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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Brexit Irish issue: Ex-British Army officer who served there takes issue with Moggsy
There are several interesting elements of The Moggster’s latest contribution to the Brexit debate. First, he has shown that he understands that the land border in Northern Ireland is a critical issue in the Brexit negotiations. Secondly, he has shown, by harking back to the Troubles with such breezy insouciance, that he fundamentally misunderstands the history of the island of Ireland. And thirdly, in telling us that no checks on the border would leave the UK “in as bad a situation as we are already in”, he has shown that he believes that the existing system of travel between the UK and Ireland is awful, which is an extraordinary comment for a British politician to make.
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However, I think it skirts around the main issue which is Mogg's obsession: the UK-EU relationship in the forms of the Single Market and Customs union.
The reason why he's not bothered about a hard border is because he wants out of both the SM and CU, and thinks (1) that the EU won't compromise on its principle of a consistent border, (2) that an intra-UK border is either unacceptable or undeliverable, and (3) that in the absence of any such compromise, leaving the CU/SM is more important than maintaining an open border.
I can't honestly say that his logic on any of these points is likely to be wrong. Where I part company from him is in his enthusiasm for a hard border as an end-point. It would be a deeply regrettable conclusion to what's been a depressing process almost from the start, not something to be celebrated.
Once this crisis is over you need to take a hard look at how people like this can get elected.
Thank you and yes; he is a clown.
I am not at all sure how he sees the UK in terms of associations with anyone else, EU or not.
For Eurostar, I thought everyone was checked? At least it looked that way when I last travelled.
Immigration - have the Swiss style shop-your-employer scheme.
Drugs - serious financial penalties for users. Spot fines. Letters to employers. Mandatory education programs.
Shoddy goods - turnover based fines for importers / retailers selling goods that fail tests by trading standards and penalties for managers / directors.
We could do that, maintain an open border under CTA and see what the EU want to do.
People like JRM will either be forced to recant their stupidity or be fired into the Irish sea, via trebuchet.
The English have a tendency to assume that form matters almost as much as substance. So if you are polite, fluent and look the part (even eccentrically) and don’t rant, people don’t pay as much attention to whatever rubbish is coming out of your mouth.
I will probably be slated for this. But JRM is, in his own way, as much of a menace to British politics as Corbyn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQJDoiqBjBE
So beautiful.
To make Brexit work we need to sell out Northern Ireland.
Unfortunately that isn't the only item to negotiate. If we mess the EU around on Northern Ireland, their leverage against us is overwhelming and it won't matter a damn if our wheeze of just ignoring the Irish border implications is successful in the short term.
On the politics, as so often @david_herdson puts his finger on the key point. This is JRM working backwards from his conclusion to his argument.
Stepping back a little, and picking up on the discussions near the end of the previous thread, I'm not at all convinced that the outcome of all this is going to be JRM and his fellow ultras trooping through the same division lobby as Vince Cable, the SNP, and the Labour Party as a whole including Chuka Umanna and his fellow ultras in order to vote down any deal that the PM might come back with. For that to happen, those two diametrically-opposed groups would have to agree not only that they don't like The Deal, but also that defeating it would move the issue in their favoured direction, and therefore by definition in the opposite of the favoured direction of the other group. Is that really likely, and would they really make common cause?
As with lawyers, almost all of them have the necessary technical knowledge. What you should be looking for is whether they know their clients.
The UK lets in plenty of non-EU citizens as it is without them having to get to Ireland first.
Says a lot they can function without a government for so long.
The natives won't even notice if they get screwed over Brexit.
This matters of course because unless I've missed it, we still don't seem to have implemented the registration process for EU citizens resident in the UK and unless and until you know who is already here, and when they arrived, any other EU citizens can present their EU passports and say "I've been here for 20 years".
As also mentioned, the interesting thing for me is that JRM it appears wouldn't have agreed the CTA in the first place, whatever its practical shortcomings or advantages.
Getting into the country is only a tiny part of the story.
As I have mentioned before, if I were TMay I would have my Windrush-type apologies already prepared for the countless number of ****-ups and misplaced deportations that will occur as a result of the process.
What happens, however, if we choose the option of simply ignoring the land border? The CTA would still be applied so Irish citizens would have freedom of movement as they had before the EU was in existence. EU citizens would have freedom of movement to Eire and could then use the lack of a border to get here.
That could be a problem depending on whether we are going to grant registrations to the existing 4m or so EU citizens here now which we accept will have a right to remain. If they have a registration certificate then an EU citizen who does not have one would be deported and in the meantime would not be allowed to rent a house, work, claim benefits or medical treatment, open a bank account etc.
The problem with this is that getting the current EU residents registered is going to be a frighteningly large job that I am not aware of us even starting yet. This may be because we have still to achieve an agreement with the EU about rights for citizens of each already in situ, something the EU seems peculiarly unwilling to discuss presumably on the basis that they are still holding out for FOM. As is the case with a number of matters we will need to make our minds up unilaterally and act.
In short, we need to put in place the sort of internal defences that Robert discussed in his recent video rather than focussing on a border but we really need to make up our mind how this is going to work from our perspective and get on with the administration of it whether we have agreement with the EU or not.
I think that the problem with goods is much less of an issue, at least for us. All goods currently proceeding across the border move from one tax and VAT regime to another. This will not change. No doubt there will be some smuggling, as there is now, but I think we can live with that, as we do now. If we take the view that goods coming from the EU meet EU standards and are therefore acceptable we can be pretty relaxed about this. Whether the EU would be depends on whether they are willing to trust us to maintain our standards and not grow, manufacture or import goods that are illegal in the SM. Genetically edited crops may be an example of such an issue as might be some imports from the US if we do a trade deal with them. Of course selling these goods in the SM will be an offence. It depends on whether the EU are willing to use "deep" defences as well or insist on border checks. That is really up to them.
The real problem is that these solutions are not really compatible with what our government has already signed up for. That was a mistake.
Mr. L, indeed. The EU's also sought to unilaterally alter what was agreed by suddenly insisting the customs union can only apply to Northern Ireland, seeking to commit a custom annexation of British territory and impose a customs border within the territory of a non-EU (as will be) state.
[I don't think the customs union is acceptable at all, but that's another kettle of monkeys].
For the other borders VAT, tax, standards we already have an internal mechanism for ensuring the laws of the land are obeyed. Use them. The reality is the overwhelming majority of businesses will comply with the law as they are law abiding and the non law abiding wont irrespective of how many laws are passed.
Personally I have no issue with people popping across the Irish border for a bargain, it's what Newry lives on. It alweays has happened and always will. My father spent years tramping around Fermanagh when he was in the RUC trying to stop smuggling. It was a total waste of time except in so far as it put the chancers off a bit. These days internal detection via the social security system oirthe banking system are the easier way to enforce the laws.
the more amazing thing is that mainland UK is so effing stupid as to keep payi9ng the MLAs their salaries.
do somehing useful and start a petition to stop their pay
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/28/religion-ireland-catholicism-abusers
Remainers can cheer themselves up with the knowledge that irrespective how much the DUP demand pork in their barrel until they get back in to Stormont they cant spend it.
Ideally, a new agreement would implement a more flexible system, which still preserved the requirement for cross-community coalitions but which wasn't so prescriptive as to which parties were involved. Unfortunately, Westminster politics makes this all-but impossible.
https://sluggerotoole.com/2018/08/27/you-could-drive-a-double-decker-bus-through-stormont/
But really, as I said earlier, I don't think he's fussed about Ireland at all (hence his ignorant comments), other than how the NI border issue affects the future UK-EU relationship.
Sir,
– I’d like to add my voice to that of JH Martin (May 16th) regarding the woeful queues at Dublin Airport immigration. But what makes this baffling is that UK visitors have to go through this rigmarole, the same as visitors from anywhere else in the world, despite our much-vaunted and supposedly valued Common Travel Area.
Yet when I travel back to the UK, the authorities there keep their side of the bargain. I never have to pass through immigration and am treated much as an internal UK traveller.
How can we mope and moan about Brexit barriers being introduced when we haven’t made an effort to take advantage of existing agreements to make life easier for trade and travel between Ireland and the UK?
– Yours, etc,
DAVID CLARKE,
Edinburgh.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/passport-control-1.3097967
After Brexit imposing multi-hour waits in passport lines on businesspeople wishing to trade with "global Britain" and tourists wishing to contribute to our economy seems an odd way to go about it.
thats the state of play
https://sluggerotoole.com/2018/08/17/i-believe-so-strongly-that-we-have-a-massive-case-to-be-heard-this-is-about-a-way-of-life-we-cannot-go-back-to-any-form-of-hard-border/
I also thought the likes of Carlotta and Alan would understand what I said. Evidently it suits them not to.
or one of these docs:
But why do the Irish choose to have UK travellers processed through the same channels as arrivals from America, Europe and the Middle East?
At Gatwick, for example, CTA travellers have their own channel & baggage claim - no immigration, no customs.
Looks like one party values/respects the CTA more than another. Not the one making a fuss about 'hard borders'!
As you reap so you sow
Many years ago, just after the GFA and the ceasefires, we flew on a now long-defunct BA route from Cardiff to Belfast. We did not have to show ID at any point but on our way out we were asked to show our boarding passes to a plain-clothes (I'm guessing Special Branch) police officer (at least he was sitting at a desk marked "South Wales Police") before boarding. I wondered at the efficacy of this check as if we'd paid cash for our tickets, we could have used any names we liked.
personally I ignore him
If you are flying solely within the UK, including Northern Ireland, you do not need a passport but we advise that you carry photographic identification with you when travelling, such as your passport or driving licence. This may be requested at certain points in your journey. Children under the age of 16 years do not require identification to travel within the UK.
Flights UK <>Republic of Ireland
If you are a citizen of the UK or Republic of Ireland who was born in that country you do not need a passport to travel between the two countries but you do require some form of photographic identification, such as a driving licence.
All other travellers require a valid passport to travel between the two countries.
https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/passports-visas-and-api
and as you know its a line behind which a set of laws apply
not even a brit fascist oppressor like yourelf is calling for a hard border
PS where were you based ?
I used to live about 500 yds from Thiepval Barracks, the first time my now wife visited she was awoken to the sound of helicopters flying over the house and machine gun fire from the practice range. Nobody in the family could understand what she was fussing about.