As it is, there is now a free flow of people, goods, and services between Ireland (which is part of the EU) and Northern Ireland which would leave the EU as part of Brexit. The 'backstop' is this free flow.
A 'hard' Brexit means leave the EU and let the chips fall where they may. The British people favor this but their Ministers of Parliament are bought off by globalist deal makers who seek endless debate with all talk and no action.
Brexiteers say the flow of things and people between Ireland and N. Ireland can be made efficient via technology. EU supporters say nyet.
At the moment the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is virtually invisible. If you land at Dublin Airport and drive north to Belfast (in Northern Ireland) you will cross the border with the only thing you notice is that the signs start using miles rather than kilometers.
The answer is for the U.K. to simply leave with no agreement and conduct widespread background checks on anybody police even think may be in the country illegally - and as a matter of course for anybody traveling from Northern Ireland to the rest of the U.K.
Those in Northern Ireland would have to accept this as the price of not having a hard border. That then leaves it to the EU to take the very unpopular step of building a border wall which the Irish will hate. (The UK’s concern is to control immigration while the EU’s concern is over the flow of cheaper goods not subject to all the EU’s regulations flowing from the U.K. into Ireland)
Having a seamless border with an EU country is essentially the same thing as being in the EU.
The UK currently has a seamless border with the EU.
That’s the Ireland/Northern Ireland border.
If that border is to stay the same, then the UK (meaning Northern Ireland, sort of, but really the UK) has to REMAIN merged with the EU in every respect. Same as not leaving.
But if the border stays open as it were, and goods/people whatever go into the U (whetehr arriving first in England, then going over to Northern Ireland), and then spill over into Ireland (meaning the EU), then that basically means the EU is dissolved because now goods people whatever can slip into the EU (seamless border between Ireland and say Germany) via England (via Northern Ireland, via Ireland, and from there into the rest of the EU).
Interesting really. Seems Brexit could, on one hand, bring down the whole Monster that is the EU.
Or it could result in Northern Ireland just being dumped from the UK. (May couldn’t do that because DUP was part of her thin coalition).
Logically, Ireland could sort of become a second tier EU member, sort of dragged along with Brexit, but the Irish, in love with their beloved global socialism/gay stuff, wouldn’t allow that. And the EU is not going to allow one of their member states to be demoted.
Or it could result in nothing ever happening on Brexit, because all of those scenarios are sort of impossible.
I think it’s relevant here: what happens when Swiss goods (non EU) go into Austria and Italy (EU)? I know there is a hard border with military personnel, but I don’t know about all the other stuff.
Of course we all know that Switzerland is not as non-EU as they used to be, and it is currently being forced to comply with various EU matters simply because it doesn’t have the bargaining power to resist.....
One final thought....doesn’t Scotland want to be out of UK...but in Europe?
So back to the point...if you gut the UK and dump Northern Ireland, then you likely start a socialist uprising in Scotland to get out of the UK also....and back into Europe....and you have the same problem yet again. How does England/UK share a border with an EU country (or more precisely, with the EU...countries don’t really matter in that context)?
This is not easy stuff.
So we’ll have a united Ireland,not due to the IRA,but because the Orangeman are pissed at the Brits...strange days indeed
The simple political solution for U.K. is to just not put any hard border facilities on the English side. Any border would then be on the EU and the folks not liking it can take the complaints to them. UK can just put a few MI 5 guys about to keep an eye out for serious smugglers which they can do unobtrusively.
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.
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.
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.