How many times have Brexiteers told us the Irish border issue wasn't a problem? They claimed it was merely a plot by the EU to tie us in to the single market and the customs union forever. Technology was already available to resolve the problem they said. Now Sky News (HERE) has seen a Home Office report which sets out the facts and the truth is rather different. No such technology is available.
Sky News says:
"A presentation drawn up by the Home Secretary's Policy Unit and sent to HMRC and the Treasury implies that they think a technological solution - which would aim to keep the Irish border entirely open and without physical checkpoints - is a distant (and likely very expensive) prospect.
"The authors state that the technology would likely not be ready to be deployed in the UK until 2030".
The report does come up with a solution, albeit a highly complicated one involving companies uploading data into a digital portal, using new blockchain technology, sensors and "Internet of things technology" along the route, "machine learning" and automated revenue collection. But they also make clear the enormous problems involved, including persuading the EU to spend money doing the same thing on their side of the border.
The authors say that "no government worldwide currently controls different customs arrangements with no physical infrastructure at the border." So, the Brexiteers fears are realised. We will be in the backstop for years and years living under rules we have no say in making.
At more or less the same time, a lady named Karen Wheeler who is head of the UK Border Delivery Group, part of HMRC, addressed hundreds of businesses at a Brexit advice conference in Belfast yesterday as reported by the Belfast Telegraph (HERE) and I assume she used the same presentation to tell her audience:
"There is no technology solution which would mean that you could do customs controls and processes and not have a hard border. There is no magic solution that would make that go away. If there was, trust me, we would have found it."
Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, Ms Wheeler said: "If there was a package of technology solutions that you could implement today, or even in the next few months, that enabled customs controls and processes and not have a hard border, we would absolutely be on it, because everybody is looking for that solution.
"There are of course lots of technologies which can help make it more efficient, Norway and Sweden for example have a lot of traffic going across their land border and they are one of the more technologically advanced land borders, they still have queues and people still stop because there are still things to go through.
"There is no such thing in the world at the moment at a land border which doesn't have queues and processes and technologies".
Asked what beyond revoking Article 50 could provide for a frictionless border, Ms Wheeler replied: "What you need is, at the very least, something that looks like a customs union, plus something that looks like a single market, which has no customs or tariffs or regulatory standards or controls, if you are going to have completely free movement of goods across the border."
Sabine Weyand, Barnier's deputy and the ferociously smart EU official picked up on Ms Wheeler's words in a tweet:
Senior UK HRMC official on how to avoid a hard border NI/IE: «What you need is (...) sth that looks like a customs union, plus sth that looks like a single market, no customs or tariffs or regulatory standards or controls“ -aka: the backstop. https://t.co/Qw6NxxrZ0N— Sabine Weyand (@WeyandSabine) April 17, 2019
Will this be enough to kill off any possible arguments against the backstop? Probably not. That's the thing about faith isn't it?
But to help drive two more stakes through the heart of a no-deal Brexit, Martin Selmayr, the most senior EU official has said there will be a hard border in Ireland if the UK leaves without a deal (HERE) thus removing the last vestige of belief the EU will just keep an open border. And Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the US House of Representatives on a visit to Ireland says anything which damages the Good Friday Agreement will prevent a US-UK trade deal (HERE). Any such deal would need to be approved by the House where the Democrats have a majority.
All of this buttresses the backstop and probably makes it 100% certain we will not leave without a deal and it will be a very soft one, assuming we ever leave at all.
What a turn up it would be if Brexit was broken by the Irish border.
All of this buttresses the backstop and probably makes it 100% certain we will not leave without a deal and it will be a very soft one, assuming we ever leave at all.
What a turn up it would be if Brexit was broken by the Irish border.
