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THE OBSERVER FRONT PAGE: Irish warn May: change course or risk Brexit chaos #skypapers pic.twitter.com/6ps0W3Scbx
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It would be undesirable for there to be a hard land border between the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
It would be unacceptable for the whole, or part, of the UK to remain in the Single Market or the Customs Union.
Therefore the most obvious and straightforward solution would be for the whole of Ireland to rejoin the UK.
Except for the purposes of the Eurovision Sonk Ontest, in which it is mutually beneficial for the UK and R or I to vote for each other.
Ireland is damaged by Brexit and is prepared to play hardball using the leverage afforded to it by membership of the EU, ironically, against a United Kingdom diminished by the loss of it.
"There is no word for schadenfraude in Gaelic" was a challenge I had to take, so have come up with àgh millteach (Scots Gaelic) which does seem to mean schadenfreude. Take that as you will.
Hard border or CU including all the UK are the most likely outcomes. Ireland is pushing for the second by threatening no deal if there's no regulatory conformance of the North with the EU, but they really want a UK Soft Brexit. The Conservative government is not going to agree that just to help Northern Ireland, which voted Remain in the referendum. There are good reasons for the UK to stay in the Customs Union. Which makes me think the Irish would be better to play a longer game. Be firm on the transition, where the UK stays in the Single Market and Customs Union and vague on the end arrangement. By then the Irish may not need use their veto on the deal.
I do fear for their sanity: 30% of their economy is a confluence of US re-imports, many of which are UK-bound. Keeping the CTA and a WTO solution on intra-Ireland trade is the only sensible solution.
The EU have said that we either accept Norway or CETA - fine, we will take CETA. But the problem is that the CETA FTA (like all FTAs) is not built on following someone else's regulations, it is built on mutual acceptance of each others regulations.
The EU are terrified (quite rightly) that the UK will diverge and become more competitive and want to find some excuse to insist on the UK using the EU's regulatory regime after Brexit.
All this Irish stuff is their way of getting there. They want to bully the UK into accepting EU regulations so that we can't really leave the CU and SM even though we won't get the benefits.
The Irish need to be told very bluntly to get stuffed. There is going to be a border between NI and ROI whatever they do. They need to focus on how to make that border as unobtrusive as possible, but it is going to exist. Norway and Sweden manage it, the Irish need to start proper discussions rather than just acting as the EU Commissions little bitch.
:some-things-never-change:
I appreciate that it is complex for bears of very little brain. But Leavers and the UK government have to do a damn sight better than they have so far on this topic.
(See https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/26/observer-view-on-irish-border-farce-and-brexit)
We’ve made the omlettes; we simply can’t go back to the eggs. To suggest we can is simplistic thinking at it’s most basic.
Nobody is allowed to leave, ever, especially one who's their favourite piggy bank.
Every day with them exposes how correct the brexit vote was.
F1: pre-race ramble with the final tip for this season is up here:
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/abu-dhabi-pre-race-2017.html
.......And facing them are the Great and the Good. Those who put the 'CIVIL' into civilisation. The Enlightened the Intellectuals the Creatives the Worthy the Compassionate the Country's finest in every field except vaccum cleaner manufacture....
The classic tale of La Belle et La Bete.......
And as everyone knows La Belle always wins in the end...
King Cole, doesn't everybody think everybody else is wrong? If a man thought he was wrong, he'd change his mind.
But were ARE leaving. If there is no agreement, the EU/Irish positions are royally stuffed. So they might as well talk and come up with something that is their usual fudge. I suggest a "temporary " derogation from their norms, which somehow never gets round to being changed....
The Irish question is merely the starting point. A frictionless border with the other EU countries is just as essential.
The EU has no desire to punish or handicap us, merely supporting its own members, as one expects in a union that encompasses a continent, when you include the countries in Single Market or Customs Union. We have it seems ruled out being Norway or Sweden and decided to be Belarus instead.
The UK - Ireland border will become a hard border like the Greek-Turkish border, the India-Pakistan border, the USA-Mexico border etc. Perhaps a second referendum might need to be held in the UK on the question of the UK-Irish border?
Strong sense of deja vu for this latest tiff. The ROI are not a home nation and aren’t our friends.
Stirling politician Stephen Kerr posted the image of the spray paint on his Twitter account.
We give Northern Ireland to the Republic.
Solves so many other problems too.
Discussion on the border is moot until the trade agreement is (or isn’t) finalised, then we can discuss what does or doesn’t need to happen between NI and the Republic.
I’d say that Ireland have the most to lose from ‘no deal’, of all the EU nations. They need to maintain their interests in the discussions yet be careful about overplaying their hand. From the last couple of weeks they sound like they’re desperate for no deal, as if they’ve been listening to those in Britain who think Brexit can somehow be stopped.
Hopefully common sense will prevail in the end.
After we lost the referendum (I was a eurosceptic remainer and did my bit in the campaign) my reaction, after getting over the initial shock, was as follows:
1. That is the end of our days as a world power.
2. That is the end of three decades of policy towards Ireland and the peace process.
3. This makes Scottish independence a certainty.
That is before the more down to earth questions, like how will this affect our financial services industry, and how will we be able to manage our economy through the transition. And then: the best part of my working life is probably going to be ruined by this chaos, and I may no longer live and travel around Europe freely which due to my personal circumstances is very important to me.
But, 1, 2 and 3 always struck me as the most fundamental and intractible issues relating to Brexit which just weren't property explored or understood in the campaign. Number 3, Scotland - we seem to have just managed to blustered our way through; although it is by no means resolved. But 1 and 2 should have be given much more prominence than they have.
It points to the conclusion that whilst accepting the decision, we should have done a lot more thinking after the vote about these fundamental problems. (In the absence of the thinking taking place before the vote).
The solution is to just try and bluster our way through each of the problems as they arise and blame someone else when things don't go our way. Ultimately, I cannot see this strategy working. It seems more and more likely that it will just bring us in to conflict with our former allies, which will take a generation to undo.
How about Sheffield to Lancashire while we’re trolling these things?
There is a significant difference between a planned WTO Brexit (with hard Irish border) and a hostile WTO Brexit.
I think Cyclefree is right that a retreat into a De Valera insularity is a risk, but even that did have some soft aspects such as the Irish Free State, CTA, UK naval bases and effective currency union. Even now Irish politics is still split FG vs FF, originating in pro and anti treaty forces.
Someone needs to blink. No-one can afford to politically. So the talks next month will be brief, UK industry will pull it's war book off the shelves, and we'll see how opinion changes as industry starts to dismember the economy during 2018.
Our wazzock government and their supporters will insist it's everyone else's fault. But when Honda announce that the current Civic will be the last car built at Swindon, or BMW announce big investment over at the Nedcar factory to take work off Cowley they will spell out clearly and factually why TWO makes industry in this country economically uncompetitive. '52/48 for "leave the European Union" = 100% for leaving absolutely everything else that's not the EU won't survive. And as the Tories will have wedded themselves to it they won't survive either.
Hard Brexit is politically an Extinction Level Event for anyone who touches it. UKIP have already gone. The Tories are next.
As for Gibraltar, maybe inevitable now thanks to Brexit.
Spain believes Gibraltar will now fall out of the single market on 29 March 2019. Gibraltar’s prime minister, Fabian Picardo, has previously suggested that a hard Brexit would pose an “existential threat”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/22/gibraltar-heading-for-abrupt-exit-from-single-market-says-spain
Both the EU and the UK are going to have to agree a constructive ambiguity regarding the NI land border, and agree to turn a blind eye to several things, if it is going to work.
That will require maturity, foresight and intelligence on both sides.
Any plans in place for this ? Tells you all you need to know...
Dublin is paying the price for its serious miscalculation.
If the Mayfly, supported by the 3 Brexiteer clowns and others, insists on a hard Brexit outside the CU/FM, a plebiscite in the 6 counties on Irish re-unification might clarify the preference of the population most affected between a hard border across Ulster and one along the Irish Sea.
I am not an expert on this subject, but it strikes me that we could achieve the goal of controlling immigration and sovereignty over most of our laws whilst remaining in the customs union.
As I pointed out before, the freedom to make our own trade deals is a hobby horse of a minority of Brexiteers and unlikely to be a priority for many of the people who voted for Brexit.
I don't understand why those who love the EU can't understand that people have more affiliation to the UK than their pet project.
I really, really wish we could get on with ‘real stuff’, about social care, improving productivity and so on.
A retrograde move of course, but not that difficult.
ROI is just the latest actor in the game to be sitting with its mouth open waiting for gold to be stuffed in it.
If it was an Olympic sport they’d be serious contenders.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/26/anna-soubry-interview-brexit-history-will-condemn-this-period
"if the prime minister doesn’t do what she’s perfectly capable of doing, which is to try and unite people as opposed to fuel further division, our party is going to be destroyed.”
And not just in Ireland. France and the Netherlands have got some significant work to do under hard Brexit as well. In France it's simple - they will simply go on strike the minute we leave. The others will take longer but it will happen. The Berlin wall didn't appear overnight but it did appear as an effective if nor impervious barrier from day 1.
Meanwhile the usual dumb comments from our no surrender to the EU posters. We know the EU rules on borders with 3rd parties - our media frustration with them not being slammed shut hard enough on refugees adding to the leave propaganda. So why we seem to think the EU imposing EU rules we knew about and want enforcing elsewhere is somehow them being mean to Blighty beggars belief
What happens on the Irish border will also apply to English ports through which people and goods move to the EU27.
See Britain is prepared to sacrifice Northern Ireland for the greater good, we can do it again.
The EU have forgotten that we don't have a history of succumbing to pressure from a foreign power.
Similar to driving into the London congestion charge zone.
In turn that implies a blind eye to various forms of trafficking, but again the U.K. appears to be OK with that.
Gibraltar somewhat harder to resolve.
If Ireland want to be disruptive so be it.
As I said, political ELE. Once the Tories stop representing business and free trade, all they are left with is representing the interests of big capital - the bankers and hedge fund managers who own the party via their donations. Once the pretence of backing work has gone how will the party win the votes of working people which it needs for government? Hard to say "don't vote Labour they will bring about economic ruin" when you yourselves have just brought about economic ruin.
You can see why the Irish are wary of perfidious Albion, and want things codified into treaty now.
Counties Cavan/Monaghan/Donegal are in Eire.
Mark wood - the man with genuine pace and stokes - one of the best players in world cricket.
So who did the selectors pick for woods replacement - Jake ball - laughable.
And one more thing,someone have a word in Joe roots ear,50's won't cut it in Australia to win test matches when you are the best batter in the English cricket team,we need hundreds joe.
You're right, Brexit is a massive tax on business.
Essentially an elegant fudge. You need origin of goods paperwork but that's it. Turkey is free to sign FTAs with other markets
Strikes me a sensible approach either for NI or for all of the UK