The Telegraph still doesn't understand the Irish border issue with this article (HERE) suggesting that if there is a hard border it will be Ireland to blame. Juliet Samuels who wrote the piece doesn't seem to realise two things. Firstly, it was our decision to leave the internal market and the customs union, which we did not need to do, that has created the problem. We therefore have a moral duty to say how it can be resolved without a border.
Secondly, it is not just the EU who will insist on a hard border. The WTO will not allow it either unless we also offer an open border to every other WTO member and this really means the UK government will completely lose the ability to make any check on imports or impose any tariffs.
Liam Fox claims we can't address the Irish border issue until we know the end state of our new relationship (HERE) telling Sky News:
"But we can't get a final answer to the Irish question until we get an idea of the end state - and until we get into discussions with the EU on the end state that will be very difficult.
I do not think Fox understands Irish sensitivity on the border or their resolve to use the veto unless we explain how the invisible border we say we want can actually be achieved. How ANY third country can have an open border without harmonised regulations and customs has not been explained. Unless we do that it is hard to see how the trade talks can start.
Kate Hoey, Labour MP and ardent Brexiteer, not to say complete idiot, is suggesting that Ireland should pay for any border infrastructure since it is they who want it (HERE). Again, she doesn't know what she is talking about. By rendering ourselves as a third country it is the UK who "wants" a border, even though we say we don't. Ms Hoey is being portrayed as coming from the Donald Trump school of diplomacy although even that doesn't do justice to her. She shouldn't really be in parliament at all.
William Hague has now entered the argument by saying (HERE) that Ireland is asking the impossible but I think they are simply asking us for details of what we ourselves are proposing for a "frictionless" border. This is, according to Hague, actually impossible. If it is, then Ireland are right to raise the issue now, before it's too late. If a frictionless border is impossible surely it is better to know it sooner rather than later.
One feels sorry for the Irish. It's claimed that they have thought longer and more deeply about the border than anyone and cannot think of a solution. Yet they are being told by people have not thought about it at all that they're just being awkward.
The Economist has a nice article HERE which includes this telling paragraph:
The adamantine certainties of the Brexiteers are an ill fit for the ambiguities of Northern Ireland. Talk to any Irish official and one assertion soon surfaces: Her Majesty’s Government has not thought this through. After nearly 18 months of rumination, it is clear that there is no way to reconcile Britain’s aims of yanking the province out of the EU’s single market and customs union, and maintaining its seamless border with the republic, across whose 300-plus crossing points 110m trips are made annually.
At the moment, it's hard to know what's happening in the talks. This report in The Independent (HERE) seems to indicate a bit of optimism that an agreement is close. I don't see any announcement of any breakthrough on the Irish border issue which I think is the main stumbling block. In fact if anything the positions seem to have hardened. Reuters (HERE) say the two sides are still at odds.
The Irish EU Commissioner says Ireland intends to play hardball and not to allow trade talks to start without a firm assurances and a workable solution to the border problem. If there is a solution, one wonders why it hasn't emerged in the eight months of the talks. Both Ireland and the EU are sceptical that one even exists short of both sides being in the same customs union and market.
I don't believe a fudge will be acceptable. The stakes are too high for that. But also it is hard to see a way out for either side. The EU cannot concede an open border and because of our policy we have ruled out the only solution. Something must give, but what?
