The idiot Davis, apparently suffering from food poisoning, appeared on The Andrew Marr show yesterday and once again talked about technological solutions for the Irish border problem. He also referred to the report by Kurt Larsson that seemed to offer just such a solution. By an odd coincidence, Christopher Booker, in his Telegraph column (HERE) that came out a few hours earlier sets out the reasons this cannot work.
Larsson's report talks about "gates" that open automatically but which would have to be invisible to comply with the government's promise to have no infrastructure on the border but in any case this is not the biggest problem.
As Mr Booker points out Larsson is a customs expert and focused entirely on customs checks and the collection of duties owed. He does not address the problem of checks on animals and food and fish products as well as plants - the so called SPS checks (Sanitary and Phyto Sanitary). Even when Kurt Larsson appeared in front of a Select Committee last week they didn't ask him how these checks were to be carried out.
To avoid SPS checks the EU would need to grant the UK a special status after Brexit, which every other exporting country would then begin to demand. This special status would give us the right to export all kinds of plant and animal products but be out of reach of the inspection, compliance and legal enforcement mechanisms of the EU. In which case all the suppliers inside the market might ask why they are subject to tight controls with threats of legal action if they fail, but UK suppliers are not.
Effectively, what Davis wants is for the EU to dismantle whole sections of the acquis in order to accommodate us. The EU are not going to do this and have been patiently waiting for us to explain how the problem can be resolved. And the answer, as they know, is that it cannot unless we stay in the single market and the customs union at least as far as those aspects that impact the Good Friday Agreement.
