border, but it was a “hard border” - with armed customs and immigration guards on both sides. Not a model for post-Brexit.
I voted tactically in 2017. Don’t confuse voting against the SNP with supporting the Tories. And the SNP candidate was a useless waste of space anyway.
OK, have we got to the point where we can call the ERG a pathetic bunch of posturing lily-livered shitebags? Because I really want to call the ERG a pathetic bunch of posturing lily-livered shitebags and I sort of feel that the time at which I’m fully justified in doing so is fast upon us.
Since Wednesday we’ve had to endure the dis-edifying spectacle of Rees-Mogg and Baker et. al. strutting round like cocks of the parliamentary walk, braying about how rebellion was brewing, and May had better reflect on her position, and they didn’t want to take a swing at the leader but for two pins they would, and they were a race-car in the red and you didn’t want to mess with a race-car in the red etc. etc. et bloody cetera, with Rees-Mogg even going so far as to hold a press conference to commemmorate the event of him handing in his fucking letter to the 1922 committee. Speculation has been, as the clowns would have it, rife. Any minute now, the last letter would go in, Brady would announce a vote of no confidence, and we’d be off to the races.
Except… it didn’t happen on Thursday. Then it didn’t happen on Friday. Then we heard that ERG members were very sensibly going home for the weekend to talk to their constituency chairs in order to sound out the local party before this momentous decision but that by golly, come Monday the letters would be in, the chips would be down, the balloon would go up and the cows would come home.
And here we are, almost 5pm and… nada. Not even a whimper, far less a bang. Now there are mutterings that the real trigger point is the Parliamentary vote and if May lets it go that far, well, JRMs a peacable man but you can push a chap just too far you know, blah, blah, moan, moan, moan.
So, am I being premature? Might the next ten minutes make the foregoing look foolish indeed? Or are the ERG a pathetic bunch of posturing lily-livered shitebags who have shot their wad early and whom can choose to ignore or laugh at as she sees fit?
Interesting - I hadn’t heard that. The few times I’ve crossed the border from the US into Canada, even since 9-11, I’ve essentially been waved through, but there are certainly armed guards on both sides if any serious shit goes down.
These people think they could negotiate a better deal if they were in charge yet they can’t even organise a letter writing campaign.
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