What is most sad about this whole thing is that rather than find an acceptable solution for everyone, the EU negotiators have used it as a pawn in their game to preserve their beloved political project.
Why can’t 2 sovereign nations that share a land border decide for themselves how best to manage that for the good of the people on both sides of it, then the EU find a sensible way to accommodate that. It is not as though border rules are homogeneous throughout the EU or between the EU and neighbouring countries that share land borders. The recent overreaction to the new strain is just the latest example of how quickly principles can be disregarded at whim by the member nations.
There is no such thing as international law, just treaties between nations. Treaties have to be renegotiated from time to time because circumstances change. Boris does not want to renegotiate this one at all. Despite all its imperfections and many aspects not panning out as hoped, it has led to relative peace and prosperity for the people of the island of Ireland. Good Friday only came about because John Major did secretly negotiate with terrorists, and whilst those terrorists still had the guns, they were not holding them to our heads at the negotiating table; unlike the EU over this issue. Boris’s response was quite rightly to put in place a mechanism which would prevent the EU being able to pull the trigger – regrettable but necessary.
For me the Irish border issue is concrete proof that the EU is an entirely venal and morally bankrupt political project that puts the survival of the project ahead of the needs of the citizens it attempts to rule not serve.
Once out we will need to find a way to make things as good as they can be in Ireland. It is the price we are being forced to pay for our freedom from tyranny – something both sides of the debate in Ireland have been fighting for for over a century.
‘For me the Irish border issue is concrete proof that the EU is an entirely venal and morally bankrupt political project that puts the survival of the project ahead of the needs of the citizens it attempts to rule not serve.’
Absolutely true, but this has been obvious for at least 15 years. And I write as one who was once extremely pro-EU.
It only really became obvious to me about 5 years ago when I worked for the EU’s counter Somali piracy mission, Up until then I naively believed UK had an important role to play in supporting the smaller nations outside the Franco-German nexus and that we could influence EU development for the good of the citizens of Europe.
Oh well we all have our delusions, it is really quite liberating when you realise that they truly were just delusions.
Totally agree. What I don’t understand is why the UK government states that it will not put up border posts but will rely on electronic records of cross-border trade. This would put the ball in the EU’s court and challenge the EU to make the same commitment.
There is also the question of Irish citizens’ rights in the UK. Before both countries entered the old EEC, Irish citizens had preferential rights over other Europeans in the UK. Is the UK government offering to return to this situation? Will the EU refuse to accept preferential treatment for some of its citizens? Will the Irish government show its puppet nature by denying its own citizens preferential rights in the UK?
I would say that the current British govt has shown itself to be rather careless with its northern Irish province and surprisingly ignorant about the nature of the single market that it helped to create.
The EU have been inflexible, but this is entirely to be expected because the border between the Irish Republic and northern Ireland is also the border with Germany and France and Finland. The borders stay open because there is confidence that the provisions that others put in place is sufficient.
The British govt has signalled strongly that it intends to diverge and has demonstrated a lack of seriousness around keeping to agreements. A need for governance and enforcement flows directly from this. All of this is entirely predictable.
The problems on the Irish border stem from the dubious prospectus that the UK can do exactly what it wants and no consequences flow from that decision.
I would say the current British government is delivering on the outcome of the referendum as it clearly promised to do when it was elected with a significant majority by an electorate who had watched with dismay as the previous government did everything it could to avoid delivering the outcome of the referendum. Governments should serve the people they govern and bow to the will of those people. If the EU, which is unelected, at least tried to follow those principles then there would be no problem, indeed there would probably have been no cause for Britain to leave in the first place.
All of that is fine, but nevertheless the issues on the Irish border were entirely predictable once it was decided that brexit = leaving the single market. We would all have benefited from a better debate on the pros and cons before the event because it has resulted in the partial amputation of Northern Ireland – something that was specifically denied in 2016, 2017 and 2019.
The Irish Border ‘problem’ is only a problem for the Republic and the EU – it is their border. The UK has decided what it would do, so that was that as far as we are concerned. The blame lies with lilly livered UK Civil Servants and incompetent politicians. The EU should have been told at the outset to f*** off. It is not for them to annex another states territory and the UK should have been very, very robust on defending itself. If Boris had any spine at all he would walk away from the FTA negotiation farce and tear up the Withdrawal Agreement.
Listening to the radio tonight, I hear that some French civil servant has leaked that a trade deal is almost sorted and that the UK side has given huge concessions on fishing grounds. DREADFUL news. We have submitted to Napoleon Macron’s demands and threats of fishing piracy.
The EU demands are ridiculous – they want free access to a valuable UK resource so that they can just turn up and cart off the majority of the fish. How about a slightly different version? The UK should be entitled to drive large trucks to France and cart off 80% of the grapes. If these uk grape fishers take too many, they should be allowed to dump what they like on the way back to Britain, This of cours eis a laugably idiotic proposal – it is exactly what the French are demanding and may have been given.
We don’t eat all the fish our current quota allows, let alone all we might eat with a change. It’s like arguing over fresh air: it blows where it wilt, and the fish swim where they want.
The only purpose of quotas is to stop over-exploitation of a resource that would otherwise be held ‘in common’, which in practice means everyone grabs what they can and one rapidly deplete all stocks. What matters therefore is the total take and a sensible allocation amongst all potential sharers; you certainly don’t scupper a trading relationship worth £400 Bn plus, over £60m of ‘fishing rights’.
It’s not called a ‘fishing industry’ for nothing. We are not a nation of subsistence fishers, we can catch and export our fish products too. Plus we can ensure our fisheries aren’t raped into nothingness, like the EU seems intent on doing, regardless of their ‘quotas’.
No. You are talking nonsense. The waters belong to us an we derive only a small part of the value. The French don’t drink all of the wine they produce from their vinyards. They sell most of it. A sensible analogy to the issue of the French carting away vast amounts of our fish through the Common fisheries policy, is to imagine a scenario in which British truckers turn up in France, grab the majority of the grapes and drive them away without paying – AND, when they take too much, dump large amounts by the roadside to rot on the way home. THAT is what we have allowed for forty years, and what we are still allowing under the new rules. Boris’s much vaunted negotiations in late December only repatriate the right for British fishermen to regain a mere 8% of our own fish.
Fish are not a vast part of our GDP, but what we own, WE OWN. We can not allow piratical neighbours to take away our resources under threat.
Switzerland seems to do fine with EU member states on every border. There are solutions if you want to find them and there are intractable issues if you want to exploit them for other purposes. Was it predictable that the political project would use the issue for its own ends which have nothing to do with what is in the best interests of the people of the island of Ireland nor of the people of what remains of the EU. Yes it was, I agree. Did it have to be that way, no it did not. Yes you should play every legitimate card you have in a business negotiation to get yourself the best deal, but should you really threaten the other side with revealing an old affair to their wife which could cause the break up of their family?
This is no pawn for the people of Ireland. It’s the central all encompassing question.
David Bell
3 years ago
The parallels to the situation today are striking. The focus is always on the republican perspective while the threat from the loyalists is ignored. The whole Ni protocol has been built to favour the republicans by weakening NI’s links to rUK and in doing so the loyalists feel abandoned.
If the the Irish and EU try to force NI into a position where Dublin has effective veto over NI’s position in the UK expect loyalists to threaten violence.
It may not have been contested in court but Northern Ireland unionists feel the GFA has been breached by the NI protocol.
Any sympathy I might feel for the position of NI unionists is extremely diluted by the knowledge that the DUP, the largest Unionist party, not only clamoured for Brexit, but facilitated its UK-wide promotion, by very dubious means. The NI Protocol, a nightmare for NI Unionism, is their reward. Spectacularly bad call.
1. Northern Ireland recieved funds from the EU but it did not benefit from the single market. The rest of the UK and USA were it’s biggest markets. Much of the trade with RoI was controled through non EU agreements. 2. Brexit has been very elightening for many unionists. They have discovered that the EU’s commitment to the GFA was only skin deep and when the chips were down NI was a pawn in their game rather than a serious consideration. It was said that NI was the price the UK would pay for BRexit even though the GFA specifically excludes such a position. 3. The Eu was willing to effectively blockade NI, empting its shelves of food as a way to punish the UK government.
The real truth of the matter is BRexit has shown the EU to be a fair weather friend to Northern Ireland and the GFA and many unionists were afraid of that.
So you’re not over being on the losing side in the biggest democratic vote in this country’s history? Well democracy is tough if you can’t accept the result
If there weren’t a Unionist threat, NI would be in a customs union with the EU already.
William MacDougall
3 years ago
I was struck by your words: “only in the 1970s, when the British Army began to fortify it in an attempt to stop IRA movement, did it really begin to fit the international model.”
Has there ever been a “hard border” in the sense of a fence and control points at every crossing between North and South, as opposed to the occasional security post? Please someone correct me if I’m mistaken, but I think not, even during the trade war of the 30s. And there certainly was freedom of movement for people throughout.
Andrew Baldwin
3 years ago
Scott Reid, currently a Canadian Conservative MP, published a brilliant book, “Canada Remapped”, in 1992, anticipating the 1995 referendum on Quebec sovereignty. He dealt with the Irish partition in considerable length, making a lot of the points that Charles makes in this article. He rejected the idea that a county would be the smallest voting unit for deciding on new borders for an Irish Free State or a sovereign Quebec. Instead he recommended that the people in each polling unit decide where they wanted to go. This may be cutting it a bit too fine, but I agree with his general point. Charles writes: “This desire for ‘homogeneity’ would call for the use of plebiscites to determine the partition line ” something familiar from a number of European cases under the Versailles settlement.” It is a huge shame that these plebiscites never took place and that they were not used to determine the border between Ulster and the Republic. If it wouldn’t have stopped the violence that took place over the next century from happening, it certainly would have reduced it. And it isn’t necessarily true that in such situations, people always vote on narrowly sectarian or ethnic lines. The 1920 plebiscite on whether Carinthia would belong to Yugoslavia or Austria saw a surprising number of Slovenes vote for Austrian rule. In any case, there is perhaps a good case for a plebiscite in Northern Ireland now on remaining part of the UK or joining the Republic of Ireland. Better late than never.
What is most sad about this whole thing is that rather than find an acceptable solution for everyone, the EU negotiators have used it as a pawn in their game to preserve their beloved political project.
Why can’t 2 sovereign nations that share a land border decide for themselves how best to manage that for the good of the people on both sides of it, then the EU find a sensible way to accommodate that. It is not as though border rules are homogeneous throughout the EU or between the EU and neighbouring countries that share land borders. The recent overreaction to the new strain is just the latest example of how quickly principles can be disregarded at whim by the member nations.
There is no such thing as international law, just treaties between nations. Treaties have to be renegotiated from time to time because circumstances change. Boris does not want to renegotiate this one at all. Despite all its imperfections and many aspects not panning out as hoped, it has led to relative peace and prosperity for the people of the island of Ireland. Good Friday only came about because John Major did secretly negotiate with terrorists, and whilst those terrorists still had the guns, they were not holding them to our heads at the negotiating table; unlike the EU over this issue. Boris’s response was quite rightly to put in place a mechanism which would prevent the EU being able to pull the trigger – regrettable but necessary.
For me the Irish border issue is concrete proof that the EU is an entirely venal and morally bankrupt political project that puts the survival of the project ahead of the needs of the citizens it attempts to rule not serve.
Once out we will need to find a way to make things as good as they can be in Ireland. It is the price we are being forced to pay for our freedom from tyranny – something both sides of the debate in Ireland have been fighting for for over a century.
‘For me the Irish border issue is concrete proof that the EU is an entirely venal and morally bankrupt political project that puts the survival of the project ahead of the needs of the citizens it attempts to rule not serve.’
Absolutely true, but this has been obvious for at least 15 years. And I write as one who was once extremely pro-EU.
It only really became obvious to me about 5 years ago when I worked for the EU’s counter Somali piracy mission, Up until then I naively believed UK had an important role to play in supporting the smaller nations outside the Franco-German nexus and that we could influence EU development for the good of the citizens of Europe.
Oh well we all have our delusions, it is really quite liberating when you realise that they truly were just delusions.
Totally agree. What I don’t understand is why the UK government states that it will not put up border posts but will rely on electronic records of cross-border trade. This would put the ball in the EU’s court and challenge the EU to make the same commitment.
There is also the question of Irish citizens’ rights in the UK. Before both countries entered the old EEC, Irish citizens had preferential rights over other Europeans in the UK. Is the UK government offering to return to this situation? Will the EU refuse to accept preferential treatment for some of its citizens? Will the Irish government show its puppet nature by denying its own citizens preferential rights in the UK?
I would say that the current British govt has shown itself to be rather careless with its northern Irish province and surprisingly ignorant about the nature of the single market that it helped to create.
The EU have been inflexible, but this is entirely to be expected because the border between the Irish Republic and northern Ireland is also the border with Germany and France and Finland. The borders stay open because there is confidence that the provisions that others put in place is sufficient.
The British govt has signalled strongly that it intends to diverge and has demonstrated a lack of seriousness around keeping to agreements. A need for governance and enforcement flows directly from this. All of this is entirely predictable.
The problems on the Irish border stem from the dubious prospectus that the UK can do exactly what it wants and no consequences flow from that decision.
I would say the current British government is delivering on the outcome of the referendum as it clearly promised to do when it was elected with a significant majority by an electorate who had watched with dismay as the previous government did everything it could to avoid delivering the outcome of the referendum. Governments should serve the people they govern and bow to the will of those people. If the EU, which is unelected, at least tried to follow those principles then there would be no problem, indeed there would probably have been no cause for Britain to leave in the first place.
All of that is fine, but nevertheless the issues on the Irish border were entirely predictable once it was decided that brexit = leaving the single market. We would all have benefited from a better debate on the pros and cons before the event because it has resulted in the partial amputation of Northern Ireland – something that was specifically denied in 2016, 2017 and 2019.
The Irish Border ‘problem’ is only a problem for the Republic and the EU – it is their border. The UK has decided what it would do, so that was that as far as we are concerned. The blame lies with lilly livered UK Civil Servants and incompetent politicians. The EU should have been told at the outset to f*** off. It is not for them to annex another states territory and the UK should have been very, very robust on defending itself. If Boris had any spine at all he would walk away from the FTA negotiation farce and tear up the Withdrawal Agreement.
Listening to the radio tonight, I hear that some French civil servant has leaked that a trade deal is almost sorted and that the UK side has given huge concessions on fishing grounds. DREADFUL news. We have submitted to Napoleon Macron’s demands and threats of fishing piracy.
The EU demands are ridiculous – they want free access to a valuable UK resource so that they can just turn up and cart off the majority of the fish. How about a slightly different version? The UK should be entitled to drive large trucks to France and cart off 80% of the grapes. If these uk grape fishers take too many, they should be allowed to dump what they like on the way back to Britain, This of cours eis a laugably idiotic proposal – it is exactly what the French are demanding and may have been given.
We don’t eat all the fish our current quota allows, let alone all we might eat with a change. It’s like arguing over fresh air: it blows where it wilt, and the fish swim where they want.
The only purpose of quotas is to stop over-exploitation of a resource that would otherwise be held ‘in common’, which in practice means everyone grabs what they can and one rapidly deplete all stocks. What matters therefore is the total take and a sensible allocation amongst all potential sharers; you certainly don’t scupper a trading relationship worth £400 Bn plus, over £60m of ‘fishing rights’.
It’s not called a ‘fishing industry’ for nothing. We are not a nation of subsistence fishers, we can catch and export our fish products too. Plus we can ensure our fisheries aren’t raped into nothingness, like the EU seems intent on doing, regardless of their ‘quotas’.
No. You are talking nonsense. The waters belong to us an we derive only a small part of the value. The French don’t drink all of the wine they produce from their vinyards. They sell most of it. A sensible analogy to the issue of the French carting away vast amounts of our fish through the Common fisheries policy, is to imagine a scenario in which British truckers turn up in France, grab the majority of the grapes and drive them away without paying – AND, when they take too much, dump large amounts by the roadside to rot on the way home. THAT is what we have allowed for forty years, and what we are still allowing under the new rules. Boris’s much vaunted negotiations in late December only repatriate the right for British fishermen to regain a mere 8% of our own fish.
Fish are not a vast part of our GDP, but what we own, WE OWN. We can not allow piratical neighbours to take away our resources under threat.
Switzerland seems to do fine with EU member states on every border. There are solutions if you want to find them and there are intractable issues if you want to exploit them for other purposes. Was it predictable that the political project would use the issue for its own ends which have nothing to do with what is in the best interests of the people of the island of Ireland nor of the people of what remains of the EU. Yes it was, I agree. Did it have to be that way, no it did not. Yes you should play every legitimate card you have in a business negotiation to get yourself the best deal, but should you really threaten the other side with revealing an old affair to their wife which could cause the break up of their family?
There is no such thing as international law, just treaties between nations.
Indeed. As I for one have never voted for an international lawmaker in my life, I regard any attempt to posit such a thing as tyranical.
This is no pawn for the people of Ireland. It’s the central all encompassing question.
The parallels to the situation today are striking. The focus is always on the republican perspective while the threat from the loyalists is ignored. The whole Ni protocol has been built to favour the republicans by weakening NI’s links to rUK and in doing so the loyalists feel abandoned.
If the the Irish and EU try to force NI into a position where Dublin has effective veto over NI’s position in the UK expect loyalists to threaten violence.
It may not have been contested in court but Northern Ireland unionists feel the GFA has been breached by the NI protocol.
Any sympathy I might feel for the position of NI unionists is extremely diluted by the knowledge that the DUP, the largest Unionist party, not only clamoured for Brexit, but facilitated its UK-wide promotion, by very dubious means. The NI Protocol, a nightmare for NI Unionism, is their reward. Spectacularly bad call.
There are a number of points:
1. Northern Ireland recieved funds from the EU but it did not benefit from the single market. The rest of the UK and USA were it’s biggest markets. Much of the trade with RoI was controled through non EU agreements.
2. Brexit has been very elightening for many unionists. They have discovered that the EU’s commitment to the GFA was only skin deep and when the chips were down NI was a pawn in their game rather than a serious consideration. It was said that NI was the price the UK would pay for BRexit even though the GFA specifically excludes such a position.
3. The Eu was willing to effectively blockade NI, empting its shelves of food as a way to punish the UK government.
The real truth of the matter is BRexit has shown the EU to be a fair weather friend to Northern Ireland and the GFA and many unionists were afraid of that.
So you’re not over being on the losing side in the biggest democratic vote in this country’s history? Well democracy is tough if you can’t accept the result
If there weren’t a Unionist threat, NI would be in a customs union with the EU already.
I was struck by your words: “only in the 1970s, when the British Army began to fortify it in an attempt to stop IRA movement, did it really begin to fit the international model.”
Has there ever been a “hard border” in the sense of a fence and control points at every crossing between North and South, as opposed to the occasional security post? Please someone correct me if I’m mistaken, but I think not, even during the trade war of the 30s. And there certainly was freedom of movement for people throughout.
Scott Reid, currently a Canadian Conservative MP, published a brilliant book, “Canada Remapped”, in 1992, anticipating the 1995 referendum on Quebec sovereignty. He dealt with the Irish partition in considerable length, making a lot of the points that Charles makes in this article. He rejected the idea that a county would be the smallest voting unit for deciding on new borders for an Irish Free State or a sovereign Quebec. Instead he recommended that the people in each polling unit decide where they wanted to go. This may be cutting it a bit too fine, but I agree with his general point. Charles writes: “This desire for ‘homogeneity’ would call for the use of plebiscites to determine the partition line ” something familiar from a number of European cases under the Versailles settlement.” It is a huge shame that these plebiscites never took place and that they were not used to determine the border between Ulster and the Republic. If it wouldn’t have stopped the violence that took place over the next century from happening, it certainly would have reduced it. And it isn’t necessarily true that in such situations, people always vote on narrowly sectarian or ethnic lines. The 1920 plebiscite on whether Carinthia would belong to Yugoslavia or Austria saw a surprising number of Slovenes vote for Austrian rule. In any case, there is perhaps a good case for a plebiscite in Northern Ireland now on remaining part of the UK or joining the Republic of Ireland. Better late than never.
Belfast and County Tyrone would have been a big issue. Also the glens of Antrim.
Not so easy.
Also, what of the (soft) ethnic cleansing that happened? What of the pogroms that drove Catholics from their homes?