Guido Fawkes is a rabid pro-Brexit blog with an angry, snarling, jingoistic readership which Paul Staines goads into a frenzy most days with posts and links to every hard right story, usually fake, that finds it's way into the press or social media. It should come with a health warning. However, I think it is struggling to maintain the 'Brexit is good' narrative.
Yesterday, it was reduced to making a claim (HERE) that the EU might be getting ready to throw Ireland under a bus by forcing them to install a hard border in the event of a no deal Brexit or quit the EU.
The story originates from an editorial in The Irish Independent (HERE) which includes this:
"A forthright and frankly chilling interview with someone described as a 'senior EU diplomat' yesterday came like a glass of cold water in the face.
"The un-named source said: 'In a no-deal scenario, Ireland would have to choose between setting up a physical Border with Northern Ireland and de facto leaving the single market. If there is no physical Border, the customs checks would have to take place on all goods coming from Ireland.'
"So we bring in a hard Border or leave the single market. It's really that stark. A blunt 'our way or the highway' ultimatum, veiled in the velvet language only anonymity allows. No matter how much Iveagh House may try to calm nerves these quotes cannot be dismissed".
No doubt some in Ireland are getting nervous but I don't think the Irish government is among them. For the first time ever the Irish are in the driving seat with a dominant role in the withdrawal process. The arm wrestling match isn't with Dublin, but with the EU 27. They are not going to lose.
Guido Fawkes writes as if Ireland should be concerned (they aren't as THIS piece in The New European makes clear) when it is actually the British government who should be more concerned. For several reasons too.
Firstly, it shows the idea of an invisible border in Ireland is not seen as a practical option in Brussels making the Malthouse compromise a bit of a lost cause.
Secondly, if the EU insist on a hard border - and it seems in the absence of an agreement they will - it will breach the Good Friday Agreement to which the British government is a signatory. The EU is not. While Theresa May is PM and probably whoever replaces her too, no British government could contemplate a return to a hard border. The only way of ensuring an open border is regulatory alignment and a customs union.
Thirdly, communities on both sides of the border do not want to see a return to any physical infrastructure and Sinn Fein will push for a border poll, which will determine if the Irish people want a united Ireland, and they may well get one and set Ireland on the road to unification.
Far from throwing Ireland under a bus, it may be the UK on the way to a crash and a break up.
