The position taken
by the UK Government – that Brexit cannot be allowed to create an ‘internal’ border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK - is an entirely
reasonable one for any government to take.
Even if it were not so, the reliance of the current administration on
the votes of the DUP requires no movement on that question.
The desire of the
same government to do nothing which unpicks the Irish peace process is an
equally reasonable and sensible one; no-one in their right mind (although whether
that’s a fair expectation of May and crew is a separate question) would wish to
endanger the progress which has been made.
So avoiding a hard border across Ireland is an imperative for them.
And, given some
of the wilder promises made by Brexiteers about freedom and independence, it’s understandable
that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ requires departure from the single market and the customs
union.
The problem for
the UK Government is that the three positions - all in themselves reasonable and logical outcomes
of the vote last year – are not concurrently achievable. They can have any two of them, but will have
to yield on the third. It’s clearly an
unpalatable choice, but it will have to be made. Their position to date seems to consist of
demanding that ‘someone else’ (i.e. the EU27) comes up with an imaginative
solution of the type that they are themselves unable to either imagine or articulate,
and that the other side’s unwillingness to do what they can't do themselves amounts to bully-boy tactics. The default position - increasingly likely given
the lack of any serious attempt to do otherwise – is a hard border across
Ireland. Like so much else of the 'negotiating' attempts of the UK, it's as though they are working in a vacuum, in a way which isn't going to impact on real people.
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2 comments:
On the position of the border with Ireland and Britain; there are several types of boarder`s within the EU. There are the Channel Islands, San Merino, Lichtenstein and Monte Carlo, but I believe these are “hosted” by an actual member. One that is not (but I might be wrong) is the Vatican state which is recognised as a sovereign state and has all the trappings to go along with it, including up until recently, an international banking system that could be described as a “shady bank in a sunny place”.
So, the principle has been established of a no border frontier, although the geography might be different.
As for negotiations – forget it, my friends in low places tell me that Frau Merkel is in deep do- do in trying to get a government together and that two scenarios are being considered – dumping poor Mutti owing to her political baggage or calling another election next year, which would only benefit one party.
The status of what some call ´micro-states' is an interesting debate in itself. I'm not at all sure, though, that any of them are a terribly helpful precedent for a major economy like the UK. They do demonstrate that open orders are perfectly possible, and if the UK were willing to accept open borders,then the negotiation process would probably be proceeding a lot more expeditiously. The problem, however, is that 'open borders' seems to be one of the few things that the UK Government can agree that it does not want. Or rather, it wants one border to be open whilst all the rest are closed, and wants somebody else to work out ow that can be achieved.
I don't know whether your friends in low places are on the money or not; but I dont think that I'd really want to depend on them.
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