Posted on 06/19/2019 7:57:08 AM PDT by Hostage
See #9 above.
US-Canada already demonstrated border tech that works.
What is the Irish backstop? A fake issue engineered by the EU to sow pain, fear and dissention and either convince the UK to bend the knee and beg to come back OR to make them suffer needlessly if they don’t. I say it’s fake because they created it just to throw a monkey wrench into the works and there is no other reason for it. It’s very real to the people it effects.
The only Catholics left in Eire, are the Polish immigrants.
That solves that particular issue....the problem is, it’s way more than this...the nature of being in the EU is all-encompassing.
Take for example, the manufacture selling use and disposal of a widget.
In the current EU world, there would be regulations as to how it is made (labor, environmental, basically everything). It doesn’t matter which country (er, member state) it is made in, so long as it is made Precisely In Conformity With Those Regulations.
Once it is so made, it can freely travel within the EU.
Then, it can be sold anywhere within the EU. However, it must be displayed in a shop according to guidelines from Brussels, on the right shelf, at the right height, etc. and must be displayed in only environmentally approved packaging and so on.
Then the point of sale has its own unique requirements, and it must be used according to Health and Safety As Said By Brussels.
And finally....it can only be thrown away in EU approved trash bins (after sorting, of course, into the proper recyclable or not bin).
The point being: if you are in for a little EU, you are in for the whole thing and the whole thing is Everything.
Ireland cannot have an open border to a country that doesn’t do all of the above because that will allow lots of stuff to not comply with Life In The EU which must be as Brussels says.
An open Irish border would effectively dissolve the EU.
Which would be great! But ain’t gonna happen.
I have to wonder if this is going to come to fisticuffs?
The excuse artists can make up any crap story they want. Manufacturing regulations are not at root of Remainers excuses, banking is.
Whenever thinking of what the EU is, think of bankers calling the shots at the ECB and BIS. They are all too happy to think they conquered Britain without firing a shot.
The Brits are not fools, not all of them and not a majority of them. And more and more each day are becoming aware. The Brexit movement is growing rapidly. By October it will control Westminster.
I sure hope so!
Farage may kill the Conservative Party, and Trump may kill the GOP...and out of the ashes?
With regards to how goods and people are handled as between border EU and non-EU member states I still think the widget example is important. I don’t think it’s easy for the UK to leave and for the EU to remain what it is. Actually I think it’s downright impossible.
I don’t quite know enough about the banking regs in the EU to know what’s at stake, what must be decided upon and so on. But if a state in the US were to, ahem, secede...yes, banks would have a difficult time in transitioning. That said....three and a half years would seem to be enough.
You have it precisely.
It’s a big bad monster in the closet that the recent Brexit Party showed is nothing more than a squeaky mouse.
I understand your pragmatic viewpoint. It might be compared, though, with solving the Two China problem by giving China Taiwan. Ah, peace in the region, except for those pesky Taiwanese who don’t want to be controlled by the PRC.
It could be The Troubles redux, a series on constant conflicts wherein, IMHO, a pox is earned on both houses.
This is going to be even more complicated for the Irish and British if Scotland has the talked-about second referendum on seceding from the UK (and rejoining/staying in the EU). Both Scotland and Northern Ireland were regions that firmly voted to remain in the EU, and many of those settled by Cromwell there were from Scotland.
This video explains Brexit pretty well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Yv24cM2os&ab_channel=CGPGrey
Northern Ireland has some of the most loyal UK members in the Isle. They won’t leave the UK.
The Good Friday Agreement is that no wall will be built between the Irelands. This ended the Troubles in 1973.
I don’t see the big problem with keeping the Irish border as is. UK has no obligation to the EU and Ireland is a free country. If the EU wants to build a wall, let them come over and try it.
Got that. But who’s going to enforce this border? Not the UK. They don’t care.
Not Northern Ireland. They’re with the UK.
Not the Republic of Ireland. They don’t want a wall.
That leaves the EU. How can they enforce the border?
1993, right? Not 1973?
And problem is....Ireland is absolutely not a free country.
It’s in the EU. So Ireland absolutely is not free to agree to anything on its own.
BUT...to your point...
If the UK does a hard brexit, and says the border stays open...and Ireland doesn’t try to stop it...
What exactly IS the EU going to do?
I suppose there’s lots of penalties that can be imposed on Ireland....but would they really try to build the wall? I sort of doubt it.
The open border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is not a consequence of EU membership. Neither the Republic nor the UK are in the Schengen open-borders zone, which only covers certain UK countries. The NI/RoI open border is a bilateral arrangement between the UK and the RoI which was an essential component of the Good Friday agreement ending 30 years of sectarian violence in the North. EU membership didn’t make the border open (though the fact that both parties were EU members certainly lubricated the agreement). But the ending of EU membership by one of the two parties necessarily threatens the bilateral arrangement also.
I mean, of course, only certain EU countries. Apologies.
What's not often realised is that, since it's not in Schengen, the sea nad air borders between the UK and all other EU countries are alrady 'hard'. If you arrive in the UK from France, Germany etc you have to go through border checks.
yes, well said
Regarding the Good Friday Agreement: I’m not sure where I got 1973 from. It’s not 1993 either. It’s April 10, 1998. I didn’t realize it was that recent. It seemed longer.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Good-Friday-Agreement
“The NI/RoI open border is a bilateral arrangement between the UK and the RoI . . . EU membership didn’t make the border open (though the fact that both parties were EU members certainly lubricated the agreement). But the ending of EU membership by one of the two parties necessarily threatens the bilateral arrangement also.”
Okay, I’m not following you. 1. The GFA was made independent of the EU, between the UK and the RoI. 2. The UK and RoI were both in the EU. 3. The UK leaves the EU.
How does fact 3 affect fact 1? They seem completely independent and UK’s membership or exit should be completely without effect on the GFA.
That’s false.
1. It is the Irish who pushed for the backstop. The other 27 members stuck with a small country.
2. The other offer was of a seamless border with northern Ireland remaining in the customs union and the island of Great Britain being out. But the Tories under pressure from the DUP rejected that.
3. Leave want a border in the Irish sea. The best way for this is to allow Irish reunification.
56% to 60% or more would favor reunification
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