One of the things that makes me laugh about the ongoing focus on the Irish Border in the Brexit negotiations is that is a big nothing burger propelled to the top of the news agenda by the pro EU legacy media.
Yesterday, Clinton’s former Mr Fixer George Mitchell warned that…
"Former US senator, George Mitchell, has warned that the peace process could be harmed if a hard border was re-instated between NI and the Republic of Ireland after Brexit. He said border checks would not inevitably result in a return to violence. However, he warned that the risk of that happening was “high enough”."
Really, George?
A few points need to be made.
- It is the EU, not the UK, which is threatening a “hard border” if it doesn’t get its way. At NO POINT has the UK talked about putting such in place. Mitchell should direct his ire to Brussels, right?
- Where would the “high enough” return to violence come from? You have told us that the IRA has decommissioned and is commited to peace, so I’m a bit concerned that there is a terrorist group out there that constitutes a credible threat that we don’t about?
- There already is a BORDER between NI and ROI. The so-called “Good Friday Agreement” (genuflect and adore) did not remove the border or if it did I missed that bit. There is a currency border. There is an excise border. And there is a sovereign border. Not having security checks to stop IRA terrorists is beside the point. No one is proposing the return to such. However we will need technology to monitore goods moving between jurisdictions.
Final point and here’s one that dare not speak its name. As the EU moves to greater and greater unification, it is possible that a common immigration policy is agreed, thus placing the Irish Republic in a Neo-Schengen situation. At such a point, as many EU citizens as want could saunter across the EU border and into the UK. So at that point, a hard border would be unavoidable, wouldn’t it?
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