It is beyond infuriating to read people suggesting that Ireland is an EU problem, and that the UK need not put up a border at all.
We are more than 18 months along in this process, leaving in March next year, and the UK government has still not established what it wants to happen as a result of brexit. In particular the UK has still not worked out how to reconcile the UK commitments:
- to leaving the EU,
- leaving the single market,
- leaving the customs union; and yet,
- still maintaining no border within Ireland whilst also not setting up a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
None of this is new. None of this is rocket science and none of this is particularly contentious. It is not possible to square this circle: the only reason that the Labour Party has agreed membership of a customs union as policy.
FactCheck spoke to Aoife O’Donoghue, Professor of Law at the University of Durham to understand the issue.
She explained that the no-border option is off the table: “that’s gone. If the UK had chosen to stay in the customs union and the single market, you could do that. But in deciding not to, that means there has to be some form of border.”
Given the conditions imposed by the UK government, some form of border control between Ireland and the UK is inevitable.
Because let’s be very clear, there is no technological solution currently available that would remove the need for border controls and border inspections in Ireland. The most automated, technological advanced border in the world between Sweden (EU) and Norway (single market but not customs union) the average stop for each lorry is 20 minutes. They deal with significantly less traffic than we see from Ireland.
The UK government itself has already rejected the most up to date comprehensive technological solution (SMART2.0) presented to the Eu as inadequate and unsuitable for Ireland.
And aside from trade tariffs, once we are outside of the EU and not committed to following all of the same rules, regulations and standards, then we will have to see manual stops, inspections and certification of livestock at the border, if only for basic health and safety and disease prevention.
Which also explains why those people bleeding on about the Common Travel Area (CTA) between the UK and Ireland have entirely missed the point. The CTA pre-dates membership of the EU by both the UK and Ireland. It required regulatory alignment between the UK and Ireland to allow free movement between the two islands. It was effectively replaced by membership of the EU, which ensured the same thing and also allowed free movement across the broader membership countries.
When we leave, Ireland will remain in the EU and will change its rules, standards and regulations in line with the EU. The only way to maintain a CTA would be for the UK to also agree to change all of its rules, standards and regulations in line with the EU, despite being outside of the EU, and obviously with no say on how those rules, standards and regulations were decided.
& the harder the brexit, the harder the border between the UK and Ireland will have to be, where the very extreme end of the spectrum is a hard border where the UK leaves with no deal and has to default to World Trade Organisation rules.
If the UK defaults to WTO rules (using copied-and-pasted versions of the EU’s tariffs in the short term), the EU would still have to maintain its side of the border. That would require check goods coming into Ireland from the UK. That’s because the EU’s existence as a free trade area depends on its ability to demonstrate to the WTO that it can control its external borders properly.
In theory, the UK could decide not to impose checks on goods moving the other way (i.e. from the Republic into Northern Ireland). This could make a hard border slightly softer though of course basic checks on livestock etc would be required from a health and safety, disease prevention perspective.
But there’s a catch: under WTO rules, unless you’re in a free trade bloc like the EU or NAFTA, you have to obey the “most favoured nation” rule.
That means if you lower trade tariffs for one trading partner, you have to lower tariffs to all your other partners. Professor O’Donoghue explains:
“If the UK chooses not impose any tariffs on goods coming across the [Irish] border… that would mean that the UK is giving the EU (because Ireland is the EU in this context) complete open access. So its most favoured nation tariff is zero. That means it would have to give a zero tariff access to every single country in the WTO.”
Abolishing import tariffs unilaterally would have a seriously damaging impact on UK manufacturing and agriculture.
So then we are faced with the option of a hard border between N Ireland and the rest of the UK which is likely to be very difficult politically. We currently have a minority government propped up by the support of N Ireland’s DUP. It is inconceivable that they would vote for any kind of “special status” viewing it as a step towards a reunited Ireland. Some MP’s may well think that perhaps we should just sacrifice the six counties of N Ireland entirely, but again, with a minority government they simply don’t have the votes to force the required referendum in N Ireland.
& then there is the sad truth that whilst the DUP may fight tooth and nail to avoid “special status” other devolved governments such as Scotland might well argue that they would like to be part of the N ireland “special status” having voted convincingly to remain within the EU.
And at stake is our trade relationship with Ireland, one of the very few countries that we run a trade surplus with (around £6bn) in both trade in goods and services.
Round and round we go: where we stop nobody knows.