rom: DMcG - PM
Date: 20 Nov 17 - 11:59 AM

I did promise I would get back to Nigel's post about the border, but I will keep it brief. FAILED

The border as it is at present, is, presumably, the type of border that the Irish (both North & South) would like to see in the future.
Why should this change?


The border question was in the original critical things to resolve, it was listed on Friday by Tusk as one of the key things still needing to be resolved, the Taoiseach and the Irish minister have both said the issue is unresolved and Teresa May, in saying it is 'almost resolved', agrees it still isn't.

We also have an veritable army of civil servants on both sides beavering away at it.

Do you honestly think "we can just do more or less what we do now, can't we?" hasn't be considered and rejected?

Then you say the UK does not want a hard border. The problem there is that it is perfectly possible to want contradictory things at the same time. So when the Irish government asks the UK to formally commit that it will not have a hard border it turns out is unwilling to do so, as detailed in the links others have provided. And to be honest I can see why they would want to retain the *option* of a hard border, even though they don't want a hard border.

Finally, though, here is a clipping from, I think, the Times, though it might have been the Telegraph:

While the British have made all the right noises about maintaining the border in its current state, no details as to how this can be achieved have been forthcoming. Suspicions that the issue was not being taken seriously were underlined on Friday when Boris Johnson, the British foreign secretary, suggested that matters relating to the Irish border could be resolved as part of a wider discussion on EU borders, including that between Dover and Calais. Mr Johnson's apparent failure to understand the differences between these borders is alarming and capped a bad week for Anglo-Irish relations.

You appear (whether through ignorance, or unwillingness to look at the actual details of the negotiations) unable to realise that UK and The Republic of Ireland cannot decide what will happen.
Although both would wish that there will not be a 'hard' border, Ireland are not able to negotiate their own position. They have to wait for the EU to tell them what their position will be.

Fortunately we are getting out of this madness!