[Baff]

NI didn't have a vote.
The UK did.

Attempts to foment war and social division in Northern Ireland are noted.
Please expect us to reciprocate in your own country.

It's not just you who can practise a bit of divide and conquer.

[ingliz]

Attempts to foment war and social division in Northern Ireland are noted.
Please expect us to reciprocate in your own country.

Silly Billy.

Billionaire Brexiteers are not going to start fomenting anything here. They are busy buying Maltese passports.

[Rugoz]

I don't get it, who opposes a land border in NI? Or is there no time to implement it properly?

[Potemkin]

I don't get it, who opposes a land border in NI? Or is there no time to implement it properly?

Post-Brexit, there will be a border between the EU and not-EU. That border will be either (a) between NI and the Republic of Ireland, or (b) it will be between NI and the rest of the UK. Option (a) would violate the Good Friday peace deal, and option (b) would enrage the DUP and other 'Loyalist' factions in NI. The circle cannot be squared.

[JohnRawls]

Post-Brexit, there will be a border between the EU and not-EU. That border will be either (a) between NI and the Republic of Ireland, or (b) it will be between NI and the rest of the UK. Option (a) would violate the Good Friday peace deal, and option (b) would enrage the DUP and other 'Loyalist' factions in NI. The circle cannot be squared.

A) Has the potential of making bombs blow up all across the UK.

B) Has the potential to make the UK collapse and splinter.

So i do not see how the UK can actually choose B. The chances of a deal are slim. Although Brexit in itself is affecting the unity of the UK.

[One Degree]

Isn’t ‘b’ only true if you consider NI independence a collapse of the UK. I mean it is , but why is it unthinkable?

[Potemkin]

A) Has the potential of making bombs blow up all across the UK.

B) Has the potential to make the UK collapse and splinter.

So i do not see how the UK can actually choose B. The chances of a deal are slim. Although Brexit in itself is affecting the unity of the UK.

The Brexiteers seem to be hoping for a miracle to save them, with their chatter about the wonders of modern technology making border checks "unnecessary" or some nonsense like that. In reality, of course, we're fucked.

[SolarCross]

Option C: Hard border between the EU and a re-united Ireland in the UK...

[Baff]

Silly Billy.

Billionaire Brexiteers are not going to start fomenting anything here. They are busy buying Maltese passports.

I think you'll find that's Somalians with 20 Quid mate.

[Baff]

Isn’t ‘b’ only true if you consider NI independence a collapse of the UK. I mean it is , but why is it unthinkable?

Because the EU isn't worth that much to us.
Why would we give up the UK for the EU?

We just gave up the EU for the UK.
So the idea that we wish to do the exact opposite has kind of missed the point. For us EU membership holds negative value, not positive. We are not willing to give anything up for it. They need to pay us.



There will be border controls in Ireland unless Southern Ireland wishes to leave the EU too.
Our border controls will be very light, unless problems emerge forcing us to harden them.

What the EU and Ireland will do ... they have no idea. Their current plan is to blame the British and cry a lot.
If they wish to operate light border controls too, we will help them.

[Rugoz]

Post-Brexit, there will be a border between the EU and not-EU. That border will be either (a) between NI and the Republic of Ireland, or (b) it will be between NI and the rest of the UK. Option (a) would violate the Good Friday peace deal, and option (b) would enrage the DUP and other 'Loyalist' factions in NI. The circle cannot be squared.

As far as I can tell that is a gross simplification at best, do you have a source? I'm curious.

[Potemkin]

As far as I can tell that is a gross simplification at best, do you have a source? I'm curious.

Of course it's a gross simplification. None of us here are political scientists. But it seems to me to sum up the essential dilemma facing the British negotiators - either risk the failure of the Good Friday Agreement, or risk the break-up of the UK (not to mention the wrath of the DUP, who have the power to collapse Theresa May's government).

[Baff]

Option A doesn't violate the Good Friday Agreement technically.
Army watch towers would be required to do that. It may however do so emotionally.
Minimum border visibility would be preferred due to sensibilities.
Proposals include. Trusted trader partnerships. Checkpoints further in land. More security cameras. Border customs points



Option B will enrage the DUP. They are triggered already and propsong to drop out of coalition government as early as next weeks budget vote.

Option C, has been raised in Ireland TV debates but doesn't seem popular. It's also been raised at the EU as part of suggestions to bypass France's docks and go straight to Rotterdam. France is currently kicking up a fuss about this plan.


My best guess.
Realpolitik. Option A.
A soft border on the UK side. EU does whatever.

Existing trusted trader schemes continue.

In the UK the party of Government is looking for a reason to drop the Chequers deal. This is a good enough excuse to do so.
If they can spin it as the EU refusing to play reasonably, all the better, saves face for the PM.

[layman]

Call the dup bluff and say you will hold a referendum on unification. With any luck the nationalists will win.

One less problem for this mess of a country to deal with.

[Potemkin]

Call the dup bluff and say you will hold a referendum on unification. With any luck the nationalists will win.

One less problem for this mess of a country to deal with.

If Theresa May announced such a referendum, her government would collapse the next day. And the DUP are not bluffing. They never bluff, any more than the IRA ever would.

[hartmut]

..
I'm not sure why anybody would expect hostilities on the Bavarian border. As you say, the NI border is quite different, not least because it is to a large extent the turf of (former) IRA members who to this day engage in lots of smuggling there. If any country is equipped in dealing with a politically sensitive border, then it is the UK, ...

Your insisting on turning things upside down is very remarkable.
So you imply, the difference of the NI-Border is to be found in smuggling if IRA related actors?
If that was so, as you obviously think, would you expect that kind of crime to decrease?
Wouldn't that be a very strange idea.
Next point you made is even more out of any logic.

There are only two choices: To give up NI or to have a border with EU.
UK wanted to be free to handle her own borders, but there is no reason to assume she could do more.

And what could happen in case of a third option, which might come into existence?
There would be a bleeding lesion that resembles to West Berlin in the territory of gone GDR.

[Baff]

Third choice.
The EU can give up Ireland.

And if that sounds stupid to you, imagine how equally stupid your suggestion of giving up NI sounds to us.


So come back when you have thought a bit harder and come up with some other choices. Or don't come back at all.
Because we really don't have the impetus to play stupid games with the EU in order to get a god awful deal from them that no one here wants.

Now a word to the wise. If you put up an EU checkpoint on that border and an irate Paddy shoots your EU guard, don't come crying to us.
So if you want to keep that border open and you don't want to get people killed. Talk to us.
And we will agree to continue trusted trader schemes.
We offer you that option.

[B0ycey]

It will be option D. No border checks and an open border but all goods having checks done near but away from the border.

The Irish border issue is an issue of standards and customs requirements not whether guard towers and walls need building.

[ingliz]

Somalians with 20 Quid mate.

Anybody with 650,000 euro to spare.

With no residency requirement, which makes it the cheapest EU nation in which to purchase citizenship.

We are not willing to give anything up for it. They need to pay us.

....

I would laugh more but forum rules prevent me.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's decision to leave the European Union has cost the government 500 million pounds a week, wiping out any future savings from stopping payments to the bloc, according to a study published by the Centre for European Reform.

[Baff]

Ireland gives them away for free.




LMAO published by who?

Published by the EU?
ROFL.

Oh well then if the EU tells me how rich it is making me in return for all the taxes I pay to it. Whom am I to doubt?
Apparently I am also safer and happier and my penis is 5 inches longer due to EU membership. Best thing EVAR being in the EU.
Thank you god. I simply can't imagine why I and millions of others voted to leave. It's almost as if I want a shrimpy penis no girl will ever be pleased by.