Hell has officially frozen over again ...

Well, well, well. An article on "Brexit central" is called out for praise by the Chief political columnist of the (strongly pro-Remain) Independent newspaper.

And that same article on "Brexit Central" quotes approvingly a report commissioned by the European parliament.

Hell has officially frozen over again!

It would appear that, just for once, a few people on both sides of the "Remain/Leave" divide have actually looked with an open mind about how we can find solutions to some of the very difficult problems facing Britain as we prepare to leave the EU.

In this case one of the most difficult challenges of the lot, the issue of the Irish Border.

I am one of the first to agree that this is very hard to crack, so much so that my doubts before the referendum about whether it could be solved in an acceptable way were one of the three main reasons why after a lot of agonising I decided to vote Remain.

But the country voted Leave and now we have to find a solution to the Irish border which doesn't wreck the economy of both halves of Ireland, sabotage the EU customs union, prevent Britain from striking trade deals, or make a nonsense of UK immigration policy.

In the face of an enormous wave of pessimism about this, Hugh Bennett's excellent article,

"It's time to stop doom-mongering over the Irish border - the solutions are already out there"

is a refreshing change in taking a positive look for solutions rather than giving up and just recounting the problems.

And, fascinatingly, one of the places they found some solutions was, quote,

"A report commissioned and published by none other than the European Parliament – hardly a hotbed of optimistic post-Brexit thought – entitled Smart Border 2.0: Avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland for Customs control and the free movement of persons."

Specific solutions proposed to “create a low-friction border for the movement of goods” by the report include:

A bilateral EU-UK agreement regulating an advanced Customs cooperation that avoids duplication and where UK and Irish Customs can undertake inspections on behalf of each other;

Mutual recognition of Authorized Economic Operators (AEO); A Customs-to-Customs technical agreement on exchange of risk data;

Pre-registration of operators (AEO) and people (Commercial Travellers programme in combination with a Certified Taxable Person programme);

Identification system by the border;

A Single Window with one-stop-shop-elements;

A Unique Consignment reference number (UCR);

A simplified Customs declaration system (100% electronic) with re-use of export data for imports; Mobile Control and Inspection Units;

Technical surveillance of border (CCTV, ANPR etc)

The report only describes a low friction border, not an entirely frictionless border, calling as it does for the installation of CCTV and ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) cameras.

However, cameras and, checks away from the physical border of the kind described are not going to wreck the economies of both parts of the island of Ireland the way a hard border would, yet this kind of solution holds out the prospect of implementing the necessary controls which are necessary to avoid fatally undermining the trade and immigration policies of either the EU or the UK without a hard border.

(NB there are some technical terms in the list above. They are explained in the paper. If you want to know what any of them mean, move your mouse over the words "Smart Border 2.0" and left click and you will be taken to the paper where you will find the explanations.)

Hugh Bennett concludes:

"Ultimately, coming up with a workable solution to the problem requires the British and Irish governments – and more importantly, the EU – to accept that there is a balance to be struck between the small increase in the risk of non-compliance and the imperative to keep the border as open and invisible."

"To put concerns over a marginal increase in possible non-compliance ahead of an issue of genuine human concern – keeping the border smooth and open – would be a clear mistake. Once the EU accepts this, it should be well within the capabilities of both sides to come up with a solution for the border which works in the best interests of everyone on both sides of it."

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