British, Irish, or both
Fintan O'Toole has a piece in the New York review of Books on "Brexit's Irish Question" which can be read here.
I spent much of the EU referendum period as a floating voter, and when after weeks of careful consideration I came off the fence and decided to vote Remain, one of the three main reasons for that decision was the difficulty of finding a solution to the issue of Britain's border with Ireland after leaving the EU which does not undermine the agreement which brought peace to Ireland, sabotage the economy of both parts of the island, or create a massive loophole which may fatally undermine any attempt to "take back control" of Britain's borders.
O'Toole's article is extremely good about how dramatically Ireland has moved forward in the last thirty years, about how enabling communities in Northern Ireland to think of themselves as "Irish, British or both" was central to the peace process and about the enormous difficulty of policing any recreated "hard border" between the two parts of the island of Ireland.
As he rightly says, that border
"meanders for 310 miles and is not a natural boundary. It was never planned as a logical dividing line, still less the edge of a vast 27-state union"
but comprises the squiggly edges of a group of six Irish counties which had a protestant majority in 1921. And most important of all "It cannot be securely policed."
He is absolutely right about this.
Any attempt to put up a hard border in Ireland would fail unless you were daft enough to try to create something like the Berlin wall, but even a more proportionate attempt would have dire consequences for the economies and people on both sides of the border.
I would ask anyone who reads his article to pay attention to these parts of his article which richly deserve consideration and not to be too upset by his comments about England outside London - I do mean England, not Britain - and about "Leave" supporters in particular which are rather less well-founded.
Nor is he entirely fair to the present British government, which fully understands how difficult this question will be to resolve and is working with the Irish government and the EU to try to find a solution.
But most of the points he makes about Ireland are well made and deserve a hearing.
But it is utterly vital that Britain manages to agree a mutually acceptable deal with Ireland and the rest of the EU which protects the interests of those on both sides of the Irish border, and all parties will have to be prepared to compromise.
The people negotiating our exit from the EU have come under fire from "stop-the-world-I-want-to-get-off" headbangers" on both sides of the argument - extremist "Remain" supporters who think there is a chance that Britain might actually not leave and denounce anyone who is trying to make our exit work, and equally extreme Brexit supporters who are itching for the chance to denounce any compromise as a betrayal of the 52% of the electorate who voted Leave.
Ireland is only one of the difficult areas where the zealots on both sides of the debate are making it all the harder to get a sensible deal which works in the interests of all the people of Britain.
I spent much of the EU referendum period as a floating voter, and when after weeks of careful consideration I came off the fence and decided to vote Remain, one of the three main reasons for that decision was the difficulty of finding a solution to the issue of Britain's border with Ireland after leaving the EU which does not undermine the agreement which brought peace to Ireland, sabotage the economy of both parts of the island, or create a massive loophole which may fatally undermine any attempt to "take back control" of Britain's borders.
O'Toole's article is extremely good about how dramatically Ireland has moved forward in the last thirty years, about how enabling communities in Northern Ireland to think of themselves as "Irish, British or both" was central to the peace process and about the enormous difficulty of policing any recreated "hard border" between the two parts of the island of Ireland.
As he rightly says, that border
"meanders for 310 miles and is not a natural boundary. It was never planned as a logical dividing line, still less the edge of a vast 27-state union"
but comprises the squiggly edges of a group of six Irish counties which had a protestant majority in 1921. And most important of all "It cannot be securely policed."
He is absolutely right about this.
Any attempt to put up a hard border in Ireland would fail unless you were daft enough to try to create something like the Berlin wall, but even a more proportionate attempt would have dire consequences for the economies and people on both sides of the border.
I would ask anyone who reads his article to pay attention to these parts of his article which richly deserve consideration and not to be too upset by his comments about England outside London - I do mean England, not Britain - and about "Leave" supporters in particular which are rather less well-founded.
Nor is he entirely fair to the present British government, which fully understands how difficult this question will be to resolve and is working with the Irish government and the EU to try to find a solution.
But most of the points he makes about Ireland are well made and deserve a hearing.
But it is utterly vital that Britain manages to agree a mutually acceptable deal with Ireland and the rest of the EU which protects the interests of those on both sides of the Irish border, and all parties will have to be prepared to compromise.
The people negotiating our exit from the EU have come under fire from "stop-the-world-I-want-to-get-off" headbangers" on both sides of the argument - extremist "Remain" supporters who think there is a chance that Britain might actually not leave and denounce anyone who is trying to make our exit work, and equally extreme Brexit supporters who are itching for the chance to denounce any compromise as a betrayal of the 52% of the electorate who voted Leave.
Ireland is only one of the difficult areas where the zealots on both sides of the debate are making it all the harder to get a sensible deal which works in the interests of all the people of Britain.
Comments
IMHO the least worst solution would be an agreement with the government of Ireland and with the EU to make the island of Ireland a free travel area while monitoring those who arrive on the island at ports and airports in both Ireland and Northern Ireland so that those who do not have the right to enter the UK cannot use Ireland as a stepping stone to do so.
Does that sound difficult to work? You're damn right it does. But putting up a hard border through the island of Ireland is both totally unworkable and completely unacceptable.