Gael warning: It could be Ireland that scuppers Brexit
It was obvious, but we missed it all the same. If the UK doesn’t come up with something soon that preserves the smooth-functioning of trade within the island of Ireland, the entire post-Brexit deal between Britain and the EU could be dead in the water.
Dublin is not kidding. Either London starts to treat the Border question seriously, or an Irish veto of any settlement otherwise agreed becomes a reality.
For a while in the late summer, there appeared to be some interest in getting this right. The EU after all had made the issue of the Irish border one of its three red lines for moving the Brexit talks on to a discussion of Britain’s future trading relationship with Europe. But then a cloud of unknowing and lack of interest descended. It was as if, from a Whitehall perspective, the topic had been deemed too trivial, and too technical, to hold up the greater negotiation.
Until yesterday, when the Irish government made clear that it was ready, if pushed, to exercise the nuclear option, everyone in Westminster, and some even in Brussels, seemed to think that once the divorce settlement was agreed, with assurances exchanged in respect of EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in Europe, trade talks could begin within a matter of days.
Not so. The Dublin Government, which it should be remembered has veto powers over the terms of Brexit, is deeply concerned about the future trade relationship between the two parts of Ireland, currently divided by little more than cultural conceits and an invisible border crossed each day by 30,000 people on foot and by 72,500 lorries, vans and private cars.
What Dublin is proposing, with backing from Brussels, is that either Northern Ireland, uniquely, should remain within the Single Market – which Ulster Unionists could not accept – or that the UK as a whole should remain part of the EU Customs Union, which would mean no independent blue water trade policy and the early closure of Liam Fox’s Department of International Trade.
As things stand, the border is “frictionless”. Indeed, apart from the fact that the speed limit changes from mph to kph and road signs in the Republic show place names in Irish as well as English, there is no way of knowing, as a traveller, that you have left one jurisdiction and entered another. But that is only the start. A business in Belfast delivering goods to a company in Dublin, or vice versa, has no need to fill in any forms. Nor will the transaction be of interest to the customs service of either country, neither of which, in any case, operates on any of the 300 roads affected.
In short, from a trade and travel point of view, Ireland is united, and content to be so. The 1998 Good Friday accord, and the 2004 St Andrew’s Agreement, which between them brought an effective end to the Troubles that had dogged the two states of Ireland for the previous 30 years, were predicated on Britain and Ireland’s joint membership of the European Union, which acted as a co-guarantor of the Peace Process.
Britain’s decision to leave the EU throws everything back up in the air, and no amount of empty rhetoric by Westminster changes that fact.
EU law requires that goods entering the common area from a third country must be checked and subject to the appropriate tariff. Forms must be filled in, regulations adhered to and vehicles inspected. This need not mean a tedious interruption of every cross-border journey. Technology has moved on from the days when a uniformed official stood in front of every approaching vehicle with his hand outstretched, like something out of a 1960s spy movie.
But while not every truck, van or car would be stopped at the border itself, all goods carried would have to be accounted for electronically and random inspections would be carried at holding centres newly established inside each national territory. The amount of paperwork would increase overnight from practically zero to routinely annoying, and tariffs would have to be paid, in most cases within a recognised time frame using centres set up for the purpose.
Trade between North and South is currently worth some £2.6bn a year. Many companies in the two states do much of their business on a cross-border basis. They will not welcome a new tariff regime, nor the inspections of goods and services that are bound to follow. Tourism, too, which presently operates on a cross-border basis, will be hit. Irish-Americans have never much liked crossing the border but have been persuaded to do so in recent years by the seeming commonality and lack of inter-state bureaucracy. They, like Germans and Dutch, may now prefer to restrict their itineraries to the southern state. Belfast – increasingly a tourist destination – as well as the Giant’s Causeway, the Mountains of Mourne and Derry city, could find themselves cut out of the mainstream. The Erne-Shannon waterway, allowing pleasure boats and cruisers to sail uninterrupted from County Leitrim to County Fermanagh, would once more be scarred by border posts.
Much has been made of the existence of the Common Travel Area between Britain and the Republic, in force since 1923. This allows citizens of the UK and Ireland to live and work in each other’s country without the needed for passports or complicated paperwork. But this has little relevance to Ireland itself, where the issue is not residence but fluidity of movement. Those 30,000 people who cross the existing border each day do so at present without let or hindrance. Post-Brexit, they would be liable to checks and inspections at border posts. If they were not, and if vehicles were not checked, then the very existence of the border would make no sense.
Given that the UK and Ireland both opted out of the Schengen agreement, one danger at least does not exist – in theory. The Dublin Government already checks new arrivals from the EU at its ports and airports. But Britain, still a magnet for illegal immigrants, would have to trust Ireland to police not only its own frontier but that of the UK. Once anyone enters the Republic, legally or illegally, there is nothing under existing arrangements to stop them from proceeding to Northern Ireland and from there to England.
Any change in this situation would mean immigration checks, applicable not only to non-citizens but to anyone attempting to cross the border deemed to be in any way suspicious. Very soon, if things started to go wrong, a labour-intensive apparatus, backed by cameras and computers, would be required that would make a mockery of the frictionless border. Ordinary people, going about their everyday lives, would be inconvenienced, leading to renwed support for both the Republican position represented by Sinn Fein. For now, Ireland, with the second highest GDP per capita in the EU, after Luxembourg, is more attractive and more welcoming to migrants than Britain. But the Repubic is a small country, with problems of its own relating to housing, healthcare and jobs and would not take easily to doing John Bull’s dirty work. Ireland in that event could easily become Britain’s new back door.
To date, no answers have been produced to deal with any of the problems that are likely to follow from Brexit, particularly a hard Brexit. There have been few enough words and absolutely no firm proposals for what should be put in place. David Davis, the UK Brexit Secretary, has tried on several occasions to use the issue to his own greater advantage by arguing that only a frictionless border between Britain and the EU as a whole can ensure the continued existence of a trouble-free frontier between the two parts of Ireland. But the EU has rejected this and shows no sign of softening its approach.
Nor has Dublin.
As anyone could have predicted, the arguments within Northern Ireland has split along religious and ethnic lines. Sinn Fein sees the looming crisis as an opportunity to press anew for a united Ireland, while the DUP – current propping up the May government in Westminster – looks to Brexit as a means of underlining its Britishness. But it is Dublin and London that, between them, hold all the cards.
It would be a bitter irony if the Brexit divorce and citizens rights issues were to be resolved in the negotiations only for the Irish Question – settled twice in the twentieth century – to raise its head once more to scupper the deal. For the sake of Britain as much as Ireland, to say nothing of a bewildered EU, it is time for David Davis and his team to come up with a plan that is more than an expression of goodwill to all.