tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/irish-border-46135/articlesIrish border – The Conversation2022-06-14T13:03:51Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1849852022-06-14T13:03:51Z2022-06-14T13:03:51ZNorthern Ireland protocol explainer: why the UK government’s plan to change it violates international law<p>The UK government has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61790248">unveiled a plan</a> to do away with key aspects of the Northern Ireland protocol. This is the legal instrument that governs trade in goods in relation to Northern Ireland post-Brexit. </p>
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<p>The <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3182">Northern Ireland protocol bill</a> proposes setting up a “dual regulatory system” that lets businesses choose whether to abide by UK or EU regulations when selling goods in Northern Ireland. It also creates a “green channel” that would remove customs and regulatory checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain, while keeping checks on goods that are moving through Northern Ireland to the rest of the EU. </p>
<p>At present, the protocol ensures there is no hard border on the island of Ireland, by keeping Northern Ireland within the EU’s single market for goods. But critics of the protocol see these checks on the Irish Sea border as undermining the integrity of the internal British market, and some within the unionist community see these checks as a <a href="https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/identity-of-the-unionist-community-sacrificed-for-the-ni-protocol-3250861">threat to their British identity</a>.</p>
<p>The bill overrides large parts of the EU-UK withdrawal agreement, an international treaty. It disapplies most of the EU law provisions under the protocol which regulate the movement of goods. It also cuts out the Court of Justice of the European Union in resolving trade disputes related to the protocol. </p>
<p>The question is now whether the UK can justify this move in the eyes of the law.</p>
<h2>Breaching international obligations</h2>
<p>If passed by parliament, the bill would override core obligations under the protocol. This is not an attempt to work <a href="https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1524481468570906626">within the parameters</a> of the protocol – rather, the legislation seeks to undo the agreement’s very essence.</p>
<p>A decision to use domestic legislation to breach the Brexit withdrawal agreement goes against the <em>pacta sunt servanda</em> rule – a fundamental principle of international law articulated in the the Vienna convention on the <a href="https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/1_1_1969.pdf">law of treaties</a>. This provides that every treaty in force is legally binding, and parties to treaties must comply with them in good faith. </p>
<p>By merely publishing its intention to unilaterally override the protocol, the UK is already in breach of international law, specifically the good faith requirement under <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:12019W/TXT(02)&from=EN">Article 5 of the withdrawal agreement</a>. </p>
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<img alt="Liz Truss stands in front of a UK flag, and a background that has the European Commission logo." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468741/original/file-20220614-23-o9ow2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468741/original/file-20220614-23-o9ow2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468741/original/file-20220614-23-o9ow2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468741/original/file-20220614-23-o9ow2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468741/original/file-20220614-23-o9ow2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468741/original/file-20220614-23-o9ow2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468741/original/file-20220614-23-o9ow2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Foreign secretary Liz Truss insists the government is ‘acting in line with the law’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/vicepresident-european-commission-maros-sefcovic-welcomes-2126898749">Alexandros Michailidis / Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Can the wrongful act be justified?</h2>
<p>The government has insisted that the bill does not breach international law, saying that it was a “necessity” to safeguard the UK’s interests, namely “stable social and political conditions in Northern Ireland, the protection of the Good Friday Agreement […] and fostering of social and economic ties” between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>But a necessity defence can only be invoked under certain specific conditions. These conditions, which are codified in the International Law Commission’s draft articles on <a href="https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/draft_articles/9_6_2001.pdf">state responsibility</a>, are legally binding under customary international law.</p>
<p>First, a state must show that the action is the only means to safeguard an essential interest against grave and imminent peril. Second, they must show that the action does not seriously impair the essential interests of the involved states. The threshold to pass these tests is very high. Proving them would be no easy task given that businesses in Northern Ireland largely <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-northern-ireland-brexit-protocol-b2079901.html">support the protocol</a> – as do the political parties who got the most support in <a href="https://ukandeu.ac.uk/ni-assembly-election/">recent assembly elections</a>.</p>
<p>Importantly, if there are other, lawful alternatives – even if more costly or politically inconvenient – the “necessity” claim cannot be justified. One alternative would be <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/840230/Revised_Protocol_to_the_Withdrawal_Agreement.pdf">invoking Article 16</a> of the protocol – the “safeguards” clause. This allows parties to derogate from protocol obligations if it can show that its application has led “to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade”. But this comes with its own <a href="https://theconversation.com/trade-war-looms-over-article-16-the-northern-ireland-protocol-safeguard-explained-171525">set of challenges</a>. </p>
<p>Most significantly, invoking Article 16 requires any safeguard measure be limited in scope and duration to “what is strictly necessary” to solve the problem. It would be extremely difficult to argue that a piece of legislation undoing most of the protocol is restricted to what is “strictly necessary”. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/trade-war-looms-over-article-16-the-northern-ireland-protocol-safeguard-explained-171525">Trade war looms over article 16: the Northern Ireland protocol safeguard, explained</a>
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<p>Overriding the protocol is certainly not the only way to avoid checks at the Irish Sea border. The UK could have chosen to align its customs and regulatory regime to that of the EU. This was supported <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/5a4c0c7d-d993-4e58-8785-61adbcad6503">by politicians</a> and <a href="https://www.cbi.org.uk/media/6914/cbi-uk-eu-veterinary-agreement-paper-2021.pdf">businesses</a> in Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>Instead, the government has prioritised its choice to leave the EU single market and customs union over the need to ensure compliance in international obligations and the desire to avoid checks on British goods entering Northern Ireland. In this sense, the use of the bill to carry out wholesale breaches of the withdrawal agreement is more a matter of political convenience than necessity.</p>
<h2>How things could play out</h2>
<p>If the bill passes, there are likely to be legal challenges from the EU, as well as from individuals and businesses whose rights may be affected. The EU may also act sooner by <a href="https://theconversation.com/northern-ireland-protocol-heres-what-a-compromise-between-eu-and-uk-could-look-like-165043">relaunching the legal challenges it suspended</a> last year in relation to the UK’s decision to unilaterally extend grace periods under the protocol. There are reports that it will launch new <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/13/uk-risks-brexit-eu-trade-war-as-northern-ireland-protocol-bill-is-published">legal action</a> in other areas. The EU could also immediately initiate proceedings against the UK, arguing that the publication of the bill itself is a breach of the good faith requirement under the withdrawal agreement.</p>
<p>Cynics might argue that the UK government’s true aim is to threaten non-compliance with the protocol to gain leverage in its negotiations with the EU. The government hints as much in its legal position, stating that it remains hopeful of negotiating an alternative solution.</p>
<p>This approach seriously undermines the UK’s standing as a credible and trustworthy international actor. Building a reputation as a country that sees compliance with international law as optional will cause untold damage to the UK’s reputation. If the government is willing to disregard the protocol almost in its entirety on the basis of flimsy and contrived legal arguments, why should the EU trust it to uphold its obligations in any future agreement?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184985/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Billy Melo Araujo receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p>The government’s plan to override the Northern Ireland protocol breaches the UK’s legal obligations.Billy Melo Araujo, Senior Lecturer in EU and International Economic Law, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1833862022-05-19T10:04:19Z2022-05-19T10:04:19ZThe UK attempts to rewrite Northern Ireland Brexit protocol: key questions answered<p>The European Union has warned that it will <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_22_3142">“respond with all measures at its disposal”</a> if the UK goes ahead with a plan to unilaterally rewrite the most contentious part of their Brexit agreement, sparking fear of a trade war. </p>
<p>How did the two sides once again end up at loggerheads and what is the UK threatening to do? Foreign secretary Liz Truss has made a statement to parliament setting out her intentions on the matter. This is what we know so far. </p>
<h2>What is the protocol?</h2>
<p>The UK government’s decision to leave the EU single market and customs union after Brexit left both sides with a problem. It was committed to keep the border with Ireland frictionless (by ensuring people and goods could flow freely between Northern Ireland and Ireland), which would be practically impossible after leaving EU’s trading area. The question therefore became how the UK and the EU could keep the Irish border free of any physical infrastructure without jeopardising the integrity of the EU single market.</p>
<p>There were always two realistic solutions to the problem. The UK as a whole could remain within the EU’s regulatory orbit – at least with regard to the free movement of goods or it could accept that Northern Ireland would have a closer relationship with the European Union than the rest of the UK. Former prime minister Theresa May opted for the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/draft_withdrawal_agreement_0.pdf">first model</a> while Boris Johnson decided to choose the <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:12020W/TXT&from=EN#d1e129-102-1">second</a>. </p>
<p>This led to the adoption of the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/840230/Revised_Protocol_to_the_Withdrawal_Agreement.pdf">Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland</a>, which Johnson himself negotiated and signed. Members of his cabinet even characterised it as a <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/brexit/dominic-raab-hails-cracking-brexit-deal-but-dup-arent-convinced-816695">“cracking deal”</a>.</p>
<p>The protocol provides that Northern Ireland remains within the UK customs union but EU customs legislation continues to apply there. This means that Northern Ireland is, in practice, actually part of the EU customs territory. As a result, trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain is no longer frictionless, especially for goods moving across the Irish Sea.</p>
<p>So far, these unavoidable frictions have been largely addressed by allowing for grace periods. Major retailers do not currently need to comply with all the EU’s usual certification requirements, for instance, when importing goods such as food from the rest of the UK. However, these grace periods may expire at some point, leaving uncertainty over the rules. There is a concern that businesses will quickly become overwhelmed by complex bureaucratic requirements when trying to move goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. </p>
<h2>What has changed on the UK side?</h2>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/northern-ireland-protocol-foreign-secretarys-statement-17-may-2022">statement</a> to the House of Commons, Truss confirmed that the UK government now wants to change the terms of the protocol, declaring it unworkable.</p>
<p>She argued that the frictions in east-west trade have undermined the economic and constitutional relationship of Northern Ireland with the rest of the UK and said that the unionist community in Northern Ireland does not support the set-up.</p>
<p>According to the government, this has led to a political paralysis in the region. It is certainly the case that the Democratic Unionist Party has blocked the formation of a new government (and the functioning of the Northern Ireland Assembly) following recent elections, refusing to take part in the power-sharing institutions until the protocol has been significantly revised.</p>
<p>Despite having been aware of the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/841245/EU_Withdrawal_Agreement_Bill_Impact_Assessment.pdf">consequences</a> of the protocol and the potential for such opposition to the agreement at the time of arranging it, the UK government now says it plans to bring forward fresh legislation to unilaterally amend the protocol. However, the details remain unclear and no date has been set for the legislation to be presented to parliament.</p>
<h2>Will the UK government’s manoeuvres work?</h2>
<p>The very existence of grace periods could be seen as a tacit admission of the fact that a strict application of the protocol could lead to significant frictions in the trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This is why the European Commission proposed a <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/speech_21_5245">package</a> of amendments to the protocol last October. These were intended to be negotiated by both sides and had the potential to result in a concerted and consensual diplomatic effort that could have reduced trade friction. The government has rejected them, however, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/northern-ireland-protocol-foreign-secretarys-statement-17-may-2022">noting</a> that those proposals “would go backward from the situation we have today with the standstill”.</p>
<p>Such a consensual approach, of course, would have been very different from what the UK government is now suggesting – the unilateral re-writing of swathes of this international agreement.</p>
<p>Nor is it even clear how breaching these international obligations will foster an environment in which power-sharing in Northern Ireland can be restored. Even if the DUP <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/dup-government-liz-truss-belfast-northern-ireland-protocol-b2080936.html">is appeased</a> by whatever emerges from the re-drafting (and the EU experiences a damascene conversion and does not react) one has to wonder whether Sinn Féin – now the largest political party in Northern Ireland – would consent to such unilateral amendments by entering the executive.</p>
<p>In a recent <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/comment/stormont-must-be-restored-so-politicians-can-deliver-for-the-people-of-ni-41652590.html">article</a>, Johnson has urged all sides to “embrace that hybridity” in the debates about Brexit and the protocol. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a more hybrid regime than the one that Northern Ireland enjoys. It follows the UK internal market rules when it comes to free movement of services, people and capital but has a much closer relationship with the EU when it comes to goods. It is far from a perfect solution but it is a pragmatic arrangement that avoids the resurrection of a hard border on the island of Ireland. In fact, the majority of the recently elected members of the Northern Ireland Assembly consent to its existence.</p>
<p>It therefore seems clear that all parties should work in a consensual and cooperative way to improve the application of the protocol so that everyone in Northern Ireland, whichever community they identify with, can buy into the arrangement. Politicians in Westminster, Belfast or elsewhere must not resort to instrumentally using ethnic divisions as leverage for other political goals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183386/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nikos Skoutaris consulted the GUE/NGL parliamentary group of the European Parliament for Brexit-related issues during 2017-2020. </span></em></p>Foreign secretary Liz Truss wants to amend UK law to unilaterally rewrite the Brexit settlement it signed with the EU.Nikos Skoutaris, Associate Professor in EU law, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1499282020-11-12T12:51:09Z2020-11-12T12:51:09ZWhat does Joe Biden mean for Brexit? A quick primer on the current state of play<p>There was a collective sigh of relief across the world as President-elect Joe Biden made his victory speech. In Ireland, that relief was accentuated both by Biden’s Irish ancestry and, more importantly, by his position on Brexit.</p>
<p>Biden is adamant that any post-Brexit trade deal must not compromise peace in Northern Ireland. Many feel that this position bodes well for a deal between the UK and EU rather than a no-deal Brexit.</p>
<p>The question of what happens to the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland has long been a sticking point in Brexit talks. The withdrawal agreement signed by the UK and EU included a protocol <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/publications/revised-protocol-ireland-and-northern-ireland-included-withdrawal-agreement_en">guaranteeing</a> that there would be no customs posts at the Irish border. This is deemed essential to protect the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. </p>
<h2>Why the border matters</h2>
<p>Historically, the 300-mile border was the focus and symbol of the conflict in Northern Ireland. Partition was supported by unionists who wished to remain in the UK and opposed by nationalists who sought a united Ireland with no border. The border was heavily secured and a frequent target of IRA attacks during the conflict. </p>
<p>When the two sides signed <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications/europe-good-friday-agreement-brexit-and-rights/">the Good Friday Agreement</a>, under <a href="https://education.niassembly.gov.uk/post_16/snapshots_of_devolution/gfa/the_three_strands">Strand 2</a>, cross-border cooperation was emphasised strongly and the border effectively became invisible. People living on either side could travel freely without security checkpoints between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>This was all more straightforward when the UK was a member of the EU. But with its departure come questions of what happens to goods travelling between Ireland, which is a member of the EU’s single market, and the UK, which has ruled out remaining in the single market after Brexit. Under the withdrawal agreement, Ireland and Northern Ireland will be treated as a single market area for EU purposes, so there will be no customs checks at the Irish border. However, this necessitates a so-called sea border, to prevent UK goods seeping into the EU via Ireland, undercutting goods produced in the EU. </p>
<p>Therefore, under the agreement, there will be customs checks between Northern Ireland and Britain in order to protect the integrity of the EU single market. This sea border is a source of deep unhappiness and insecurity for <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/north-will-be-a-place-apart-under-brexit-deal-new-uup-leader-says-1.4078106">unionists</a> in Northern Ireland. They feel it undermines their status in the UK and see it as a step towards a united Ireland. They argue that a solution could be found if the EU and the Irish government were willing to compromise. </p>
<p>Aggravating the situation further, the UK recently indicated that it could renege on the withdrawal agreement. In October, the UK government published the <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9003/">Internal Market Bill</a> – a proposed piece of legislation that sets out trading arrangements between the four constituent parts of the UK at the end of the Brexit transition period. It controversially includes a provision to unilaterally override elements of the UK-EU withdrawal agreement. The appearance of this document raised fears that a no-deal Brexit was increasingly possible. One minister openly admitted this would breach international law. </p>
<h2>Where the White House fits in</h2>
<p>President Donald Trump has been a vocal supporter of Brexit during his tenure. This has led to a perception among Brexit supporters – including DUP <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/flying-the-flag-dup-mps-under-fire-over-donald-trump-re-election-banner-39499627.html">members of the UK parliament</a> – that Trump was their ally. They believed a UK-US trade deal would be completed quickly and easily after Brexit and that non-EU trade would thrive, making a deal with the EU less important for economic security. Trump’s support for Brexit and apparent lack of concern about the Good Friday Agreement gave confidence to the UK government in adopting a hardline approach. </p>
<p>Biden clearly takes a very different view. During the election campaign, <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/biden-warns-us-uk-trade-deal-will-not-happen-if-belfast-agreement-undermined-1.4384140">he quickly offered support to the Irish government</a> after the UK unveiled the Internal Market Bill. He and the Democrats warned that they would not support a UK-US trade deal unless the withdrawal agreement was maintained and the Good Friday Agreement protected. Biden’s election win therefore greatly increases the prospects of an EU-UK trade deal because the UK can no longer feel as certain of one with the US if it reneges on the withdrawal agreement. </p>
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<p>This is not a matter of Biden being “anti-British” or even “pro-Irish nationalism”. He is prioritising the Good Friday Agreement, but he is also committed to <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/joe-biden-s-folksy-appeal-belies-a-battle-scarred-toughness-1.4400322">multilateralism</a> and diplomacy. He will seek to build alliances, so it is unlikely that he would adopt an adversarial approach to the UK. And <a href="https://www.rte.ie/radio1/this-week/programmes/2020/1108/1176767-this-week-sunday-8-november-2020/?clipid=103530241">the UK’s key role in NATO</a> and the UN mean the UK and US need to work well together for security reasons.</p>
<p>It’s also worth noting that the strength of the “special relationship” between the UK and US has often been exaggerated. Until Trump, US policy favoured EU multilateralism over bilateral preferences – and indeed that preference was a factor in the UK’s decision to apply for EU membership in 1963. Brexit does imply that the UK’s <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/joe-biden-s-folksy-appeal-belies-a-battle-scarred-toughness-1.4400322">usefulness to Washington</a> has diminished.</p>
<p>It is possible that the UK government always intended to compromise in the EU trade talks at the last minute, after a period of brinkmanship. But Biden’s election undoubtedly increases the chance of a deal and is a sign too of a more stable international environment for Ireland, Northern Ireland and Britain. Little wonder there were sighs of relief at this election result.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149928/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Etain Tannam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The question of the Irish border after Brexit is a more pressing matter for the next president than it has been for his predecessor.Etain Tannam, Associate Professor in International Peace Studies, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1269992019-11-25T13:26:42Z2019-11-25T13:26:42ZBrexit poses a dilemma for Northern Ireland’s nationalists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302293/original/file-20191118-66945-rxu74e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=153%2C29%2C4382%2C3151&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">From left, the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union affects Ireland, too.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/flags-united-kingdom-european-union-ireland-764025649">alexfan32/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Much of the mess around Brexit, the 2016 referendum decision by the people of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, is tied up with Northern Ireland. Now the future may depend on a relatively few Northern Ireland politicians, in a situation so convoluted that it has brought bitter political enemies together.</p>
<p>Voters in Northern Ireland choose 18 members of the 650-member British Parliament, which sits in London. All 650 seats are up for grabs in a Dec. 12 nationwide election, which will choose the members of Parliament who will decide whether and how to go through with Brexit.</p>
<p>At present, 10 of the Northern Irish members of Parliament are from the Democratic Unionist Party, which was the only political party in Northern Ireland to <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/dup-confirms-it-will-campaign-for-brexit-in-leaveremain-referendum-34470806.html">campaign in favor of leaving</a> the EU during the 2016 referendum. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302288/original/file-20191118-66971-auoib6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302288/original/file-20191118-66971-auoib6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302288/original/file-20191118-66971-auoib6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302288/original/file-20191118-66971-auoib6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302288/original/file-20191118-66971-auoib6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302288/original/file-20191118-66971-auoib6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302288/original/file-20191118-66971-auoib6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302288/original/file-20191118-66971-auoib6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lady Sylvia Hermon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Official_portrait_of_Lady_Hermon_crop_2.jpg">Chris McAndrew/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/mar/25/lady-hermon-david-cameron-uup-quit-independent">only other unionist</a> in the current Northern Ireland delegation is the independent unionist Lady Sylvia Hermon, who wants to keep the U.K. in the EU. </p>
<p>The remaining seven Northern Ireland MPs are members of the nationalist Sinn Féin party, who staunchly reject British rule. </p>
<p>Their numbers are small, but the votes of the Northern Irish MPs are crucial: Several recent Parliamentary votes on Brexit have been decided by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/01/brexit-indicative-votes-round-2-what-happened-and-what-next">fewer than seven votes</a>. </p>
<p>Sinn Féin finds itself facing a choice between honoring its past and protecting its future that, to us as <a href="https://app.oxford.emory.edu/WebApps/Directory/index.cfm/view/9320">scholars of modern</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=3TTcIm8AAAAJ">Irish and British politics</a>, serves as an excellent example of how Brexit has complicated politics, business and people’s personal lives throughout Northern Ireland.</p>
<h2>A history of disengagement</h2>
<p>Sinn Féin’s elected MPs have been conspicuous in their absence from the Brexit debates in Parliament in London. That’s because they are upholding a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-62938-7_5">century-long tradition</a> in which Sinn Féin candidates run for office but do not take their seats in Parliament. They <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/06/sinn-fein-mp-british-parliament-irish-republicans-brexit">argue</a> that doing so would signal acceptance of what they believe is an illegitimate British rule over Northern Ireland.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.irishcentral.com/news/irishvoice/sinn-fein-end-abstention-british-parliament">Some</a> <a href="https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/views/analysis/time-for-sinn-fein-to-leave-abstentionism-to-the-history-books-857461.html">Irish commentators</a> have recently called on Sinn Féin to abandon this tradition in the name of European unity. After all, the <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/brexit/brexit-unionists-and-nationalists-deeply-split-on-idea-of-second-referendum-37726490.html">vast majority</a> of Irish nationalists want to avoid Brexit and stay in the EU. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302291/original/file-20191118-66973-gfaox5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302291/original/file-20191118-66973-gfaox5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302291/original/file-20191118-66973-gfaox5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302291/original/file-20191118-66973-gfaox5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302291/original/file-20191118-66973-gfaox5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302291/original/file-20191118-66973-gfaox5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302291/original/file-20191118-66973-gfaox5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302291/original/file-20191118-66973-gfaox5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Which elected officials take their seats in Parliament, and how they vote, could determine the future of Northern Ireland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parliament_at_Sunset.JPG">Mike Gimelfarb/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sinn Féin is stuck with two hard choices when the new Parliament is seated. It can stay away from London, bolstering a key element of its party’s brand, which is <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/revealed-how-many-sinn-fein-supporters-back-westminster-abstention-policy-35869874.html">broadly popular with its core supporters</a>. </p>
<p>Or the party can take its seats and cast potentially decisive votes to reverse Brexit and stay in the European Union. </p>
<h2>A look at the map</h2>
<p>The stakes are high because Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with an EU member – Ireland. Many of the efforts negotiating Brexit have centered on finding an agreement that ensures people and goods can travel freely between Ireland and Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>That’s how things have been for years now. When Brexit happens – if Brexit happens – the border <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-is-a-rejection-of-the-good-friday-agreement-for-peace-in-northern-ireland-114965">may suddenly become a formal boundary</a>, where both sides need to enforce immigration and customs restrictions.</p>
<p><iframe id="ZeJvA" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ZeJvA/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>On the island of Ireland, which includes Northern Ireland, the idea of a formal, militarized border with fences and inspection stations hearkens back to the bloody days from the late 1960s to the late 1990s, when armed British soldiers regularly patrolled the streets of cities and towns in Northern Ireland. The <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/the-history-of-the-irish-border-from-plantation-to-brexit-1.3769423">customs inspections ended</a> in the mid-1990s, as part of EU integration, but the last British Army watchtower was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4871578.stm">not removed until 2006</a>.</p>
<p>Any decision to harden the border after 15 years of almost complete openness sparks <a href="https://ukandeu.ac.uk/explainers/the-origins-of-the-irish-border/">political and economic worries</a> many in Ireland and Northern Ireland think are best left to the past. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302287/original/file-20191118-66921-1rc26ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302287/original/file-20191118-66921-1rc26ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302287/original/file-20191118-66921-1rc26ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302287/original/file-20191118-66921-1rc26ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302287/original/file-20191118-66921-1rc26ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302287/original/file-20191118-66921-1rc26ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302287/original/file-20191118-66921-1rc26ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302287/original/file-20191118-66921-1rc26ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">British soldiers man a checkpoint between Strabane, Northern Ireland, and Lifford, Ireland, in 1974.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205185235">Crown Copyright/Imperial War Museum</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A way out?</h2>
<p>Sinn Féin saw a possible way out of its dilemma in early November, when a more moderate nationalist party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, declined to run candidates in three Parliamentary constituencies for the upcoming election.</p>
<p>Sinn Féin decided to do something similar, withdrawing from contesting two of those districts and another one as well – and taking another step that surprised anyone who has followed Irish history. In November, Sinn Féin – a political party that wants the entire island of Ireland to be united under a national government in Dublin – announced it would ask its supporters to vote for <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/politics/docs/alcock.htm">Lady Sylvia Hermon</a>, who <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-36503633">supports remaining in the EU</a> as a means of <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/brexit-lady-hermon-attacks-pm-johnson-for-wilfully-ignoring-majority-in-northern-ireland-38561161.html">preserving the union</a> between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iOaH1kngG0g?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Republican party Sinn Féin endorses a moderate unionist for electoral office because of that candidate’s position on European Union membership.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In almost any other situation, any unionist would be a bitter political enemy of Sinn Féin. </p>
<p>But in the context of Brexit, Sinn Féin’s message was clear: Keeping Northern Ireland in the EU is as important as working to unite all of Ireland under one government – especially if that can happen without breaking the party’s tradition of boycotting Parliament.</p>
<p>Days after Sinn Féin’s endorsement, though, Hermon announced she would <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/general-election-2019/general-election-lady-sylvia-hermon-stands-down-as-mp-for-north-down-38668104.html">not seek reelection</a> in December. Of the three major candidates still running in North Down, <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/general-election-2019/new-uup-chief-steve-aiken-looks-to-unseat-dup-stalwart-sammy-wilson-38685615.html">two are anti-Brexit</a>, and may have a better chance of winning if they can get the support of Sinn Féin members.</p>
<p>Sinn Féin’s decision to signal strong support for remaining in the EU may not signal a lasting political realignment, nor a shift away from the longstanding nationalist-unionist divide in Northern Irish politics. It certainly doesn’t even begin to address major problems in Northern Ireland, which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/11/15/world/europe/15reuters-nireland-politics.html">has not had a functioning regional legislature since early 2017</a>. However, if Northern Ireland’s parliamentary delegation after the December election included one, two or even three more voting members who wanted to reverse Brexit, that could help shift the balance in Westminster.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126999/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Donald Beaudette is a member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Kirkpatrick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Politicians who want to unite Ireland under a Dublin-based government are stuck choosing whether to participate in the UK in an effort to stay in the EU.Donald Beaudette, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Oxford College, Emory UniversityAndrew Kirkpatrick, Associate Professor of Political Science, Christopher Newport UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1250182019-10-10T10:07:21Z2019-10-10T10:07:21ZWhy Brexit talks have stalled over Boris Johnson’s plans for the Irish border<p>If you’re looking to make sense of why Brexit is blocked, it’s worth considering that it has two basic dimensions. The first is the negotiation between the European Union and the UK on the terms for the latter leaving the former. The second is the negotiation – or, more often, the power plays – between the British government and the rest of the UK’s political system. If <a href="https://theconversation.com/theresa-may-resigns-as-british-prime-minister-heres-where-it-all-went-wrong-117763">Theresa May’s premiership</a> was focused on the first dimension, then Boris Johnson’s has shifted very much to the second.</p>
<p>As a brief reflection might demonstrate, neither approach has been particularly successful. The reason is that both, in their own ways, have assumed that if you’re able to secure a deal on one dimension, then the other will automatically snap into place. That misunderstanding has been especially evident since Johnson announced his more <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-proposals-for-a-new-protocol-on-irelandnorthern-ireland">formal proposals</a> for a new legal text on the Irish dimension of the withdrawal agreement.</p>
<p>In essence, the proposals sought to replace the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/irish-backstop-62530">Irish backstop</a>, which was designed to ensure a permanent fall-back system would be in place after Brexit to preserve the Good Friday Agreement but provoked an insurmountable backlash against May’s original deal. Johnson instead proposed that Northern Ireland should continue to be aligned with the EU on regulations on goods and committed to discussing customs arrangements.</p>
<p>Number 10 has also suggested that the Northern Ireland Assembly should give its consent to the introductions of the new arrangements, and renew that consent every four years thereafter.</p>
<p>In so doing, Johnson was seeking to address a number of fundamental problems with May’s deal on the backstop. First, there had been opposition from Tory ranks about the maintenance of a customs relationship in the backstop, which would have covered the entire UK. This would have meant that the scope for concluding free trade deals with other parts of the world would be limited, since the UK would be bound by the EU’s rules.</p>
<p>Second, and more critically, the backstop was specifically designed to be “all-weather” – that is, it would kick in at any point that there wasn’t an alternative arrangement (agreed by both the UK and EU) in place. In practice, that meant once it was activated, the UK would not be able to deactivate it without the EU’s approval. Such a potential lock on British action raised very many hackles.</p>
<p>So Johnson’s team floated this alternative, taking a considerable amount of care to craft a document that could get the buy-in of the harder end of the Conservative party, the DUP and even some of the non-aligned rebels in parliament.</p>
<p>And, indeed, various figures have announced that they could live with the deal –maybe not a robust majority of MPs, but certainly something that reached parts May’s deal never had.</p>
<p>At this point, the price of that buy-in became clear: the EU is not minded to go for it. From its perspective, there has been very little to commend Johnson’s text. Crucially, the proposal is largely a promise to talk, but with nothing said about what happens if talks are inconclusive. This runs entirely contrary to the purpose of the original backstop.</p>
<p>This is only amplified by the intention to give Stormont a vote on the arrangements. Quite apart from the absence of a functioning Northern Irish executive that might manage the discussions, the mechanism would raise the prospect of recurring debates about the durability of any provisions that were to be agreed.
These problems are self-evident to those involved in the negotiations, which is a key reason in explaining why they didn’t get taken through the draft text agreed by May at the end of last year.</p>
<p>So why advance them now? The generous interpretation would be that Johnson hoped that the log-rolling of a majority in parliament would be enough to move the EU: the process has been stuck for nearly a year now and approval of the current text by the Commons looks all but impossible (remember it has voted against it explicitly on three occasions already), so why not go with a new text that would win the backing of MPs? There’s something to this, especially if the <a href="https://t.co/BtBTS1TxaR">rumours</a> of an EU concession to allow some role for Stormont turn out to be accurate.</p>
<p>But the broad thrust from Brussels and other EU capitals has been much more <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49981265">negative</a>, not at all aided by the very negative briefings coming from Number 10. This points to a less generous view of Johnson’s approach. The looming general election – held back only by the need for an extension to Article 50 – has created an incentive for him to show that he has tried to secure a deal, only for it to be rejected by others: if returned to power, then he will be able to finally escape the constraints put on him, by parliament and by the EU, and make Brexit happen.</p>
<p>To put that back into our dimensions, it’s a renewed focus on the domestic competition. If it comes off, Johnson will find that the European dimension is still there, for any future deal he might want to do. And at that point, his recent actions might very well come back to haunt him.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125018/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Usherwood receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, as Deputy Director of the "UK in a Changing Europe" programme. He sits on the academic advisory board of Modern Europe. The views expressed in this article do not reflect those of the research councils.</span></em></p>The deal put forward might win the prime minister support at home but Brussels also has to get on board.Simon Usherwood, Professor in Politics, University of SurreyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1148012019-09-13T09:28:08Z2019-09-13T09:28:08ZIrish unionists have long struggled to rally US support – and remain isolated as Brexit beckons<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290889/original/file-20190904-175678-kwzzlw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1345%2C906&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Boston in the 19th century.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston#/media/File:Boston-view-1841-Havell.jpeg">Robert Havell/Wikipedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Those who are perpetually boasting about the greater Ireland beyond the sea ought to bear in mind that there are two Irelands beyond the sea.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Belfast News-Letter</em>, September 29, 1886</p>
<p>About one in ten people in the US <a href="https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/genealogy/irish-ancestry-in-america">claim Irish ancestry</a>, so it’s little wonder that the US is often called “the other Ireland beyond the sea”. While the Irish homeland was deeply divided between predominantly Catholic nationalists and Protestant unionists throughout its modern history, the recent behaviour of the US Congress suggests “the other Ireland” is not impartial. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290902/original/file-20190904-175678-59wa7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290902/original/file-20190904-175678-59wa7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290902/original/file-20190904-175678-59wa7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290902/original/file-20190904-175678-59wa7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290902/original/file-20190904-175678-59wa7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290902/original/file-20190904-175678-59wa7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290902/original/file-20190904-175678-59wa7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290902/original/file-20190904-175678-59wa7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President of the Irish Republic, Éamon de Valera, on the front cover of Time Magazine, 1932.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89amon_de_Valera#/media/File:Eamon_de_Valera-TIME-1932.jpg">Time Magazine/Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Senior members of Congress representing both main parties have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/31/brexit-mess-with-good-friday-and-well-block-uk-trade-deal-us-politicians-warn">pledged to block any trade deals</a> between the UK and US if Brexit <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-ireland-determined-to-avoid-no-deal-scenario-as-uk-plays-politics-with-the-irish-border-113512">threatens the open border</a> between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This favours the position of the Republic and Irish nationalists over that of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which fears the proposed “backstop” to ensure the border stays open will cause a rift between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.</p>
<p>Yet despite the common image of Irish-Americans as a Catholic group, many of those with Irish heritage are actually of <a href="https://archive.org/details/scotchirishinam07amergoog/page/n6">Protestant Scots-Irish descent</a>. So why does there seem to be so little sympathy for Protestant unionist concerns within the US establishment? The answer can be found in the history of the Home Rule movement more than a century earlier, when unionist attempts to rally Irish-Americans failed.</p>
<h2>A false dawn for unionists</h2>
<p>The Irish Home Rule movement between 1880 and 1920 saw Irish nationalist leaders such as Charles Stewart Parnell, Michael Davitt and Éamon de Valera journey to the US to target the large Irish diaspora there. They asked for campaign funding, manpower and for Irish-American pressure on the British government to give Ireland a devolved parliament.</p>
<p>Ireland’s unionists were suspicious. Not only were they largely opposed to home rule, but many also saw the influence of Irish-American nationalists as inherently militaristic and radical, favouring complete separation of Ireland from Britain instead of devolved power through home rule.</p>
<p>However, unionists also sought support and legitimacy across the Atlantic. During visits from prominent unionist politicians such as William Johnston, Irish-Americans were courted with flattering speeches about the strength of Protestant institutions and the cause of “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ktB0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=william+johnston+irish+US+visit&source=bl&ots=cmq48klfcn&sig=ACfU3U01XewEVz-tGpbTWhmrj3X6SEI5ew&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiKk4-ciMbkAhVbilwKHbUOD1wQ6AEwAnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=william%20johnston%20irish%20US%20visit&f=false">religious liberty</a>” in both their countries.</p>
<p>But they encountered a problem. Many Protestant Irish-American families had arrived in the 17th and 18th centuries. Their connection to the Irish homeland was much more distant than that shared by the majority of Catholic Irish-Americans, who tended to be more recent immigrants.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290896/original/file-20190904-175663-ifm6w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290896/original/file-20190904-175663-ifm6w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290896/original/file-20190904-175663-ifm6w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290896/original/file-20190904-175663-ifm6w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290896/original/file-20190904-175663-ifm6w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290896/original/file-20190904-175663-ifm6w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290896/original/file-20190904-175663-ifm6w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Orange Order headquarters in New York City beset by rioting Catholics and Protestants, 1871.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Order#/media/File:Lamartine_Hall_Orange_headquarters.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even those who joined groups explicitly celebrating Protestant Scots-Irish heritage emphasised the distant past and how they’d assimilated, claiming that they were on par with the Puritans of New England in their contribution to the founding of the American republic.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-brexit-is-leading-a-resurgent-irish-american-influence-in-us-politics-121343">How Brexit is leading a resurgent Irish American influence in US politics</a>
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<p>By the mid-19th century, those claiming Scots-Irish ancestry held a diverse range of views and positions. Some were prominent members of anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic groups. Others expressed anti-British, republican sentiments inherited from the traditions of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Society-of-United-Irishmen">United Irishmen</a>. </p>
<p>They used their heritage to assert a distinction from Catholic Irish immigrants, underscoring their ultimate loyalty to America. Many in Scots-Irish groups accused Catholic Irish-Americans of being loyal to a foreign government. But because of their political diversity, Irish unionists struggled to summon the Orange Ireland beyond the sea.</p>
<p>This divergence of Protestant Irish-Americans from their unionist cousins across the Atlantic continued through the course of the 20th century. As a result, unionist political parties in Northern Ireland have held an uneasy relationship with the US. </p>
<p>It was most notable during the negotiation of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which ended the Troubles, and in which the Clinton administration played a key role. The DUP was the only major party within Northern Ireland to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/04/moderates-northern-ireland-good-friday-agreement/587764/">oppose the agreement</a>, which maintained an open border in Ireland was key to lasting peace.</p>
<p>This history helps explain why, as the US continues to intervene in Irish politics as Brexit looms, any efforts of unionists to rally Irish-Americans seem forever destined to fall flat.</p>
<p>
<section class="inline-content">
<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249588/original/file-20181210-76968-jfryp4.png?h=128">
<div>
<header>Lindsey Flewelling is the author of:</header>
<p><a href="https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/isbn/9781786940452/">Two Irelands beyond the Sea: Ulster Unionism and America, 1880-1920</a></p>
<footer>Liverpool University Press provides funding as a content partner of The Conversation UK</footer>
</div>
</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114801/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lindsey Flewelling does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite many Irish-Americans claiming Protestant descent, unionists throughout history have found their rallying cries falling on deaf ears.Lindsey Flewelling, Historic Preservation Officer, Central City, CO, University of Colorado DenverLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1210092019-07-25T14:46:01Z2019-07-25T14:46:01ZSoft Brexit is more likely than ever, thanks to Boris Johnson’s new hardline cabinet – here’s why<p>Boris Johnson’s appointment of a cabinet full of Brexit hardliners will be alarming for anybody concerned about the possibility of a no-deal Brexit, and the stewardship of the UK’s economy and public services. But it’s not the whole story. In practice, the appearance of a hardline stance on EU withdrawal by a Johnson government may be the very thing that unlocks the possibility of avoiding a chaotic break with the continent.</p>
<p>We saw the worst and best of Johnson on his first day in office. The appointment of people with <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41172426">highly reactionary views</a>, or those who have shown contempt for both Britain’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/27/commons-report-rules-dominic-cummings-in-contempt-of-parliament">democratic system</a> and <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/0256baf2-6c34-11e9-a9a5-351eeaef6d84">national security laws</a>, purely because it suits immediate political interests, paints a disturbing picture of the character of Johnson’s premiership.</p>
<p>At the same time, the assembly of Team Boris may just have demonstrated – no less disturbingly, perhaps – Johnson’s supreme skills as a political operator.</p>
<h2>Johnson’s Brexit</h2>
<p>It’s generally believed that Johnson is not being entirely truthful about his Brexit plans. Conventional wisdom suggests that he will simply rebrand Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement – which he did <a href="https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/foreign-affairs/brexit/news/102879/numbers-how-every-mp-voted-third-brexit-deal-division-vs">eventually vote for</a> – and force it through parliament with sheer bravado. </p>
<p>But this scenario understates the problem of <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-why-is-the-irish-border-backstop-so-crucial-to-securing-a-brexit-deal-113398">the Irish border backstop</a> designed to kick in if alternatives to a hard border on the island of Ireland cannot be found. Without Labour’s support, there will still be enough true-believing Brexiters on the Conservative backbenches to block any deal containing May’s hated backstop – even ministerial resignations would be likely. But the EU will not countenance anything resembling May’s deal without a backstop-like mechanism for the Irish border.</p>
<p>In Johnson’s cunning plan, however, the backstop is likely to become the first stop. I think he will soon signal his willingness for Britain to remain in both the single market and customs union as part of a lengthy transitional period – possibly as long as five years – before a UK-EU free trade deal is agreed. Short of permanent single market membership via the European Economic Area – which the EU will never offer to Britain – this would represent the softest possible Brexit. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-whats-the-difference-between-hard-and-soft-brexit-66524">Explainer: what's the difference between 'hard' and 'soft' Brexit?</a>
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<p>All he requires from the EU is a commitment to this timetable, in return for ongoing budget contributions for several years, and of course payment of the divorce settlement when the UK finally departs from the single market and customs union. </p>
<p>This doesn’t fully alleviate the need for something like the backstop – since even five years may not be enough time to agree a trade deal – but with May’s 21-month “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/oct/25/brexit-transition-period-likely-limited-20-months-eu-officials-say">implementation period</a>” now irrelevant, it starts to feel purely hypothetical.</p>
<p>Crucially, Britain will still leave the EU in a formal sense on October 31, 2019, relinquishing all political representation. With ironic inevitability, if it leaves with a deal involving a lengthy transition, Britain will become the rule-taking “vassal state” of which Johnson <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuMPS4XX7fo">once warned</a>. An elongated Brexit will be deemed a price worth paying for an irrevocable Brexit.</p>
<p>Johnson’s masterstroke is to tie the key figures of the Leave campaign now in his cabinet to this strategy, while effectively conceding the demands of Tory Remainers. The former know this might be their last chance to secure Brexit, and the latter know this might be their last chance to avoid no deal.</p>
<p>We can then expect a general election to be called, for early November or sooner if the new withdrawal process has been agreed. Johnson’s minority government cannot possibly function beyond Brexit with so many ousted ministers on the backbenches. However, whether he wins a workable majority or not, I also expect the complexion of his government to change dramatically after this point, with the return of senior Remainers such as Jeremy Hunt and Greg Clark, and the promotion of people like Johnson’s brother Jo.</p>
<h2>No deal</h2>
<p>It would be foolish to discount the continuing possibility of a no-deal Brexit, not least because Johnson will prove himself incompetent and indifferent, in equal measure, when it comes to delivering his plan in practice. While his political strategy depends on stuffing his cabinet with hardliners, their ideological myopia renders them ill-suited to the task of managing a major constitutional upheaval, yet perversely over-confident in their ability to do so.</p>
<p>Even the best laid plans often go wrong. And best laid plans, these are not.</p>
<p>Yet it’s worth remembering that nobody on the Leave side in 2016 envisaged a no-deal Brexit. It was May herself who, <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-very-short-history-of-no-deal-brexit/">almost by accident</a>, raised this possibility in her 2017 Lancaster House speech. May quickly backed away from the notion of leaving without a withdrawal agreement, yet accepting the prospect nevertheless became a test of purity among the Brexiters.</p>
<p>The Johnson government will now ramp up planning for a no-deal Brexit, but the fact that this job has been <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-s-cabinet-feud-ends-as-gove-is-given-key-role-in-brexit-plans-pzzkcdr36">handed to Michael Gove</a> – who thwarted Johnson’s leadership ambitions in 2016 – is highly revealing. If we listen only to Johnson’s rhetoric, we could deduce he has appointed Gove to a significant and indeed pivotal role. In practice, it will be a highly demanding job, but one which could end up being rather marginal to the main thrust of the Johnson government’s plans.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-deal-brexit-does-latest-parliamentary-vote-make-it-less-likely-120632">No-deal Brexit: does latest parliamentary vote make it less likely?</a>
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<h2>Immigration implications</h2>
<p>The fate of Britain’s position on immigration is perhaps the most fascinating element of the multi-dimensional debacle. Johnson’s deal is likely to see free movement continue – certainly for several years, and perhaps indefinitely. Do not be fooled by references to an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/jul/25/boris-johnson-new-cabinet-prime-minister-chairs-first-cabinet-as-critics-say-party-now-fully-taken-over-by-hard-right-live-news?page=with:block-5d3988818f08cf92bb776b4c#block-5d3988818f08cf92bb776b4c">Australia-style points-based system</a>, designed only to reassure Tory voters but practically meaningless. Johnson and the <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/07/britannia-unchained-free-market-book-defines-boris-johnson-s-new-cabinet">“Britannia Unchained” brigade</a> of free marketeers are almost unabashedly pro-immigration.</p>
<p>But we tend to underestimate how much May’s insistence on ending free movement hamstrung her premiership. As such, if he accepts free movement, Johnson risks handing Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party a new stick with which to attack his strategy. This is all the more reason for an early election, before the immigration policy implications of Johnson’s approach become clear among the wider electorate.</p>
<p><em>This article was co-published with the <a href="https://ukandeu.ac.uk/">UK in a Changing Europe</a> initiative.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig Berry is a member of the Labour Party.</span></em></p>What is Boris Johnson’s Brexit plan?Craig Berry, Reader in Political Economy, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1180032019-06-05T10:08:10Z2019-06-05T10:08:10ZWhat do 11-year-olds think about Brexit? I asked – and they didn’t hold back<p>Brexit has been a seismic event in UK politics, but its real implications will be felt most by future generations of children. Once the immediate political drama is over, it is today’s young people who will live in the new reality of life outside the European Union. Yet this is the very section of society excluded from the political process.</p>
<p>Arguably, given the troubled history of Northern Ireland – and the fact that it is the site of the only land border with the EU – the impact of Brexit may be most strongly felt by children there.</p>
<p>So to find out what children in Northern Ireland really think about politicians, politics and Brexit, I <a href="http://www.ark.ac.uk/klt">asked</a> 2,678 ten- and 11-year-olds. They made their feelings very clear. </p>
<p>Few (just 17%) thought UK politicians were doing a good job, although around four in ten said they didn’t know. In an open-ended question asking why they thought politicians were, or were not, doing a good job, one child summed up what many of them believed with a withering comment:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Politicians aren’t known for being much good.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Brexit was mentioned 270 times in written responses – often followed by an exclamation mark. Like adults, children seem fed up with this never ending story. “They’re only talking about Brexit,” said one. “All they do is whine about Brexit, Brexit and more Brexit,” added another.</p>
<p>Some children did acknowledge, though, that this is a complex issue and thought that the politicians were doing their best: “I think our politicians are doing a good job because Brexit is very tricky but they are keeping it together and trying to work out a deal”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277959/original/file-20190604-69087-123qun7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277959/original/file-20190604-69087-123qun7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277959/original/file-20190604-69087-123qun7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277959/original/file-20190604-69087-123qun7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277959/original/file-20190604-69087-123qun7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277959/original/file-20190604-69087-123qun7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277959/original/file-20190604-69087-123qun7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277959/original/file-20190604-69087-123qun7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Are they doing a good job?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>While Brexit, and UK politicians such as Theresa May were mentioned often, many of the children focused on local politics in Northern Ireland. They are clearly aware that there is currently no government in the devolved assembly at Stormont and some are scathing about this: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>They are not going to Stormont at the minute and are being paid for nothing.</p>
<p>They are not doing a good job in Stormont because we have been without an executive for nearly two years.</p>
<p>They are not [doing a good job] because there is no one working in Stormont and all the parties are disagreeing so nothing is being done and the country is not being looked after properly.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The big bad backstop</h2>
<p>A number of children were concerned about the thorny issue of the “backstop” and Brexit’s potential impact on Northern Ireland based on the fragile peace process that has been in place since the signing of the <a href="http://education.niassembly.gov.uk/post_16/snapshots_of_devolution/gfa">Good Friday Agreement</a> in 1998.</p>
<p>During the 30 years of the Troubles, which started in 1968, the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland was manned by British soldiers who were targeted by nationalist paramilitary groups such as the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Recent paramilitary attacks by the “New IRA”, one of which resulted in the murder of journalist <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48018615">Lyra McKee</a> in Derry/Londonderry in April, have ignited fears that reinstating a hard border will result in a resurgence of violence in Northern Ireland. This is something the children are clearly picking up on, as demonstrated by some of their comments. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>While everyone’s talking about Brexit I always hear the words Northern Ireland border so please politicians fix this border issue, stop this new IRA whatever that is and please try and stop those paramilitary people.</p>
<p>They are not doing a good job because of Brexit and I think this will cause a hard border between the south and the north of Ireland, basically resulting in a troubles once again.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Around half of the children (47%) thought it was a bad idea to leave the EU, a much smaller proportion (13%) thought it was a good idea, but 40% said they didn’t know. The comments from the children reflect the divided opinion on staying or leaving – with more in favour of Remain:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They want to get out of Europe which is the dumbest thing I heard and I’m very angry.</p>
<p>They do not do a good job because they are not accepting Brexit.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Interestingly, those who supported Brexit were more likely to think politicians were doing a good job when compared with those who thought leaving the EU was a bad idea (28% and 12% respectively).</p>
<p>The survey results show that many ten and 11-year-olds in Northern Ireland have a high level of interest in, and understanding of, local and international political issues. When given the opportunity, they are willing and able to express their views. Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child sets out the right of the child to have a say in matters that affect them – and this clearly applies to politics and Brexit. That many children feel this way is exemplified by the following quotes from our survey respondents:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I feel like I should have a voice as well as the other millions of people.</p>
<p>They are not letting us children decide on our future. We are the ones living it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Given that children cannot vote, we need to find ways of ensuring that their voices are heard and taken note of. It is particularly sobering that many of the children taking part in my research are fearful of a return to violence in Northern Ireland. This should act as a wake-up call for politicians to work together to ensure that this does not happen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118003/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katrina Lloyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Northern Ireland’s youngest constituents politely request that politicians stop whining about Brexit.Katrina Lloyd, Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1157432019-04-23T13:19:51Z2019-04-23T13:19:51ZNancy Pelosi on Brexit: why Irish-US diplomacy is a powerful force in border talks<p>On her recent visit to Europe, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, addressed members of Ireland’s Dail (the lower house of the Irish parliament). She was attending an event that marked the centenary of its founding during revolution against British rule. But, beyond the symbolism of the historical moment, Pelosi’s presence signified a diplomatic intimacy between her nation and Ireland in the midst of Brexit-induced uncertainties.</p>
<p>Pelosi was leading a delegation of US politicians on a “<a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/2019/0415/1042810-nancy-pelosi-dublin-visit/">fact-finding mission</a>” but it is also clear that this was a diplomatic and political mission. She sent clear messages to parties in the UK and the US, as well as Ireland. </p>
<p>In her <a href="https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/41719/">Dail speech</a> Pelosi eloquently and somewhat sentimentally gave examples of “the emerald thread that runs through American history”. But the punchline of her speech was very contemporary and decidedly unsentimental: “Let me be clear, if the Brexit deal undermines the Good Friday Accord, there will be no chance of a US-UK trade agreement.” That statement cut to the political quick of Pelosi’s visit, and also to the Irish-US diplomacy informing it. </p>
<h2>A warning</h2>
<p>At each stage of the congressional delegation’s visit to the UK and Ireland – London, Dublin, the border and Belfast – Pelosi was consistent and forthright with her core message. In London, she stated that “if there were any weakening of the Good Friday accords there would be no chance whatsoever, a non-starter for a US-UK trade agreement … Don’t even think about it.” That’s not bland diplomatic speak. The bluntness of the message was calculated and multi-directed. </p>
<p>It is at once an intervention into British-Irish-EU deliberations on Brexit – on the grounds that the US is a guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement – but also a message to Donald Trump. Pelosi was warning the president that a Democrat-controlled Congress will not allow him to make a trade deal on the hoof with the UK. That Trump and his supporters are hearing the message is evident from a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-undermines-trump-abroad-on-us-uk-trade-deal-says-no-chance-if-brexit-hurts-irish-peace-accord">Fox News headline</a>: “Pelosi Undermines Trump Abroad on US-UK Trade Deal.”</p>
<p>Leading Brexiteers were also aggrieved by Pelosi’s interventions. They have consistently put a trade deal with the US at the heart of their Brexit vision and were not pleased to see that vision debunked by these high-ranking American politicians. Pelosi and colleagues met with members of the European Research Group, including its leader the Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg. </p>
<p>Following the meeting, congressman Brendan Boyle said they had had a “frank discussion” and “a good, sincere, honest exchange”. That’s diplomatic code for voluble argument and disagreement. Boyle reflected: “their world view is that the border issue is ‘concocted’ and that it is really just being used by Remainers in London, Brussels, Dublin and Washington all in some sort of grand conspiracy to force them to do something that they don’t want to do.”</p>
<h2>Ireland and Washington</h2>
<p>While the Brexiteers’ claims of a grand conspiracy say more about their paranoid fantasies than political realities, there is nonetheless some transatlantic coordination at work in Pelosi’s messaging. She was accompanied on the trip by, among others, Congressman Richard Neal, who is chair of the influential House Ways and Means Committee that will oversee any post-Brexit trade deal between the US and the UK. He is also a co-chairman of the Friends of Ireland Caucus in Congress, and a long time spokesman for Irish interests in Washington.</p>
<p>The Friends of Ireland caucus was founded in 1981 by three senior Irish-American politicians – senators Edward Kennedy and Daniel Moynihan and the then speaker of the house, Tip O’Neill. It was influential in leading Irish America to support peaceful resolution to the Northern Ireland conflict and in drawing the incumbent US president, Bill Clinton, into a major commitment to ending it. Those were heady days of Irish-American leadership and Irish lobbying in Washington – watched with some trepidation and even envy by British diplomats. </p>
<p>With the giants of that generation of Irish-American leadership having passed on and the galvanising conflict in Ireland thankfully becalmed, it would be easy to ignore or dismiss Irish-American political capital today. But it is stronger than meets the eyes of outsiders and is even showing signs of resurgence. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.economist.com/united-states/2019/03/16/the-irish-conquest-of-america">Lexington</a>, in The Economist, recently marvelled that the Irish Taoiseach is the only world leader guaranteed an annual meeting with the president of the US, and remarked that “Ireland’s soft-power triumph is mainly testament to the continued enthusiasm of 32m Irish-Americans for their roots, and to their equally remarkable dominance of American politics.”</p>
<p>Ireland is using that soft power to support its preparations for Brexit. Irish-American politicians have been on message since January of this year when Boyle introduced <a href="https://boyle.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-boyle-introduces-house-resolution-opposing-hard-border">a resolution</a> in Congress opposing the establishment of “a hard border” on the island of Ireland.</p>
<p>That message was amplified in <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/this-alarms-us-key-irish-americans-write-to-may-varadkar-on-brexit-1.3783226">a letter</a> to Theresa May and the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, in February signed by 40 leading Irish Americans, warning that Brexit could jeopardise the Good Friday Agreement.</p>
<p>In March, 22 members of Congress signed <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/brexit-us-congress-members-urge-may-to-ensure-hard-irish-border-avoided-1.3822274">a letter</a> to May warning that a post-Brexit “free trade agreement, may be delayed indefinitely if we are obligated to respond to potential crises on the island” of Ireland. That message was sent on the eve of Varadkar’s visit to Washington to mark St Patrick’s Day.</p>
<p>The message has now been forcefully delivered to the UK government and Brexiteers’ doorsteps by Pelosi and Neal.</p>
<p>It’s clear that a coordinated flexing of diplomatic muscles is happening here. The warning that a trade deal with the US is off the table if the Good Friday Agreement is compromised should not be ignored amid the chaotic realignments of transatlantic relations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115743/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liam Kennedy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The House of Representatives speaker repeatedly said the UK can forget about a trade deal with the US if it fails to meet its obligations to the Good Friday Agreement.Liam Kennedy, Professor of American Studies, University College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1135122019-03-19T14:20:02Z2019-03-19T14:20:02ZBrexit: Ireland determined to avoid no-deal scenario as UK plays politics with the Irish border<p>Despite the UK parliament’s decision to <a href="https://theconversation.com/mps-vote-against-no-deal-brexit-but-what-does-that-actually-mean-113492">reject a no-deal Brexit</a>, unless MPs at Westminster finally agree Theresa May’s Brexit deal, or the EU agrees to give the prime minister an extension of the negotiating period, the UK could still leave the EU without a deal. </p>
<p>The day after May’s deal was defeated for the second time at Westminster, the UK government published its plans for tariffs – and the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/eu-exit-avoiding-a-hard-border-in-northern-ireland-in-a-no-deal-scenario">Northern Irish border</a> – in the event of a no-deal Brexit. At a time when the British-Irish relationship is already strained by the Brexit process, the tariff plan was criticised by both <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-no-deal-tariff-wto-trade-eu-theresa-may-northern-ireland-a8825076.html">the EU</a> and the Irish government. </p>
<p>The Irish government’s main focus remains on securing UK acceptance of the withdrawal agreement and most of the tensions derive from Westminster’s failure to approve it. Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, was in Ireland on March 19 to discuss the EU’s response to any requests from the UK to extend the Brexit negotiating period with Leo Varadkar, the Irish premier (Taoiseach). </p>
<h2>Tariff proposals</h2>
<p>The UK government <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/temporary-rates-of-customs-duty-on-imports-after-eu-exit">proposed</a> that for one year after a no-deal Brexit, goods from the Republic of Ireland that remained in Northern Ireland would not be subject to tariffs, but that EU goods including Irish goods exported to Britain would be. The British government insisted this wouldn’t create a hard border down the Irish sea, as there would be no checks on goods moving between Northern Ireland and Britain. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/qanda-why-is-the-uk-planning-to-cut-tariffs-on-most-imports-in-the-event-of-a-no-deal-brexit-113086">Q&A: Why is the UK planning to cut tariffs on most imports in the event of a no-deal Brexit?</a>
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<p>Although the publication was overshadowed by events in Westminster, it was clear that the Irish government and the EU opposed it. There was <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/uk-trying-to-frighten-ireland-with-draconian-tariffs-hogan-1.3824862">speculation</a> in Dublin that the UK had published the proposals to put extra pressure on the Irish government to drop the so-called Irish backstop from the Brexit withdrawal agreement. </p>
<p>Imposing tariffs on goods exported from Ireland to Britain would have significant negative implications for Irish exports, particularly in the beef and dairy sectors. Irish exports to Britain comprise <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42223732">just under 14%</a> of Ireland’s total exports and beef and agrifood is a central part of that. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/ireland-a-century-of-trade-relations-shows-why-a-soft-border-is-so-important-88498">Ireland: a century of trade relations shows why a soft border is so important</a>
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<p>The proposal raises the possibility that UK exporters could enter the EU market through the backdoor without facing tariffs. Such a plan could only be agreed with EU consent, not unilaterally. The potential for Ireland to become a <a href="https://theconversation.com/smuggling-in-the-irish-borderlands-and-why-it-could-get-worse-after-brexit-111153">smugglers paradise</a> is obvious. If the UK changed its regulations over time so that it was no longer aligned to those of the EU, prices of UK exports to Ireland and to the EU more generally could be cheaper than goods produced within the EU. The integrity of the single market would be undermined. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264364/original/file-20190318-28492-37emha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264364/original/file-20190318-28492-37emha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264364/original/file-20190318-28492-37emha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264364/original/file-20190318-28492-37emha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264364/original/file-20190318-28492-37emha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264364/original/file-20190318-28492-37emha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264364/original/file-20190318-28492-37emha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Dublin port: no-deal Brexit raises questions over mechanics of trade.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/354054359?size=medium_jpg">Tilman Ehrcke/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>A ‘supreme irony’</h2>
<p>Varadkar called the tariff proposals a <a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/2019/0313/1036142-government-uk-tariffs/">“supreme irony”</a> as they would treat Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the UK. This is the very reason Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) opposes the Irish backstop – <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-why-was-the-irish-border-backstop-so-crucial-to-brexit-deal-defeat-113398">one of the central issues</a> blocking May’s deal at Westminster.</p>
<p>Varadkar argued that before very long there would have to be checks at Northern Irish ports – essentially creating a border in the Irish sea which is so opposed by the DUP. Clearly the tariff proposals are <a href="https://www.centreonconstitutionalchange.ac.uk/blog/dup-and-no-deal-tariffs-double-standards">highly awkward for the DUP</a>. It’s quite possible they were a deliberate British strategy to persuade some of those who had voted against May’s deal for a second time on March 12, not least the ten DUP MPs, to change their minds in any upcoming third vote. </p>
<p>Parliament’s subsequent <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk-to-seek-brexit-delay-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-latest-parliamentary-vote-113607">decision to allow</a> the government to ask the EU for an extension to the Brexit negotiating period adds further pressure on the Brexiteers – as a long extension could increase the chance of Brexit not happening at all. </p>
<h2>Future of the border</h2>
<p>While still seeking a deal, Varadkar <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/varadkar-says-government-to-escalate-no-deal-brexit-measures-1.3824720">indicated that further measures</a> would be announced soon about the Irish government’s response to a no–deal scenario. In 2018, the Irish government announced it would <a href="https://www.irishnews.com/news/republicofirelandnews/2018/07/17/news/dublin-to-recruit-500-customs-officers-in-preparation-for-no-deal-brexit-1383511/">recruit 500 extra staff</a> to deal with customs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. There is an assumption that in that scenario, customs checks would have to occur, perhaps not at the border, but in areas near it. </p>
<p>Customs checks violate the spirit of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-belfast-agreement">Good Friday Agreement</a>. The 1998 agreement was negotiated in the context of Irish and UK membership of the single market and EU. The second <a href="http://education.niassembly.gov.uk/post_16/snapshots_of_devolution/gfa/the_three_strands">strand of the agreement</a>, devoted to cross-border co-operation, assumed a relatively open border that allowed freedom of movement. It also explicitly provided for an EU cross-border body, the special EU programmes body, to manage EU funding. A hard border would seriously threaten the ability to implement this. </p>
<p>Despite Ireland’s preparations, most efforts are still focused on securing a deal. The Irish government has <a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2019/0314/1036339-brexit-reaction/">repeatedly mentioned</a> that a 21-month extension to the article 50 deadline could be granted if the UK provides clear plans, such as staying in the customs union and single market. The predominant mood in Dublin is a determined, albeit weary one: to protect the backstop and the Good Friday Agreement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113512/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Etain Tannam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The UK’s no-deal tariff plan was viewed in Dublin as a way to scare Brexiteers into supporting Theresa May’s deal.Etain Tannam, Lecturer, International Peace Studies, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1130862019-03-13T16:29:11Z2019-03-13T16:29:11ZQ&A: Why is the UK planning to cut tariffs on most imports in the event of a no-deal Brexit?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263702/original/file-20190313-123551-ozqtgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A frictionless border.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Remizov / Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Brexit creeps closer with no deal in place, the UK government has published <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/eu-exit-avoiding-a-hard-border-in-northern-ireland-in-a-no-deal-scenario">contingency plans</a> to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Central to this is a unilateral commitment by the UK not to apply checks or controls on goods at the border between the two, including no customs requirements for nearly all goods.</p>
<p>For products entering the rest of the UK, the government has proposed a temporary measure of not applying tariffs on 87% of imports by value. At the moment, just 80% of the UK’s imports are tariff free. Here’s how to understand the significance of this move.</p>
<h2>What are tariffs?</h2>
<p>In simple terms, tariffs (or customs duties) are taxes that apply on imported goods when these pass customs. Historically, tariffs have been the most visible and effective types of barrier to trade. Like all taxes, they are intended to raise revenues for the public purse. But they are also used for protectionist purposes – by raising the price of imported goods, they confer a competitive advantage to domestically produced goods. </p>
<p>Although tariffs clearly inhibit trade, they are permitted under World Trade Organisation (WTO) law. There are, however, two basic requirements which WTO members have to follow when applying tariffs. </p>
<p>First, every WTO member must submit a tariff schedule which specifies the maximum level of tariffs that they will apply for each imported good. Members are allowed to apply lower tariffs than this, but cannot exceed it. </p>
<p>Second, tariffs must comply with the most-favoured nation (MFN) rule. This means that any tariffs applied on imported goods must be applied on a non-discriminatory basis, irrespective of their origin. If the EU decides to apply a 10% tariff on imported cars, that tariff must be applied irrespective of whether the cars are being imported from China, the US or India.</p>
<p>There are exceptions to the MFN rule. In particular, countries can enter into bilateral or regional preferential trade agreements where they agree to provide each other with preferential tariff treatment (by reducing or removing them entirely). The EU is one such trade agreement. As part of the EU, member states are precluded from applying any measures that would constitute barriers to trade within the EU. This includes, of course, tariffs.</p>
<h2>Why would the UK remove tariffs?</h2>
<p>Should the UK exit the EU without a deal, it will be required under WTO rules to apply tariffs on goods originating from the EU on a non-discriminatory basis. This means that it must treat imports from all countries in the same way. This is highly problematic, as the EU remains, by some distance, <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7851/CBP-7851.pdf">the UK’s largest trading partner</a>. It accounts for more than half of all of the UK’s imports, including cars, medicinal and pharmaceutical products, and food. </p>
<p>Applying tariffs on important goods from the EU would have a significant impact on the UK economy and consumers. It would mean a rapid and significant increase in prices of everyday items. The economic shock that would ensue should not be underestimated. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263698/original/file-20190313-123531-1caahx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263698/original/file-20190313-123531-1caahx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263698/original/file-20190313-123531-1caahx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263698/original/file-20190313-123531-1caahx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263698/original/file-20190313-123531-1caahx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263698/original/file-20190313-123531-1caahx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263698/original/file-20190313-123531-1caahx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Tariffs will lead to price hikes.</span>
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<p>Because WTO law precludes countries from applying tariffs on a non-discriminatory basis, the only way the UK can decide not to apply tariffs on EU imports is by also not applying tariffs on imports from non-EU countries. In other words, under the UK’s no-deal contingency plans, the UK would be removing tariffs on imports from all over the world, not just the EU.</p>
<h2>Will this solve the UK’s problems?</h2>
<p>No. The plan to not apply tariffs is a sticking plaster which does not address the fundamental challenges facing the UK economy if it has to trade with its largest trading partner on WTO terms. The UK government acknowledges this and has said that this new regime – far from maintaining the status quo – is merely “designed to minimise costs to business”. Costs that are an inevitable consequence of a no-deal Brexit. </p>
<p>This is so for two reasons. First, not all imported goods will be able to access the UK tariff-free. For example, the UK plans to maintain tariffs on sensitive products such as agricultural products and cars. This is to protect UK producers and manufacturers who would be unable to compete with cheaper imports on a level playing field. </p>
<p>Second, tariffs are just one of the many types of barriers to trade faced by exporters. In fact, it is largely accepted that regulatory barriers to trade are far more problematic. Goods (including EU imports) accessing the UK market will have to be stopped and checked to ensure that they comply with UK regulations. This plan does nothing to address the increased costs that will result from such barriers. </p>
<p>In short, not applying tariffs to lots of imports is intended to reduce the pain and hardship that will result from a no-deal scenario. But it will not avoid it. Inevitably, trade will become harder and prices will increase dramatically.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113086/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Billy Melo Araujo has received funding from the British Academy.</span></em></p>How to make sense of the UK government’s no-deal Brexit contingency plans to avoid a hard border in Ireland.Billy Melo Araujo, Lecturer in EU and International Economic Law, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1133982019-03-12T17:01:27Z2019-03-12T17:01:27ZBrexit: why is the Irish border ‘backstop’ so crucial to securing a Brexit deal?<p><em>After a late night dash to Strasbourg on March 11, the British prime minister, Theresa May, said she <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-47531326/brexit-we-have-secured-what-mps-asked-for-says-may">had agreed “legally binding” changes</a> to the Brexit withdrawal agreement with the European Union. Designed to avoid the UK being kept indefinitely within the so-called Irish backstop, such changes were deemed key in order for MPs to agree to the Brexit deal in parliament. But the deal was still <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47547887">defeated</a> on March 12 by 149 votes. Why was the Irish backstop such a sticking point?</em></p>
<p><strong>Q: The attorney general’s <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/785188/190312_-_Legal_Opinion_on_Joint_Instrument_and_Unilateral_Declaration_co..___2_.pdf">advice</a> states that the new legally binding provisions “reduce the risk” of the UK being stuck in the Irish backstop indefinitely. What is the backstop and why is there so much opposition to it?</strong></p>
<p>There is a certain irony in the focus being on the UK getting out of the backstop rather than on avoiding falling into it in the first place. For the backstop is not the intended “landing point” for the UK after Brexit – as the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/publications/instrument-relating-agreement-withdrawal-united-kingdom-great-britain-and-northern-ireland-european-union-and-european-atomic-energy-community_en">documentation</a> produced by the UK and EU late on March 11 reiterates. Instead, it is a safety net for Northern Ireland to fall into if the UK and EU fail to negotiate a future trade agreement that avoids a hard border by the end of the Brexit <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-transition-what-will-and-wont-change-for-britons-after-march-2019-107558">transition period</a>.</p>
<p>In order for it to be fit for purpose, the arrangements for this safety net have had to be clearly spelled out before Brexit day. And because its function is primarily to avoid a hard border, the backstop is centred on Northern Ireland rather than the whole of the UK. This has produced a distorted picture of an unlikely-but-potential future relationship in which Northern Ireland remains much more closely tied to the EU than the rest of the UK. </p>
<p>The Democratic Unionist Party and other unionist parties in Northern Ireland have been vocally <a href="https://twitter.com/NigelDoddsDUP/status/1082994473364307968?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Ftheconversation.com%2Fbrexit-and-northern-ireland-the-latest-commitments-explained-109669">critical</a> of the backstop as a result, worried that if the UK ended up in this position – be it by accident or design – it would lead to growing divergence within the UK. In a political atmosphere of heightened tension and dysfunction, particularly in the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-43064009?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_news_ni&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=northern_ireland">absence of devolved government</a> in Northern Ireland, such concerns are particularly acute and not easily soothed. </p>
<p><strong>Q: If the UK did decide to unilaterally withdraw from the backstop arrangement, what would happen on the Irish border?</strong> </p>
<p>It’s worth noting that there are actually two aspects to the “backstop” set out in the protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/progress-on-the-uks-exit-from-and-future-relationship-with-the-european-union">withdrawal agreement</a>. They relate to two aspects of keeping the Irish border “frictionless”: avoiding the need for customs controls and enabling the free movement of goods. </p>
<p>Customs controls come into play at entry points into a territory. If they don’t apply at the land border, they will be in force at other entry points to Northern Ireland, such as the sea and airports. This in effect would mean customs controls between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. </p>
<p>The first part of the backstop avoids this by including the whole of the UK in a single customs territory with the EU. If the UK was to withdraw from this part of the backstop, it would mean customs controls on the Irish border – so all goods having to be declared, cleared for entry and tariffs or quotas paid as they cross the border. Given that <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmniaf/329/32906.htm">177,000 lorries and 208,000 vans</a> cross the border each month, customs controls would be difficult to enforce and costly to comply with. Many Northern Ireland businesses fear that they simply could not survive such <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-46202565">barriers to cross-border trade</a>. </p>
<p>The second part of the backstop is already specific to Northern Ireland. It means Northern Ireland would remain in regulatory alignment with the EU in specified areas of EU legislation (about 20% of it relating to goods) to avoid friction or controls on the movement of goods across the Irish border. The assurances Theresa May secured in Strasbourg on March 11 confirm what was already in the protocol of the withdrawal agreement: that Northern Ireland will not be automatically compelled to adopt new EU legislation in the future. </p>
<p>That said, if Northern Ireland producers and businesses were increasingly out of line with EU rules, it’s likely that they would face barriers on the movement of their goods into Ireland and the wider single market. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/may-accused-of-enormous-act-of-bad-faith-over-border-backstop-37771173.html">majority of political parties</a> in Northern Ireland support the backstop, and <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/north-s-business-leaders-favour-backstop-over-hard-brexit-any-day-1.3674555">business</a> and civic leaders have urged MPs to accept it. This is because they see the backstop as showing a rare degree of flexibility from the EU in order to minimise friction and barriers to the movement of goods across the Irish sea and land borders. </p>
<p><strong>Q: Would this put the 1998 Good Friday/Belfast Agreement at risk?</strong></p>
<p>Protecting the 1998 agreement is a primary objective of the Brexit withdrawal agreement. Provisions within the Northern Ireland protocol relating to avoiding a hard border, maintaining cross-border co-operation and protecting human rights in Northern Ireland all relate back to this point. The co-operation across the Irish border associated with the peace process, as well as EU integration, has brought tangible benefits to communities in the border region most negatively affected by the legacy of conflict and economic underdevelopment. </p>
<p>The risks posed to the peace process are much more complex than dissident Irish republicans who want a united Ireland seeing border guards or any physical border infrastructure as targets for terrorist violence, as they did in the past. And so minimising such risks to peace is also much more complex than avoiding border checks and controls. It requires trust and co-operation between the British and Irish governments, between north and south on the island, and between unionist and nationalist and others in Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>In order to best secure future peace and stability in Northern Ireland, therefore, the sensationalist headlines and polarised narratives about the Brexit backstop must be cast aside.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113398/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katy Hayward has received funding from the DfE (NI) for research on post-Brexit governance in Northern Ireland. </span></em></p>What do Theresa May’s last minute Brexit guarantees mean for the Irish border?Katy Hayward, Reader in Sociology, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1111532019-02-11T11:23:55Z2019-02-11T11:23:55ZSmuggling in the Irish borderlands – and why it could get worse after Brexit<p>Central to the fate of the Brexit negotiations is the future of the Irish border. Politicians from all sides insist they want to avoid a return to border checks once the UK leaves the EU – but they disagree on how this can be achieved. </p>
<p>The history of smuggling across the Irish border – and what already happens today – is a major issue in this disagreement, yet it has received relatively little attention. </p>
<p>In 1923, soon after the end of the Irish war of independence, British and Irish <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09670882.2017.1346049?journalCode=cisr20">customs authorities agreed</a> on 15 “approved frontier crossing points” on cross-border roads for the inspection of goods in daytime hours. At each point, a border customs checkpoint or “customs hut” was set up. Many unapproved routes crossing the border remained open to pedestrians but travelling on them by vehicle was prohibited. The exception was a small number of “concession roads” on which vehicles could travel from one part of a jurisdiction, passing through another jurisdiction, and re-enter the original one without stopping. </p>
<p>Travellers with contraband on unapproved routes risked detection with penalties enforced by customs patrols. Smuggling became a widespread feature of borderland life between the 1920s and 1960s as borderlanders and those from further afield sought to avoid paying duty on goods bought on the other side of the border.</p>
<p>This period is replete with <a href="http://www.irishborderlands.com/living/smuggling/index.html">tales of small-time, domestic smuggling</a> – tea and butter concealed beneath a petticoat in wartime, whiskey and a turkey beneath a heavy overcoat at Christmas time. Even commercial smuggling stories, usually involving the transportation of animal livestock in some unusual way, were told to generate amusement, even admiration, rather than outrage. </p>
<p>Northern Ireland’s Troubles, beginning in 1969, suppressed smuggling activities because many unapproved routes were closed or blown-up by the British security forces. For many people, the presence of British Army checkpoints at approved crossing points also provided a sufficient disincentive for cross-border travel.</p>
<h2>An end to border checks</h2>
<p>The launch of the European single market on January 1, 1993 – to provide free movement of goods, services, people and capital within the European Union – made border customs checkpoints redundant because import duties on goods were no longer applied. But excise duties on fuel, alcohol and tobacco remained.</p>
<p>Smuggling across the border then became a highly profitable, niche activity that was the preserve of well-organised gangs who have largely concentrated on smuggling tobacco and fuel. The smuggling of counterfeit cigarettes – manufactured in Eastern Europe and Asia – into Ireland and across the border was <a href="https://www.justice-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/justice/cross-border-organised-crime-assessment-2018.PDF">identified</a> in 2018 as a significant threat by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC). </p>
<p>In March 2018, an <a href="https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/gardai-uncover-louth-factory-capable-of-producing-250000-illicit-cigarettes-per-hour-832695.html">illicit tobacco factory</a> manufacturing cigarettes from raw tobacco destined for the UK market was discovered in County Louth, south of the border. Fuel smuggling also remains a significant issue despite the success of HMRC’s anti-fraud strategy which contributed to the <a href="https://www.justice-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/justice/cross-border-organised-crime-assessment-2018.PDF">shrinking of the Northern Ireland illicit diesel market</a> share from 19% in 2005-6 to 6% in 2016-17. </p>
<h2>Post-Brexit opportunities for smugglers</h2>
<p>It is entirely possible that the activities of such organised smuggling operations could be turbo-charged by a no-deal Brexit which would bring with it import and export duties between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and regulatory divergence for a wide range of commodities. The golden rule of smuggling is that where there is a difference in the price of a commodity, or it is in short supply on either side of a border, smugglers will seek to step in and make a profit. The organised and experienced smugglers are the most likely candidates to reap the illicit rewards.</p>
<p>An upsurge in smuggling would be facilitated by the most extensive cross-border road network in Europe. Officially, there are <a href="https://www.infrastructure-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/infrastructure/border-crossing-joint-report-final_0.pdf">208 cross-border roads</a> on the island, nearly twice as many as those crossing the EU’s entire eastern external frontier. A security response to that upsurge would be inevitable. One possible retrograde step could be to close scores of the secondary cross-border roads that were <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/tpp/pap/2000/00000028/00000003/art00007">reopened in the 1990s</a> with the support of EU funding. </p>
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<p>Technology could also be deployed. Motion sensors, scanners, and infra-red and surveillance cameras could be erected on border crossings. But they could also be knocked down in the dead of night. A 2018 <a href="https://www.qub.ac.uk/brexit/Brexitfilestore/Filetoupload,780606,en.pdf">survey</a> conducted in the central border region found that a majority of the 600 respondents claimed they would not accept border control technology even if it was unmanned and not at the border.</p>
<p>Mobile security patrols along the unwieldy 500km of the Irish border would be almost irresistible, not least to help protect vulnerable customs officials and agrifood inspectors working in isolated border terrain. Such an introduction is made more likely by the fact that the peace and openness of the borderlands for 20 years, courtesy of European integration and the Irish peace process, has led to the <a href="https://www.thedetail.tv/articles/loss-of-more-than-40-of-border-stations-prompts-questions-over-future-policing-of-eu-uk-frontier">closure of 40%</a> of police stations on either side of the border. So it’s also likely that new security personnel would be drafted in from outside and would be unfamiliar with the area, unknown to borderlanders, and characterised by them as “nameless strangers”. Alienation and antagonism would seep into the borderlands as a result.</p>
<p>Chiefs of police on both sides of the border are acutely aware of potential post-Brexit challenges. These difficulties are posed not only by the possible return of alienation, antagonism, and by the likely strengthening of politically-motivated “dissident” Irish republicanism, but also by well-organised, cross-border smugglers motivated by profit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cathal McCall received funding from the European Commission (FP7). </span></em></p>The history of smuggling across the Irish border.Cathal McCall, Professor of Politics and International Studies, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1104532019-01-30T10:11:38Z2019-01-30T10:11:38ZBrexit: why customs are central to solving the Irish border impasse<p>In what was a rare victory in recent weeks for Theresa May, the British prime minister has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47050665">won support</a> from a majority of MPs at Westminster to return to the EU and reopen Brexit negotiations. However, EU leaders <a href="https://twitter.com/Stone_SkyNews/status/1090350715300728834/photo/1">immediately</a> indicated their unwillingness to revisit the Brexit withdrawal agreement. The crux of the deadlock is the future of the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>Central to this impasse is customs policy – a previously obscure aspect of UK trade relations. What has moved the issue centre stage has been the fierce attachment of the Irish government to the absence of a supervised or “hard” border on the island of Ireland. One essential reason why such a border disappeared in 1998 under the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement was the existence of an EU customs union between the UK and the Republic of Ireland. </p>
<p>Any customs union has two aspects. First, the abolition of internal tariffs – taxes on goods crossing borders – and second, a common external tariff wall, imposing a uniform tariff on any goods entering the customs union from outside. The advantage of such a union is clear: it avoids the need for those border checks that involve controlling for tariffs.</p>
<p>Contrary to what the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-politics-47046104/brexit-corbyn-and-labour-would-negotiate-customs-union">appears to believe</a>, however, creating a customs union does not relieve the need for all border checks on goods. To do that, Northern Ireland (or the whole UK) must remain aligned with EU single market rules on things such health, consumer, agricultural and veterinary standards, because these too require border checks. This is why there has been a longstanding – and effective – insistence from Ireland that Northern Ireland, either alone or with the UK as a whole, both stay within a customs-union type arrangement with the UK and retain elements of the EU single market. </p>
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<p>A customs union on its own would not be enough to completely eliminate controls on the Irish border. But it makes an essential contribution to eliminating them. Hence Irish attachment to the idea.</p>
<p>Brexiters, however, hate the idea of a customs union. It’s viewed as obstructing their great vision of a global Britain, whereby the UK negotiates its own tariff rates with other countries, securing better terms than a cumbersome, slow-moving EU. The dream is an unreal fantasy, since the UK with a population of <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/overviewoftheukpopulation/november2018">66m</a> lacks anything near the bargaining power of an EU with a population of <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/population">512m</a>. </p>
<p>Labour policy of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-47046104/brexit-corbyn-and-labour-would-negotiate-customs-union">seeking a permanent UK customs union</a> with the EU, appears more economically realistic. However, a Labour bid to allow MPs a vote on this proposal <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/jan/29/brexit-vote-commons-latest-news-developments-liam-fox-says-may-now-saying-withdrawal-deal-text-must-be-rewritten-politics-live?page=with:block-5c50a5efe4b084eaaff7fb1a#block-5c50a5efe4b084eaaff7fb1a">was rejected</a> in parliament just before MPs voted in favour of “renegotiating” the Brexit deal. </p>
<h2>The fate of the ‘Irish backstop’</h2>
<p>Weeks earlier, in a protocol to November’s Brexit <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/759019/25_November_Agreement_on_the_withdrawal_of_the_United_Kingdom_of_Great_Britain_and_Northern_Ireland_from_the_European_Union_and_the_European_Atomic_Energy_Community.pdf">withdrawal agreement</a>, May had negotiated a so-called “backstop” keeping the UK in a single customs territory with the EU unless and until an alternative future relationship acceptable to all states concerned can be agreed. In other words, to secure EU and Irish agreement, she had accepted a customs union of indefinite duration even after the end of any Brexit transition period. </p>
<p>This half-way house compromise pleased few in Westminster. A record 230-vote parliamentary <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46885828">rejection of the deal</a> followed on January 15. The subsequent parliamentary vote to renegotiate the backstop has now restored Conservative Party unity. It will probably achieve little else.</p>
<p>Despite discordant voices <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-poland-irish-backstop-eu-conservative-mps-theresa-may-deal-a8738596.html">from some member states</a>, the EU has backed Ireland to the hilt. This seems wholly unlikely to change. After repeated promises of support, for the EU to alter course now would smack of betrayal of the solidarity underlying common EU membership.</p>
<h2>No deal and the border</h2>
<p>If the Brexit withdrawal agreement accompanied by the backstop is not approved by parliament before March 29, or an <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-how-article-50-could-be-extended-to-delay-uks-departure-from-the-eu-109966">extension to the article 50 withdrawal process</a> engineered, or Brexit notice unilaterally withdrawn by the UK, the parties could collectively move, sleepwalker-like, to the default option in both EU and UK law: no deal. </p>
<p>Since this would involve abandoning any customs union, Brexiters would call this victory. It would be a Pyrrhic one for the UK, however, threatening <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-deal-brexit-scenario-would-create-serious-traffic-congestion-and-supply-chain-chaos-109480">disruption</a>, business closures, unemployment, and even food shortages. It would also be ruinous for Ireland: the Irish Central Bank predicted a disorderly Brexit could reduce the Irish growth rate by <a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/2019/0125/1025405-brexit/">up to 4%</a> in the first year, with a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/fae218b0-1ff4-11e9-b126-46fc3ad87c65">predicted 6% drop</a> in long-term economic output. </p>
<p>The question also remains of what would happen on the Irish border in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Ironically, Margaritis Schinas, spokesperson for the EU commission, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-46961982">correctly pointed out in mid-January</a> that a no-deal scenario would bring with it the return of an obligation under both the EU’s Customs Code to install border checks. This is an obligation which under current law simply cannot be avoided on Ireland’s part without leaving the customs union – which in turn cannot be done without Ireland leaving the EU. Analogous World Trade Organisation obligations to impose controls would likely fall on both the UK and Ireland.</p>
<p>Paradoxically, Ireland and the EU’s stout rearguard action against the reintroduction of loathed border controls now risks reacting with Westminster’s dysfunctional Brexit and customs union politics, to produce the hardest of borders – accompanied, for good measure, by a severe economic crisis for both the UK and Ireland.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110453/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gavin Barrett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Why much of the fate of the Irish border lies in the future of the UK’s customs arrangements with the EU.Gavin Barrett, Professor at the Sutherland School of Law, University College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1096692019-01-11T11:29:01Z2019-01-11T11:29:01ZBrexit and Northern Ireland: the latest commitments explained<p>In its latest attempt to bolster support for its Brexit withdrawal agreement, the UK government has published another document on the future of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-government-commitments-to-northern-ireland-and-its-integral-place-in-the-united-kingdom">Northern Ireland</a>.</p>
<p>It seeks to assuage the concerns of those, primarily unionists, who fear that the withdrawal agreement’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-backstop-refresh-why-the-uk-and-eu-cant-agree-on-northern-ireland-105080">“backstop” provisions</a>, if they come into force, will weaken Northern Ireland’s relationship with the rest of the UK. For many, the solution to this problem is to give the Northern Ireland Assembly and Northern Ireland Executive a greater say in how the withdrawal agreement is implemented. </p>
<p>Coincidentally, this latest paper was published two years to the day that devolved government in Northern Ireland <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-northern-irelands-government-went-from-mutual-suspicion-to-collapse-71418">collapsed</a> on January 9 2017. Neither the Northern Ireland Assembly nor the executive has met since.</p>
<p>For the prime minister Theresa May, assuaging these concerns is a vital element of her efforts to convince MPs, particularly those from the Democratic Unionist Party (on which the government depends for majority support in the House of Commons), ultimately to support the withdrawal agreement. Their backing is vital if, in the absence of any opposition support, she is to win the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-what-does-the-latest-parliamentary-upset-mean-for-theresa-may-109591">meaningful vote</a>” scheduled to take place in parliament on January 15. </p>
<h2>What the document says</h2>
<p>The paper reiterates many of the statements made by the UK and the EU since the backstop idea first emerged towards the end of 2017. The main commitment is to ensure that the future relationship between the UK and EU, which will be decided during the two-year transition period that begins on March 29, will avoid the need for the backstop provisions to come into force at all. </p>
<p>The UK government promises that the Northern Ireland Executive and the Northern Ireland Assembly will be given “a strong voice in any scenario where the backstop would be brought into force”. Here the paper commits the UK government “in law” to a “mandatory process of consultation” before the end of 2020 so that the Northern Ireland Assembly can debate and then express its view on whether the UK should seek to extend the transition period or, by default, accept the entry into force of the backstop, assuming, as is likely, a post-Brexit UK-EU relationship negating the need for a backstop is not in place.</p>
<p>Next, the view of the Northern Ireland Assembly would then be “brought before parliament prior to a vote at Westminster”. How parliament would respond would be left to MPs. There is therefore no Northern Ireland Assembly veto on implementing the backstop. Moreover, even if the Northern Ireland Assembly did opt to support an extended transition period, once that expired, again in the absence of an appropriate post-Brexit UK-EU relationship, the backstop would automatically enter into force. </p>
<p>If the backstop is triggered, the UK government will consult the Northern Ireland Assembly where the EU proposes adding “new areas of law” applying specifically to Northern Ireland. In only “seeking agreement” of the assembly, the UK government will clearly not be providing it with a veto. The decision on whether new areas of EU law will apply will be for the UK government to take. </p>
<p>A further commitment is to Northern Ireland businesses retaining “the same unfettered access” to the whole of the United Kingdom internal market. The UK has now agreed to guarantee that unfettered access in law by enshrining it in primary legislation. </p>
<p>To minimise the amount of additional checks and controls on the movement of goods from the rest of the UK into Northern Ireland, should the backstop be triggered, the UK government has also agreed that there will be no regulatory divergence between the two, thus implying the maintenance of regulatory alignment with the EU.</p>
<h2>Still not on board</h2>
<p>Reaction to all this from unionists has generally been dismissive. The DUP has described the commitments concerning the role of the Northern Ireland Assembly as <a href="http://www.mydup.com/news/article/proposal-for-assembly-role-cosmetic-and-meaningless-dodds">“cosmetic and meaningless”</a> and bemoaned the continued lack of an exit option from the backstop. The leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), Robin Swann, has described the paper as <a href="https://uup.org/news/5895/No-amount-of-political-assurances-will-address-concerns-over-backstop-Swann#.XDdjG1X7SUk">“frankly insulting”</a>.</p>
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<p>The UK government’s commitments clearly have not assuaged concerns. This is a reflection of the constraints under which it is operating. Chief among these is the fact that it has concluded the deal with the EU. After making significant concessions, neither side is willing to reopen negotiations. </p>
<p>Also, the UK government needs to avoid creating any domestic constraints – for example by allowing the Northern Ireland Assembly to veto the entry into force of the backstop – that would prevent it from fulfilling its international obligations under the withdrawal agreement.</p>
<p>The DUP has indicated that there are “some elements of the paper that could be improved and built upon”. The paper could turn out therefore to be an initial bid to assuage concerns. If May fails to get support in the House of Commons for the withdrawal agreement at her first attempt on January 15, the UK government may well find itself forced to make some additional commitments. </p>
<p>If it does present a second version it should also address a major omission. The paper generally assumes a functioning Northern Ireland Assembly and a Northern Ireland Executive. There is no mention, however, of how Northern Ireland’s voice will be heard if the current situation of dysfunctional devolution continues (or there is a reversion to direct rule). </p>
<p>The UK government is not alone in hoping that the Northern Ireland Assembly and a Northern Ireland Executive will soon be back up and running. An orderly Brexit would help clear the way. But no one should hold their <a href="https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/two-years-without-a-government-in-northern-ireland-should-spark-outrage-instead-its-become-normalised">breath</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109669/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Phinnemore has previously received funding from the British Academy, the Economic and Social Research Council and the European Union. The views expressed here do not represent those of any of these or other funders.</span></em></p>The Northern Ireland Assembly will be consulted on the backstop, but there will no veto.David Phinnemore, Professor of European Politics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1087012018-12-13T12:09:23Z2018-12-13T12:09:23ZTheresa May’s mission to secure more Brexit guarantees from the EU is meaningless<p>After a dramatic day of watching the Conservative Party tear itself apart and try to put itself back together again, Theresa May’s immediate political future appears to be safe. The leadership challenge was only a <a href="https://theconversation.com/theresa-may-defeats-brexit-plotters-heres-what-happens-now-108729">partial victory</a> for the prime minister – with 200 votes of MPs in favour of her and 117 against – but she remains in post.</p>
<p>Brexit was the only issue on the table and May has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46547832">promised</a> to continue to seek “legally binding” assurances about the Irish backstop from the EU.</p>
<p>May’s bigger problems with Brexit remain intact. While it’s now known exactly how many of her MPs have no confidence in her, this only matters insofar as the likelihood of getting the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/draft_withdrawal_agreement_0.pdf">withdrawal agreement</a> and <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu//media/37059/20181121-cover-political-declaration.pdf">political declaration</a> on the future EU-UK relationship through parliament. And we already know that this was going to be almost impossible. Her lack of overall majority in the House of Commons continues to be her main domestic weakness.</p>
<p>It seems that her only hope of seeing her deal through parliament is that enough of her MPs will be swayed by any assurances she obtains from the EU as she heads to the European Council in Brussels. Yet key EU figures, including Michel Barnier, Jean-Claude Juncker, Donald Tusk, Guy Verhofstadt and the leaders of numerous member states have all lined up to repeat the message that the withdrawal agreement is not open for renegotiation. </p>
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<p>The prime minister and her supporters are clearly banking on the EU’s fear of a no-deal Brexit to force open the issue again. But the clock continues to tick. The UK will leave on March 29, 2019 as an automatic consequence of triggering Article 50 and there is simply no time to start unpicking the texts on the table. The UK could request an extension to Article 50 – something the prime minister has previously ruled out – but this would require the unanimous approval of the 27 other member states. </p>
<p>EU negotiations do often go to the wire, and last minute snags are always a possibility. The EU’s free trade agreement with Canada, for example, was <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-are-the-walloons-and-why-are-they-blocking-europes-free-trade-deal-with-canada-67718">held up by a vote</a> in a regional Belgian parliament. But the time-limit means that Brexit is different, and the EU side has demonstrated during the past two years that it has been more united on this issue than on almost any other confronting Europe.</p>
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<h2>No more exceptions</h2>
<p>What May needs to try to win back the support of the DUP and her own backbenchers is to remove the Irish backstop, render it close to meaningless or change it substantially. This is not going to happen, for the simple reason that the EU would need to effectively ditch the concerns of Ireland, a member state, to appease the UK, a departing member state. May’s desire to gain a “legally binding” guarantee from the EU on the backstop is a similarly meaningless concept.</p>
<p>Aside from the substantive nature of the backstop, the EU does not want to risk reopening negotiations about the finely balanced details contained within the withdrawal agreement. It would not be logical to risk destabilising the process, especially with so little time left before March 2019. And it seems to be forgotten in the middle of debates at Westminster that any reopening of negotiations would mean the involvement of all the member states – most of whom have pressing domestic issues to deal with.</p>
<p>The recent turn of events in the tortuous Brexit process have revealed a continuous belief in the UK of a right to exceptionalism. Having always succeeded in gaining opt-outs to the EU treaties alongside its <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uks-eu-rebate-explained-58019">budget rebate</a>, there remains a prevailing view that the UK can demand special treatment. May – if she is not already aware of it – is about to find out that this exceptionalism only exists while you are a member of the club, and not outside it.</p>
<h2>In search of a fragment</h2>
<p>Even if May were to gain concessions from the EU, it is by no means certain that this would be enough in Westminster. Although the Irish backstop is the main issue of concern among her most vocal opponents, it is not merely a question of clarifying it but removing it, or ensuring that the UK can withdraw unilaterally. This is a non-starter as far as the EU is concerned. And since many of her most pro-Brexit MPs want the UK to leave without any deal at all, nothing she might hope to achieve is going to bear fruit. </p>
<p>Alternatively, she could seek the support of the opposition parties in Westminster. But this is equally unlikely to happen. Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/brexit/theresa-mays-victory-does-not-change-anything-says-dups-foster-37621833.html">made clear</a> its lack of support for the current deal, and all the opposition parties are poised to submit a motion of no confidence in the government, which could happen at any time. </p>
<p>May heads to Brussels, not to engage in “handbagging” as <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/theresa-may-to-handbag-brussels-in-frantic-bid-to-save-brexit-deal-bbcq7n5kl">some reports suggested</a>, but rather in the hope of securing a fragment that might unite her party behind her. The only chance of this being a success is that a form of words are issued by the two sides which attempt to pacify the Brexit hardliners. But with no authority, and trust in the UK as a partner replaced by exasperation on the EU side, there seems to be almost no chance this will come to anything. The Brexit nightmare before Christmas will continue into the New Year and beyond.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108701/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul James Cardwell has received research funding from the UK in a Changing Europe and the James Madison Charitable Trust.</span></em></p>The prime minister may have won a vote of no confidence in her leadership, but Theresa May will struggle to get what she needs from Brussels.Paul James Cardwell, Professor of Law, University of Strathclyde Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1084512018-12-10T14:27:37Z2018-12-10T14:27:37ZBrexit: why the EU doesn’t want the UK to remain in the backstop indefinitely<p>A key criticism made by opponents of the Brexit <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/withdrawal-agreement-and-political-declaration">withdrawal agreement</a> is that the UK would be stuck indefinitely in the so-called Irish “backstop” – aimed at avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland – with no unilateral way out. </p>
<p>But this assumes that the EU would want the UK to stay in the backstop indefinitely. It’s pretty clear that it would not. </p>
<p>In defence of her Brexit deal, Theresa May has repeatedly <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-12-04/debates/C112155E-C163-4D6B-A4E2-F0F7DD0D7D14/EuropeanUnion(Withdrawal)Act?highlight=backstop#contribution-0916169F-A18D-4A54-BCFB-0F09F596CECF">stressed</a> that the arrangements for the backstop set out in a <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-18-6423_en.pdf">dedicated protocol</a> on Northern Ireland would not inevitably come into force. If the agreement is approved, the arrangements would come into force at the end of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-transition-what-will-and-wont-change-for-britons-after-march-2019-107558">transition period</a> if no alternative arrangements have been agreed as part of the new UK-EU relationship to be negotiated after Brexit. The transition is scheduled to end in December 2020, though could be extended once if both sides agree. </p>
<p>The protocol describes the purpose of the backstop provisions: </p>
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<p>To address the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland, maintain the necessary conditions for continued north-south cooperation, avoid a hard border and protect the 1998 [Good Friday Agreement] in all its dimensions. </p>
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<p>The backstop arrangements are therefore an agreed <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-backstop-explainer/irelands-brexit-backstop-and-why-it-matters-idUSKCN1LZ1VR">insurance policy</a>, “intended to apply only temporarily”, and would only be in place “unless and until they are superseded, in whole or in part, by a subsequent agreement”. The objective “is not to establish a permanent relationship” between the EU and the UK. </p>
<h2>No easy way out</h2>
<p>Opponents of the backstop arrangements are justified to fear that they could remain in place for some time. There can be no guarantee that the negotiations on the future UK-EU relationship will be successfully concluded and ratified before the end of the transition. Nor can it be guaranteed that the future UK-EU relationship will remove the need for all or any of the backstop arrangements. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-technology-and-max-fac-solve-the-irish-border-question-expert-explains-96735">Can technology and 'max fac' solve the Irish border question? Expert explains</a>
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<p>Objections to the backstop focus on three interrelated issues. First, that a decision to withdraw would have to be by mutual consent of the UK and the EU. There is currently <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/no-easy-exit-route-irish-backstop?">no easy way out</a> of the backstop. </p>
<p>Second, the backstop arrangements would see the UK as a whole in a “single customs territory” with the EU, aligning its tariffs on trade with other countries with those of the EU, and obliged to “harmonise” with the EU’s common commercial policy. This would severely limit the capacity of the UK to pursue an independent trade policy. </p>
<p>Third, Northern Ireland would be treated differently to the rest of the UK. It would be in a closer customs arrangement with the EU and have privileged access to the single market for goods. This would require additional checks on the movement of goods from the rest of the UK to Northern Ireland, raising fears, generally overstated, for the economic and constitutional integrity of the UK.</p>
<h2>The view from the EU</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/761852/05_December-_EU_Exit_Attorney_General_s_legal_advice_to_Cabinet_on_the_Withdrawal_Agreement_and_the_Protocol_on_Ireland-Northern_Ireland.pdf%20advice">legal advice</a> on the withdrawal agreement provided by the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, and published on December 5 after the government was found in <a href="https://theconversation.com/ministers-found-in-contempt-of-parliament-over-legal-advice-why-it-matters-for-brexit-108199">contempt of parliament</a>, maintained that the backstop’s temporary customs arrangements were “by no means a comfortable resting place in law for the EU”. Cox added: “There may be some doubt as to whether the proposed protocol is consistent with EU law.” The Northern Ireland-specific arrangements also mean that the EU would be splitting its four freedoms and creating a “dangerous precedent for other member states at risk of seeking to exit”.</p>
<p>Concerns about what can be established on the basis of Article 50, which governs the withdrawal process under EU law, have certainly existed in the EU. They were particularly noticeable in debates on how to interpret commitments to a backstop arrangement for Northern Ireland in the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/joint_report.pdf">joint report</a> of UK and EU negotiators, agreed in December 2017.</p>
<p>The prevailing EU view was that the backstop could only be Northern Ireland-specific. Part of the justification reflected the willingness of the EU to find “<a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2017/04/29/euco-brexit-guidelines/">flexible and imaginative solutions</a>” to address the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland and avoid a hard border.</p>
<p>However, the UK government pushed hard for a backstop that would keep the whole of the UK – rather than just Northern Ireland – in a temporary customs union with the EU. As the EU was keen to secure the conclusion of the withdrawal negotiations, a concession was made, albeit on the assumption, according to one EU source, that the arrangement would be a “<a href="https://www.rte.ie/amp/1015924/">baseline for the future relationship</a>”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/backstop-option-for-irish-border-after-brexit-the-difference-between-eu-and-uk-proposals-explained-97963">'Backstop' option for Irish border after Brexit – the difference between EU and UK proposals explained</a>
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<h2>Nothing but temporary</h2>
<p>It follows that the EU doesn’t intend for the UK-wide customs union backstop arrangement – if it comes into force – to be anything other than temporary. It dislikes the arrangement, and the objective is to replace it with the future UK-EU relationship once that is negotiated. </p>
<p>It’s not an arrangement the EU originally envisaged, but one that the UK sought. It could well be that the EU might therefore be willing as a further concession to allow for the UK to withdraw from this particular aspect of the backstop arrangements unilaterally.</p>
<p>Yet, there is no evidence of an EU willingness to concede to opponents of the Northern Ireland-specific elements of the backstop arrangements. Here the EU has always insisted that these arrangements – including on customs – have to be part of the withdrawal agreement and will apply “unless and until” an adequate set of replacement arrangements are in place as part of the future UK-EU relationship. But this is unacceptable to many unionists, particularly in Northern Ireland, given that it would involve treating Northern Ireland differently. Other voices in Northern Ireland have far fewer reservations.</p>
<p>To go back on Northern Ireland-specific backstop arrangements would involve the EU prioritising the interests of a departing state over those of a member state, and publicly abandoning support for Ireland. Given the EU solidarity shown to date, this is a prospect that very few countenance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108451/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Phinnemore has previously received funding from the British Academy, the Economic and Social Research Council and the European Union. The views expressed here do not represent those of any of these funders.</span></em></p>The EU doesn’t want a temporary solution to become permanent.David Phinnemore, Professor of European Politics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1082932018-12-05T16:13:49Z2018-12-05T16:13:49ZBrexit legal advice: what it says, and why the UK now faces key constitutional questions<p>After a bitter battle in which ministers were found to be in <a href="https://theconversation.com/ministers-found-in-contempt-of-parliament-over-legal-advice-why-it-matters-for-brexit-108199">contempt of parliament</a>, the UK’s attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, has published his <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/761852/05_December-_EU_Exit_Attorney_General_s_legal_advice_to_Cabinet_on_the_Withdrawal_Agreement_and_the_Protocol_on_Ireland-Northern_Ireland.pdf">legal advice</a> to the government on Brexit. </p>
<p>At first reading at least, the advice seems to be sound. It accurately captures the <a href="https://legalresearch.blogs.bris.ac.uk/2018/11/why-the-draft-agreement-on-the-withdrawal-of-the-uk-from-the-eu-should-satisfy-neither-leavers-nor-remainers/">legal situation</a> surrounding the Irish backstop – which is that a “single customs territory”, with its rights and obligations for Northern Ireland and Great Britain, will exist from the end of the Brexit transition period “unless and until” it is superseded by a subsequent agreement between the EU and the UK which guarantees that there will be no hard border on the island of Ireland. </p>
<p>But it is sure to alarm many Brexiters, who have long insisted that the UK should have a unilateral right to end the backstop. </p>
<p>The government’s attitude towards both parliament and the public throughout this episode raises serious constitutional questions. And it prompts understandable alarm about the pledge for parliament to “take back control” of decision-making after Brexit.</p>
<h2>No unilateral backstop exit</h2>
<p>The legal advice is of limited scope and focuses solely on the legal effect of the Irish protocol set out in the Brexit withdrawal agreement. Although the advice was prepared on November 13, and therefore predates the withdrawal agreement between the EU and UK, it appears to be applicable to the final text. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-draft-withdrawal-agreement-experts-react-107027">Brexit draft withdrawal agreement – experts react</a>
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<p>Under the withdrawal agreement, the Irish protocol will only come into effect once the transition period has come to an end. This would be after December 2020, or, if an extension to the transition is agreed by the joint committee set up to oversee the withdrawal process, December 2021 or December 2022. Paragraph 16 of the legal advice is stark: </p>
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<p>The ordinary meaning of the provisions … allows no obvious room for the termination of the protocol, save by the conclusion of an agreement fulfilling the same objectives … in international law the protocol would endure indefinitely until a superseding agreement took its place.</p>
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<p>Cox then raises some points of EU law. He draws attention to the fact that there is a separation in EU law between the EU’s competence to conclude a withdrawal agreement with the UK under Article 50, and its competence to conclude a future relationship treaty with the UK. A future treaty is only possible under a different legal basis, once the UK has left the EU. </p>
<p>While the attorney general concedes that the EU has the competence, under Article 50, to secure an orderly withdrawal, and to build a temporary bridge to the future, he argues correctly that Article 50 cannot be used to create enduring and wide-ranging future arrangements between the EU and the UK. He points out that uncertainty about the protocol’s consistency with EU law “will increase the longer it subsists”. These points are, once again, sound. Yet, in reality, it is unlikely that the Court of Justice of the European Union would rule that the withdrawal agreement is unlawful.</p>
<p>In his advice on the review mechanism for the backstop, the attorney general suggests that the UK failed “to negotiate a unilateral termination mechanism exercisable on notice”, for example, if it became clear that negotiations on the future relationship had irretrievably broken down. In Cox’s view, the protocol therefore: “Does not provide for a mechanism that is likely to enable the UK lawfully to exit the UK wide customs union without a subsequent agreement.” In the absence of a right to termination, he adds: “There is a legal risk that the United Kingdom might become subject to protracted and repeating rounds of negotiations.” </p>
<p>Overall, the attorney general’s advice captures the reality of the commitments the UK government has made in the course of its negotiations. </p>
<h2>Reasons for MPs to be angry</h2>
<p>Doubtless, the legal advice that the UK cannot withdraw from the backstop unilaterally is likely to alarm Brexiters, and has already angered the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46451970">Democratic Unionist Party</a> in Northern Ireland. But, most MPs will not have learned anything new.</p>
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<p>The deeper significance of this episode lies in what it reveals about the way in which this government operates. Despite some warm words, it has not levelled with the public about Brexit. It has not explained the nature of the fundamental choice which Brexit presents: either to seek close co-operation with the EU, and accept the legal and institutional implications of that; or to seek a more distant relationship, with greater independence, but with economic costs. </p>
<p>In 2017, the government went to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/2c64fde2-061c-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5">extraordinary lengths</a> to suppress the publication of its Brexit impact assessments, and it has now become the first government in history to be found be in contempt of parliament for its refusal to disclose Cox’s final legal advice. </p>
<p>Parliament and the devolved assemblies have particularly strong reasons to feel marginalised. The government took the activist <a href="https://theconversation.com/government-loses-brexit-court-case-so-what-happens-now-71824">Gina Miller’s case</a> to the Supreme Court to seek to deprive MPs of a role in relation to the triggering of Article 50. It included unprecedentedly broad <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/henry-viii-clauses/">Henry VIII powers</a> in the EU Withdrawal Act, constraining parliament’s ability to scrutinise ministers’ choices. It rode roughshod over the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/sewel-convention/">Sewel Convention</a>, which requires the consent of the devolved legislatures, and has breached parliamentary conventions in relation to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/pairing-and-why-it-matters-in-the-house-of-commons-100278">pairing of MPs</a> who cannot make it to the house in order to win key votes at Westminster.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-risks-driving-scotland-out-of-the-union-heres-what-needs-to-change-107624">Brexit risks driving Scotland out of the Union – here's what needs to change</a>
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<p>The events of December 4, not just the contempt of parliament motion, but also the success of MP Dominic Grieve’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/04/what-does-dominic-grieves-amendment-mean-for-brexit">amendment</a> that means parliament will have a say in what happens should Theresa May lose the vote on the withdrawal agreement on December 11, show that parliament is beginning to reassert itself. The attorney general’s advice serves to confirm the nature of the UK’s uncomfortable position under the withdrawal agreement. It is now for MPs to decide whether to back the deal, and, in the event that they don’t, to propose an alternative route forward and thereby avoid no deal in March 2019.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108293/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phil Syrpis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An EU law expert on what the attorney general’s legal advice on Brexit means and its wider significance for the future.Phil Syrpis, Professor of EU Law, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1062692018-11-28T14:54:08Z2018-11-28T14:54:08ZElectricity bills could rise if Brexit threatens Northern Ireland’s unique energy agreement with Ireland<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247743/original/file-20181128-32230-eq1uqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The two countries have been collaborating in a single electricity market for more than a decade. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/beautiful-retro-luxury-light-bulb-decor-520040410">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Given the deluge of coverage, comment and analysis of the UK’s chaotic exit from the EU, it’s tempting to conclude that the exhausting subject of Brexit has been talked into the ground and analysed to death. </p>
<p>But that is far from true. Take the issue of the Irish border. Many keenly understand that creating a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland would threaten the fragile peace that has held for two decades since 1998’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/events/good_friday_agreement">Good Friday Agreement</a>. </p>
<p>Theresa May’s proposed withdrawal agreement – which goes to a parliamentary vote on <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/11/uk-parliament-vote-brexit-deal-december-11-181126184658937.html">December 11</a> – endeavours to avoid a hard border if the UK and EU cannot reach an alternative agreement, by temporarily aligning Northern Ireland with some EU single market rules, and the UK as a whole with EU customs rules.</p>
<p>Before the Good Friday Agreement, the border was heavily fortified and crossings were tightly controlled. Its post-1998 incarnation is more than just an improvement in practical terms; it has come to symbolise progressive peace and openness in a place marked by violence and militarised division.</p>
<p>The border’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/19/brexit-and-the-irish-border-question-explained">uncertain future</a> in light of Brexit has attracted a tremendous amount of attention – and rightly so, given its enormous importance. But Brexit’s cyclops eye struggles to look meaningfully at more than one dimension of an issue at a time, and other areas that are crucial to people’s everyday lives are being neglected. One key issue concerns the potentially damaging impact of Irish border divisions on Ireland’s all-island energy market.</p>
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<h2>A unique energy market</h2>
<p>Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland operate an <a href="https://www.uregni.gov.uk/sem">Integrated Single Electricity Market</a> (ISEM), which covers most energy generation on the island. This bespoke market is regulated by a special committee composed of northern and southern regulators, and overseen by a <a href="https://www.sem-o.com/">Single Electricity Market Operator</a> (SEMO).</p>
<p>This groundbreaking set up was created in 2007 by the then Northern Ireland secretary, <a href="https://peterhain.uk/about-peter/">Peter Hain</a>, during a period of direct Westminster rule, after <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/devolution-settlement-northern-ireland">devolution</a> had collapsed. Working in tandem with the Irish government, Hain’s team drew the northern and southern electricity markets together into a single all-island market, with most of the island’s electricity bought and sold through one overall market. A two-party legislative framework locked the ISEM in place on either side of the border, supported by a “<a href="https://people.howstuffworks.com/memorandum-of-understanding.htm">memorandum of understanding</a>” between the two governments. </p>
<p>Energy is a devolved matter under the UK’s constitutional arrangements, and when devolution was restored in 2007 the reins were passed to the Stormont administration, which continued to operate the electricity market jointly with the Irish government. The <a href="http://www.mydup.com/about-us">Democratic Unionist Party’s</a> alleged <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-38301428">mismanagement of a renewable heat incentive scheme</a> has since collapsed the devolved institutions <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/northern-ireland-talks-latest-updates-stormont-power-sharing-deal-what-deal-look-sinn-fein-dup-deal-a8207916.html">once more</a>, and so the Northern Irish elements of the ISEM are currently being overseen by Belfast civil servants until the situation can be resolved. </p>
<p>The ISEM improved on the conditions that preceded it, increasing competition and dampening <a href="https://www.uregni.gov.uk/news-centre/single-electricity-market-continues-deliver-benefits-energy-consumers">consumer prices</a>. It has also bolstered north-south energy security, and has had <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7505503-energy-ireland-yearbook">positive effects</a> on energy efficiency and integrating renewable energies.</p>
<h2>The Brexit effect</h2>
<p>But Brexit is currently pulling this UK-Ireland innovation in opposite directions. A <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/infrastructure/projects-common-interest/electricity-interconnection-targets">target model</a> has been issued by the EU that requires member states such as the Republic of Ireland to strive for greater energy integration, whereas the Northern Irish/UK momentum is disengaging from the EU initiative as a consequence of Brexit.</p>
<p>Meabh Cormacain, manager of the <a href="https://www.ni-rig.org/about/">Northern Ireland Renewables Industry Group</a> (NIRIG), offered <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2018/08/09/an-electric-fence-assessing-the-impact-of-brexit-on-the-single-electricity-market-in-ireland/">insightful comment</a> on this crucial issue, suggesting that the Irish border might function as an “electric fence”, cutting the ISEM market in two if Brexit is not carefully managed. Consumers on both sides will bear the brunt of any diplomatic failure because it will likely increase their energy costs over time.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247740/original/file-20181128-32226-1akhpni.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247740/original/file-20181128-32226-1akhpni.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247740/original/file-20181128-32226-1akhpni.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247740/original/file-20181128-32226-1akhpni.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247740/original/file-20181128-32226-1akhpni.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247740/original/file-20181128-32226-1akhpni.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247740/original/file-20181128-32226-1akhpni.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Renewable energies are an important part of the unique single market operation.</span>
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<p>It has been pointed out that these difficulties might be solved if Northern Ireland continues to operate as a distinct zone within the UK that remains largely subject to EU law in this area post-Brexit, meaning Northern Ireland would continue to be in regulatory alignment with the republic. May’s withdrawal agreement by and large adopts this <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/759019/25_November_Agreement_on_the_withdrawal_of_the_United_Kingdom_of_Great_Britain_and_Northern_Ireland_from_the_European_Union_and_the_European_Atomic_Energy_Community.pdf">approach</a>.</p>
<p>While sticking with this type of collaborative approach clearly solves problems, I suggested in a <a href="https://www.agendani.com/brexit-and-irelands-all-island-energy-market/">recent lecture</a> to the Irish energy industry that it seems undemocratic to subject Northern Irish citizens to significant EU energy laws while depriving them of the democratic mechanisms to influence those laws – bearing in mind Northern Ireland will have left the EU along with the rest of the UK.</p>
<p>At any rate, the overall principle is clear: the ISEM is a novel, bespoke energy market specific to the island of Ireland, and so its preservation and maintenance will require a similarly novel, bespoke set of agreed UK-EU arrangements for the post-Brexit period. May’s proposals may achieve this in practice, but it seems unlikely that the UK parliament will vote in favour of her deal as a whole.</p>
<p>The Irish and UK governments support the protection and continuation of the ISEM, as does the European Commission. With the Brexit clock ticking down to the make-or-break parliamentary vote in December, the sooner the parties responsible can agree on the specific policies that will underpin arrangements for the future, the better. Markets need certainty – and so do the people of Northern Ireland.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106269/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Muinzer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The two countries have successfully collaborated on electricity supply for 11 years, but could Brexit pull this unique UK-Ireland innovation apart?Thomas Muinzer, Lecturer in Environmental Law and Public Law, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1074082018-11-22T15:24:48Z2018-11-22T15:24:48ZBrexit: views from around Europe on future relationship between UK and EU<p><em>Attention in European capitals has now turned to the detail of the future relationship between the EU and UK after Brexit. On November 22, the <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu//media/37059/20181121-cover-political-declaration.pdf">draft text</a> of the Political Declaration on that future relationship was published by the EU. It must now be signed off by EU leaders. Here, academic experts from around the EU explain the priorities in member states for the next steps of the future EU-UK relationship. Read the view from <a href="#Germany">Germany</a>, <a href="#Ireland">Ireland</a>, <a href="#Spain">Spain</a>, <a href="#France">France</a>, <a href="#Italy">Italy</a> and <a href="#Poland">Poland</a>.</em> </p>
<h2><a id="Germany"></a>Germany</h2>
<p><strong>Holger Nehring, Professor in Contemporary European History, University of Stirling</strong></p>
<p>It should by now be clear even to the most hardened Brexiteers that the German car lobby has not come to their rescue by putting pressure on its government. But Remainers should also not pin their hopes on Germany coming to their last-minute rescue and cutting the UK some slack. </p>
<p>Germany’s position towards the Brexit negotiations has been driven by one fundamental goal: the preservation of the integrity and coherence of the European Union. There is probably no other country in which national interest and European integration have become so deeply entwined. </p>
<p>Brexit, but also US president Donald Trump’s emphasis on unilateralism, are fundamental challenges to this belief. And this definition of the national interest is no longer taken for granted in Germany – as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/germanys-afd-how-to-understand-the-rise-of-the-right-wing-populists-84541">rise of parties like the AfD</a> (Alternative for Germany) shows. </p>
<p>Many across Europe now demand more German leadership. But whenever Germany asserts its power, it faces criticism for <a href="https://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_germany_what_hegemon">acting as a European hegemon</a>. Brexit has deepened this quandary, but has also been a distraction in finding ways to resolve it. This is why Germany’s main interest now will be to seek a swift conclusion of the negotiations.</p>
<h2><a id="Ireland"></a>Ireland</h2>
<p><strong>Etain Tannam, Senior Lecturer, International Peace Studies, Trinity College Dublin</strong></p>
<p>The publication of the Withdrawal Agreement was met with an overwhelmingly <a href="https://merrionstreet.ie/en/News-Room/News/Statement_by_Taoiseach_Leo_Varadkar_on_Withdrawal_Agreement.html">positive response</a> from Ireland’s prime minister Leo Varadkar and minister for foreign affairs Simon Coveney. It was also <a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2018/1121/1012488-brexit-dail/">strongly supported</a> by the Dáil in a motion on November 21. Bi-partisan party support in the Irish parliament for the government’s Brexit policy has been noteworthy since the withdrawal process began.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1062875955084058629"}"></div></p>
<p>The Irish government’s key preferences were all reflected in the divorce settlement. <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-draft-withdrawal-agreement-experts-react-107027#NorthernIreland">The backstop</a> to prevent a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland was put into the legal text and will not have an expiry date, unless a satisfactory trade agreement is reached in the second phase of the Brexit negotiations. The Good Friday Agreement and cross-border cooperation were also protected and the areas of cooperation were specified. Varadkar quickly said no to any <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-deal-irish-leo-varadkar-no-negotiation-may-cabinet-brexiteers-a8639751.html">further renegotiation</a> of the Withdrawal Agreement, as some politicians in Westminster are <a href="https://theconversation.com/theresa-mays-brexit-deal-heres-how-the-factions-want-to-rewrite-it-107115">hoping for</a>.</p>
<p>The argument by the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, that the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/756378/14_November_Outline_Political_Declaration_on_the_Future_Relationship.pdf">outline political declaration</a> on the future of the EU-UK trade relationship gave scope for the UK government to agree a rich trade deal was strongly supported by the Irish government and was clearly a strategic part of the deal’s overall package. </p>
<p>It also emphasised that a trade deal could be reached relatively quickly. Ireland hopes this carrot will help May rally support in Westminster for the Withdrawal Agreement, though the ongoing <a href="https://theconversation.com/theresa-mays-brexit-deal-is-dead-in-the-water-now-what-for-britain-107029">political turmoil</a> in the UK dampened some of the initial glow of success. Even so, the Withdrawal Agreement itself was perceived by the Irish government and by <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorial/the-irish-times-view-on-the-uk-eu-withdrawal-agreement-in-search-of-the-least-worst-brexit-1.3698018">Irish commentators</a> as a great diplomatic achievement, not just for the Irish government and the EU, but for May, too. </p>
<h2><a id="Spain"></a>Spain</h2>
<p><strong>Fernando Lozano Contreras, Academic Director of the European Documentation Center, University of Alcala</strong></p>
<p>Looking ahead to an EU summit in Brussels which is expected to formalise the Brexit withdrawal process, the aspect most worrying to the Spanish government is the question of Gibraltar. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://elpais.com/politica/2018/11/21/actualidad/1542813150_893853.html">position of the Spanish authorities</a> – which have acted during this phase of the negotiations according to the principle of good faith – is very clear. If the British withdrawal text and the immediate political declaration on the future relationship between the UK and EU do not expressly clarify that Gibraltar is not part of the UK, Spain will veto this agreement.</p>
<p>This is because Spain wants to make sure, in accordance with international law and in the numerous resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly on this <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-quo-vadis-gibraltar-105830">longstanding issue</a>, that the Rock cannot automatically benefit – without the prior approval of Spain – from the advantages agreed in a future deal between London and Brussels. That was, also, the agreement included in the European <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2017/04/29/euco-brexit-guidelines/">Council’s guidelines for Brexit negotiations</a> (point 24).</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1064818195960340480"}"></div></p>
<p>This issue obviously forces both the UK and EU to urgently modify the controversial <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/publications/draft-agreement-withdrawal-united-kingdom-great-britain-and-northern-ireland-european-union-and-european-atomic-energy-community-agreed-negotiators-level-14-november-2018_en">Article 184 of the draft Withdrawal Agreement</a>, which was included at the last minute at British request without Michel Barnier previously informing Spain, and hinders the recognised capacity of Spain to negotiate directly with the UK on the future of Gibraltar in the post-Brexit context. British strategy, and the unforgivable negligence of the European negotiator on this issue, could frustrate the forthcoming Brexit summit this Sunday.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246861/original/file-20181122-182040-1tq01lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246861/original/file-20181122-182040-1tq01lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246861/original/file-20181122-182040-1tq01lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246861/original/file-20181122-182040-1tq01lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246861/original/file-20181122-182040-1tq01lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246861/original/file-20181122-182040-1tq01lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246861/original/file-20181122-182040-1tq01lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rocky territory for negotiators.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cmspic/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a id="France"></a>France</h2>
<p><strong>Frédérique Berrod, Professor of Public Law, Sciences Po Strasbourg</strong></p>
<p>The EU must now send the UK a constructive message that it is ready to build a new kind of model for cooperation in the future. </p>
<p>In any future arrangement, the EU must be able to control its external border, whether that’s located on the island of Ireland, or between Spain and Gibraltar. But it must negotiate with the UK on how to maintain the security of any open borders – particularly as security has become such an integral issue for the EU in recent years. </p>
<p>Using this as leverage, the French government of president Emmanuel Macron could more easily defend its line on the <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-27/upset-over-fish-france-leads-eu-criticism-of-draft-brexit-deal-idUKKCN1NK21E">delicate issue of fishing</a>. It wants to create a united front among EU member states in favour of maintaining access to British waters for EU fishermen after Brexit. While an agreement on this issue is expected in July 2020, the French government wanted fishing access to be contained in the political declaration – which wasn’t contained in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/22/brexit-leaked-political-declaration-in-full">published draft</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/scallop-wars-between-britain-and-france-are-just-a-pre-brexit-skirmish-102588">'Scallop wars' between Britain and France are just a pre-Brexit skirmish</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As the negotiations on the future relationship continue once the UK leaves the EU on March 29, 2019, the EU should appeal to British citizens, guaranteeing them access to free movement in the EU. France hasn’t gone this far in its demands, though the government is keen to maintain the rights of the thousands of British citizens who live in France. </p>
<h2><a id="Italy"></a>Italy</h2>
<p><strong>Anna Cento Bull, Professor of Italian History and Politics, University of Bath</strong></p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/italys-new-government-is-on-a-collision-course-with-eu-fiscal-rules-its-time-for-eurozone-reform-97715">current Italian government</a>, made up of a coalition of the eurosceptic Lega and Five Star Movement parties, has not made its feelings clear about the future EU-UK relationship. But the leaders of both parties have publicly sided with Brexit. They see it as opening the door to fundamental changes in the bloc, or even to Italy’s leaving the eurozone. Any concessions that the UK can draw from the EU could be used as ammunition for Italy’s future negotiations.</p>
<p>Over the course of the Brexit negotiations, both Lega and Five Star leaders have attacked the EU’s stance. In July, for example, the Lega’s leader, Matteo Salvini, <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/italys-hardman-matteo-salvini-eu-swindling-uk-l02rb38fb">accused the EU</a> of trying to “swindle” Britain and urged Theresa May to take a firm stance. Similarly, the Five Star leader, Luigi Di Maio, <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/913866/brexit-news-european-union-britain-italy-five-star-movement-luigi-di-maio">said in February</a> that the EU should not punish Britain.</p>
<p>Recently, however, the two leaders have gone quiet on the topic. This is partly because they are consumed with their own budget battle with the EU, but also because the negotiations have increasingly exposed the full implications of leaving the EU – so much so that support for the euro is <a href="http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2018/11/20/big-rise-in-italians-in-favour-of-euro_a02f2eb4-ae20-4cf6-8dca-7e9202d41a15.html">rising among Italians</a>. </p>
<p>The latest statement on Brexit comes from the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, and is vague (the real power brokers in Italy are Di Maio and Salvini). After meeting the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, in October, Conte <a href="https://www.eunews.it/2018/10/08/barnier-conte-diritti-italiani-brexit/109792">merely emphasised Italy’s priorities</a> as: guaranteed rights for the roughly 700,000 Italian citizens in the UK, protected geographical indications for Italian foodstuffs, and continuing security cooperation. </p>
<h2><a id="Poland"></a>Poland</h2>
<p><strong>Adam Lazowski, Professor of EU Law, University of Westminster</strong></p>
<p>Brexit is on the margins of political and public discourse in Poland. The authorities are preoccupied with their <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-06/how-to-understand-poland-s-battles-with-the-eu-quicktake">daily battles</a> with the European Commission and other EU institutions, which rightly accuse Poland of being rather economical with its respect for the rule of law, in particular the heavily undermined <a href="https://theconversation.com/polands-judges-forced-into-retirement-purgatory-another-blow-to-justice-99478">independence of the judiciary</a>. </p>
<p>However, for the current Polish administration, a Brexit deal is very much preferred to a no deal scenario. The main area of concern is the status of Polish citizens living and working in the UK. The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, claims he has an agreement with Theresa May that their rights will be guaranteed on reciprocal basis, even in case of a no deal scenario. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/polish-grandparents-face-uncertain-family-future-after-brexit-80993">Polish grandparents face uncertain family future after Brexit</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Both countries are strongly pro-American, trying to build a solid partnership with the US, despite the unease about the chaotic and unpredictable Trump administration. Economic relations post-Brexit will come to the forefront as soon as proper negotiations for the future relationship between the EU and UK commence, and in a recent <a href="https://www.channel4.com/news/polish-prime-minister-theresa-may-can-rely-on-poland-for-brexit-deal">interview for Channel 4 News</a>, Morawiecki said May could “rely on Poland” for a Brexit deal. </p>
<p>Yet Poland has lost a lot of political leverage in the EU as a consequence of its anti-democratic blitz staged by the ruling Law and Justice party. And the UK should be aware that the politicians who formally hold office in Warsaw do not hold as much power as the de facto leader of Poland, the former prime minister and leader of the Law and Justice Party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who prefers to govern the country from the back seat.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the divorce part of the Brexit negotiations approach their endgame, attention is turning to the future relationship between the UK and EU. The view from EU capitals.Etain Tannam, Lecturer, International Peace Studies, Trinity College DublinAdam Lazowski, Professor of EU Law, University of WestminsterAnna Cento Bull, Professor of Italian History and Politics, University of BathFernando Lozano Contreras, Profesor de Derecho Internacional Público y Relaciones Internacionales, Universidad de AlcaláFrédérique Berrod, Professeure de droit public, Sciences Po Strasbourg – Université de StrasbourgHolger Nehring, Professor in Contemporary European History, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1066522018-11-16T15:33:11Z2018-11-16T15:33:11ZIreland’s border: mapping the emotional landscape of the across and in-between<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245972/original/file-20181116-194491-129sqja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/stone-cairn-on-top-border-end-1097382215?src=V9RjhtYT4c5eXgfo_WvQHw-1-16">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I grew up near Ireland’s border when it was a hard border, though we had yet to learn the term. The border was guarded with customs posts and military fortifications, and often there were searches and questions. Many people are determined to avoid seeing such infrastructure on the border again after the UK leaves the EU.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-deal-what-is-theresa-may-draft-agreement-irish-border-uk-citizens-cabinet-eu-a8635081.html">new draft deal</a> between Theresa May and the EU seems to have been shaped in important ways by this determination. Assuming that the deal is accepted by Westminster – a big assumption – there is still a lot left undecided in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/14/brexit-deal-key-points-from-the-draft-withdrawal-agreement">585 page document</a>, and gaps to be filled during future negotiations. What will Ireland’s border look like after Brexit? It still feels as if anything is possible. </p>
<p>The border was created in 1922 when 26 of Ireland’s counties became an <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/easterrising/aftermath/af06.shtml">independent state</a>, while six remained in the United Kingdom. It was a hard border to some extent or another until two events in the 1990s: the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/events/good_friday_agreement">peace process</a> and the creation of a <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/facts-figures/eu-customs-union-unique-world_en">customs union</a> across Europe, including both parts of Ireland.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245957/original/file-20181116-194497-1rslxmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245957/original/file-20181116-194497-1rslxmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245957/original/file-20181116-194497-1rslxmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245957/original/file-20181116-194497-1rslxmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245957/original/file-20181116-194497-1rslxmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245957/original/file-20181116-194497-1rslxmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245957/original/file-20181116-194497-1rslxmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Carlingford Lough, part of the invisible border that splits north from south.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/1024658326?src=e84b-BrLPn6TKcVRj-2Qig-1-1&size=huge_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A sense of place</h2>
<p>Ireland’s border got me thinking about aspects of place and space. Not all coordinates are equal. Two Irish hedgerows might look the same, with the same March songbirds and September berries, but one is just a hedgerow, whereas the other might be the frontier between two countries. That hedgerow is actually marked on the map, with a borderline symbol that is loaded with meaning and contention.</p>
<p>Recently I returned to Ireland’s border to walk it, map it and write a <a href="https://www.faber.co.uk/shop/non-fiction/9780571313358-the-rule-of-the-land.html">book</a>. I was interested in the people for whom the borderland is home. I became fascinated by paths they had cut across this invisible line, and the homemade bridges they had placed across streams that straddle the 310-mile border.</p>
<p>In contrast, I also mapped the border’s defensive architecture. My project took on some urgency when the UK voted to leave the EU, when suddenly this border of rivers, bogs, farms and forests became central to the way that would happen. It had always been my intention to give border voices a platform, and now more people were interested in listening.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245961/original/file-20181116-194516-1eiwzr9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245961/original/file-20181116-194516-1eiwzr9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245961/original/file-20181116-194516-1eiwzr9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245961/original/file-20181116-194516-1eiwzr9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245961/original/file-20181116-194516-1eiwzr9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245961/original/file-20181116-194516-1eiwzr9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245961/original/file-20181116-194516-1eiwzr9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yellow Manifesto artist Suzanne Lacy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.suzannelacy.com</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This year, American <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/suzanne-lacy-13736/who-is-suzanne-lacy">Suzanne Lacy</a> was artist-in-residence for the <a href="https://belfastinternationalartsfestival.com/">Belfast International Arts Festival</a> and was commissioned to produce work on Ireland’s border, in collaboration with border communities. Lacy is an artist of public practice – by getting people together for discussions, events, activities, she choreographs conversations.</p>
<p>She brought me on board for part of the project called the <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/republic-of-ireland/we-can-teach-you-about-tolerance-say-irish-border-people-37450266.html">Border People’s Parliament</a>. This event was held in the grand marble hall of Stormont, Northern Ireland’s parliament. We gathered around 150 people from the borderland, aiming for a mix of backgrounds and ages. On the night we ate a meal together and I conducted some interviews and made recordings.</p>
<h2>The border people’s manifesto</h2>
<p>Participants were asked to consider various questions about the borderland and their lives on it. For the last part of the night, they were given sheets of paper on which to respond to our questions. Some wrote postcard-length comments, others extended letters. I was charged with taking their words and distilling them into a single border people’s <a href="https://belfastinternationalartsfestival.com/manifesto/">manifesto</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245988/original/file-20181116-194494-1eml1bk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245988/original/file-20181116-194494-1eml1bk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245988/original/file-20181116-194494-1eml1bk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245988/original/file-20181116-194494-1eml1bk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245988/original/file-20181116-194494-1eml1bk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245988/original/file-20181116-194494-1eml1bk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245988/original/file-20181116-194494-1eml1bk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245988/original/file-20181116-194494-1eml1bk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In creating the manifesto, I wanted to use border people’s own phrases, with as little meddling as possible. I changed the point-of-view voice into first person plural – “we” and “our” – but in every other way endeavoured to be true to the source material, capturing both the overall message and the language in which it was expressed. I also wanted to capture some of the tone and the accent of borderland voices, hence the appearance of well-worn phrases such as: “You don’t rush border people”.</p>
<p>The manifesto had to be turned around quickly and I had no idea at the beginning whether it would be a smooth or difficult task. I don’t think anything like it had been done before – and certainly not on Ireland’s border.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245962/original/file-20181116-194491-1ykaot5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245962/original/file-20181116-194491-1ykaot5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245962/original/file-20181116-194491-1ykaot5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245962/original/file-20181116-194491-1ykaot5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245962/original/file-20181116-194491-1ykaot5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245962/original/file-20181116-194491-1ykaot5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245962/original/file-20181116-194491-1ykaot5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>Open and invisible</h2>
<p>I had been concerned that there would be much disagreement in the comments – equally valid but oppositional statements that would never sit together in the same document. But this was not really an issue in the end. There were pro and anti-Brexit voices, but both were united in calling for the border to remain open whatever the future. The term “invisible border” was used often.</p>
<p>Points of pride emerged. The border landscape’s beauty was often mentioned alongside a desire to preserve it. Border people’s tolerance, neighbourliness and an ability to get along despite political differences were frequently referenced. Several said that we should all learn history – learn it so we don’t have to repeat it, but at the same time remember to live for the future.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245963/original/file-20181116-194506-ejoqsp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245963/original/file-20181116-194506-ejoqsp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245963/original/file-20181116-194506-ejoqsp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245963/original/file-20181116-194506-ejoqsp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245963/original/file-20181116-194506-ejoqsp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245963/original/file-20181116-194506-ejoqsp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245963/original/file-20181116-194506-ejoqsp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>All of this and more went into the nine points of the manifesto. The colour yellow was a theme of all Suzanne Lacy’s <a href="https://belfastinternationalartsfestival.com/event/across-and-in-between/">Across and In-between</a> border projects (which also included a film, The Yellow Line, projected on to the side of the Ulster Museum in Belfast) and so the document came to be called the Yellow Manifesto.</p>
<p>It has proved popular on social media and in the press after being launched on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme by Lacy on October 23 2018. Immediately afterwards she travelled to the Houses of Parliament and gave copies to MPs.</p>
<p>In Westminster it seems the border is constantly discussed – but only as a problem or an obstacle to Brexit. For me and the population of the borderland, it is important to let people see that it is also a home, the basis of livelihoods and even a place that is loved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106652/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Garrett Carr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While one of the most contentious Brexit issues, politicians forget the essential human aspect of the border as a place that is lived in and loved.Garrett Carr, Senior Lecturer, Creative Writing, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1060912018-11-07T09:26:45Z2018-11-07T09:26:45ZThe Irish settlement: an often ignored legacy of World War I<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244109/original/file-20181106-74787-2x5gwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=93%2C82%2C2357%2C1684&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland/10990906846">National Library of Ireland</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The centenary of the end of World War I comes as the UK is seeking to finalise the terms of its exit from the European Union. There is a strong historical resonance between both events. The issue of Ireland’s relationship with the UK, the nature of the Irish border, and the exertion of Ulster unionists in Westminster are as central to British politics today as they were in 1918.</p>
<p>The final details of the UK’s divorce from Europe are complicated by the Irish border. And the origins of that border lie in a previous secession from a wider political union – that of the independent Irish state from the United Kingdom in 1921. The process which led to the partition of Ireland and Irish independence owed much to political and military developments within the United Kingdom as a direct result of the end of the Great War.</p>
<p>When the war ended in 1918, the British government had to resolve the issue of devolved government for all or part of Ireland. Legislation to do this had been passed in September 1914 but was sidelined at the outbreak of war.</p>
<p>By November 1918, it was not simply a question of seeking to implement the suspended legislation. Public opinion in nationalist southern Ireland had changed during the war. Resentment at the suppression of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-caused-irelands-easter-rising-57159">1916 Easter Rising</a> and the abortive effort to introduce conscription in Ireland earlier in 1918 had radicalised Irish nationalist opinion. The limited offer of devolution that had been acceptable in 1914 was no longer adequate to satisfy Irish demands for greater self-determination. That was especially true in a post-war context, in which new nation states were emerging from the ruins of European empires.</p>
<p>The post-war general election in the UK, held in December 1918, revealed the extent to which Irish political opinion had changed. The pro home-rule Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), which had held the majority of Irish seats at Westminster in the preceding 1910 general election, was reduced to holding just six of the 105 Irish seats in parliament.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244131/original/file-20181106-74754-6do5o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244131/original/file-20181106-74754-6do5o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244131/original/file-20181106-74754-6do5o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244131/original/file-20181106-74754-6do5o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244131/original/file-20181106-74754-6do5o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244131/original/file-20181106-74754-6do5o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1042&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244131/original/file-20181106-74754-6do5o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1042&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244131/original/file-20181106-74754-6do5o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1042&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A 1918 Sinn Féin election poster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sinn_F%C3%A9in_election_poster_-_1918.jpg#/media/File:Sinn_F%C3%A9in_election_poster_-_1918.jpg">Wikimedia commons</a></span>
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<p>Sinn Féin, meanwhile, took 73 of the Irish seats, interpreting the result as a mandate to establish a republic by withdrawing from Westminster and founding an alternative constituent assembly in Ireland. This was achieved the following year with the inaugural sitting of the <a href="https://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/the-first-dail-eireann/">Dáil Éireann</a>. The establishment of an alternative administration in Ireland between 1919 and 1921 coincided with the Irish Republican Army’s (IRA) guerrilla campaign for independence. But Ulster unionists also did well in the 1918 election, taking 23 of the 30 seats contested in what would become Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>The election outcome was significant for the Irish settlement that would emerge in 1921. Liberal leader <a href="https://theconversation.com/david-lloyd-george-the-welshman-who-won-world-war-i-106081">David Lloyd George</a> was returned as prime minister but his coalition government was dominated by the Conservative Party, which would ensure that the best interests of Ulster unionists were protected. As a result, when Ireland was partitioned, the six (of nine) Ulster counties that comprised Northern Ireland were selected to protect the unionist majority. </p>
<p>Skillful exploitation of political allies in Westminster ensured that unionists achieved the deal that they felt offered the best protection of their status within the UK. The border distanced them further from “disloyal” southern nationalists. Many unionist Brexit supporters also saw the 2016 referendum as an opportunity to reinforce that distance.</p>
<h2>End of empire</h2>
<p>Events in Ireland are not adequately recognised when we talk about how the war affected the United Kingdom. The defeated powers saw their empires broken but the UK did not emerge territorially intact either. The political entity that entered the war in 1914 would emerge in 1921 minus over one-fifth of its landmass. The UK that had been created in 1801 (when Ireland was added) had begun to break up. </p>
<p>What’s more, the Irish served as an example to other colonial nationalists seeking independence, especially in <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/indian-independence-anniversary-41753">India</a>. In this sense, the war can be seen as marking the beginning of the end of the empire – not a strengthening of it.</p>
<p>An Irish partitionist settlement that evolved in 1921, as a consequence of the war’s end, and which was later replicated with equally problematic consequences in India in 1947, continues to cause geo-political and economic problems for Anglo-Irish and wider European relations, as evidenced by the current impasse over Brexit. </p>
<p>The nature of Irish partition was the result of unionists capitalising on their political influence at Westminster to ensure the most favourable delineation of the boundaries of Northern Ireland. A century later, their political descendants are exerting similar influence to ensure the continuation and strengthening of that border.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106091/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marie Coleman receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>The events of the war caused Irish nationalists to push harder for their independence.Marie Coleman, Senior Lecturer in Modern Irish History, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1061822018-11-02T11:11:14Z2018-11-02T11:11:14ZBrexit backstop: this is why it’s so hard to talk about a Northern Ireland deal<p>There was immigration. There was excessive regulation. There was the challenge to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. But at no point during the EU referendum campaign was there an inkling that Northern Ireland would become the issue on which Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union would ultimately hinge.</p>
<p>Yet here we are. With five months to go until the UK is due to leave, a withdrawal agreement is in place – except for the question of what happens to the Irish border. The two sides can’t agree on the so-called <a href="https://theconversation.com/backstop-option-for-irish-border-after-brexit-the-difference-between-eu-and-uk-proposals-explained-97963">Irish backstop</a> – the system that would come into operation if their post-Brexit trade deal doesn’t produce a solution that would prevent a hard border.</p>
<p>The issue, simply put, is this. Both the UK and the EU are committed to avoiding the need for a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Indeed, the UK has gone further, underlining, its <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/joint_report.pdf">commitment</a> to the “avoidance of a hard border, including any physical infrastructure or related checks and controls”.</p>
<p>So far so clear. However, while pledging its opposition to borders and infrastructure, the UK government was also making clear its determination to extract the UK from both the single market and the customs union. The problem with this is that it implies the need for two sorts of checks and control: customs (incorporating a raft of things, including <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rules-of-origin">rules of origin checks</a>) and regulatory (to ensure that goods from each side adhere to the necessary standards).</p>
<p>And so the question becomes: where should these checks be carried out? And here we hit (yet) another roadblock. The European Union’s backstop would place the new border in the Irish Sea. Northern Ireland would remain in the customs union and in the single market for goods, which means that customs and regulatory checks would take place within the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>And this, it would seem, is unacceptable not only to the Democratic Unionist Party, but also to a number of other MPs, including Conservatives far removed from the European Research Group.</p>
<p>So, how to square this particularly circular circle? The EU knows what it wants and will not shift. It wants a Northern Ireland backstop written into the Brexit withdrawal agreement, which is to be settled by March 29 2019. It will not agree to placing a time limit on how long that arrangement would operate (if there was one, if would hardly be a backstop).</p>
<p>What the EU has not, to date, been willing to countenance is the idea that the backstop apply to the whole of the UK. This, it argues, is something for the negotiations over the future relationship, hence not something that can be included in the withdrawal agreement.</p>
<p>Given what the EU wants, the only way the UK government can sell a backstop agreement back home would be to ensure the future relationship deal obviates the need for the backstop at all. It is only via this relationship that Westminster can get the reassurance it needs that the backstop the EU insists it signs up to will never in fact be used.</p>
<h2>Selling the deal</h2>
<p>So we’re back to the old problem of sequencing. In the short term, the withdrawal agreement will be finalised before a political declaration on the future relationship. But, politically, it is crucial for London that the two appear in public at the same time, as the latter will make the former more palatable. The political declaration will also be just that – a declaration. It won’t be a legally binding text. The future relationship itself will only be formally negotiated and agreed once the UK has left the EU.</p>
<p>So the question is how well the two sides manage to dress up the fact that, by signing a withdrawal agreement containing the backstop, the UK is in effect signing a blank cheque. This they will doubtless try to do using positive language (“we’re confident we can find a way to forge a future relationship that means the backstop won’t be needed”).</p>
<p>But the kinds of solution London has in mind will be hard to secure. An all-UK customs backstop would, in principle, be acceptable to the EU – but not if the UK, from the start, insists on a time limit for it. Why should the EU negotiate something the UK doesn’t really want that much?</p>
<p>And then there’s the sticky problem of the rules. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/chequers-56339">Chequers proposal</a> dealt with the Irish issue by proposing a customs plan (one that isn’t acceptable to the EU, but leave that aside for the moment) and what the government has labelled “a common rulebook”, under which UK and EU rules for goods and agriculture would remain aligned.</p>
<p>The problem is that the EU doesn’t really like the idea. And without it, a large number of MPs (and not only those in the DUP) have a problem with the idea that a part of the UK will come under some laws over which parliament has no say.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Northern Ireland question in a nutshell.</span></figcaption>
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<p>So, again, the language will matter. London still thinks it can play chicken with its partners. The announcement that what are <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/brexit-theresa-may-to-trigger-no-deal-planning-in-three-weeks-svwr8rhsr?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsletter_119&utm_medium=email&utm_content=119_25.10.18%2520Red%2520Box%2520Banging%2520(1)&CMP=TNLEmail_118918_4367761_119">labelled</a> full-scale parliamentary preparations for a no-deal Brexit will begin in the second week of November was intended – at least in part – to confront the Irish with a dilemma. It doesn’t want to insist on a backstop only to end up with no deal. So the hope in Whitehall is that Dublin might put pressure on its EU partners to give more in the political declaration than they otherwise would have.</p>
<p>Even if they do, of course, the fact remains that the declaration won’t be binding. So MPs wedded to a deal which guarantees the backstop will never be used are bound to be disappointed. It is at that moment – when parliament debates and votes on whatever is agreed – that we will know if Ireland has proved to be the Brexit circle that really couldn’t be squared. </p>
<p><em>This article has also been published by <a href="http://ukandeu.ac.uk/">The UK in A Changing Europe</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106182/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anand Menon receives funding from the ESRC</span></em></p>There’s really only one option here, and the UK needs to do some very savvy PR to sell it to Brexiteers.Anand Menon, Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1050802018-10-17T10:49:32Z2018-10-17T10:49:32ZBrexit backstop refresh: why the UK and EU can’t agree on Northern Ireland<p>British Prime Minister Theresa May has insisted that the result of the Brexit referendum <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/mar/02/may-brexit-speech-theresa-may-to-use-her-brexit-speech-to-say-we-cant-have-everything-grayling-says-politics-live">“was a vote to take control of our borders”</a>. In order to do that, the UK will be leaving both the EU <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/mar/02/may-brexit-speech-theresa-may-to-use-her-brexit-speech-to-say-we-cant-have-everything-grayling-says-politics-live">single market</a> and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/may/17/brexit-may-denies-u-turn-amid-reports-uk-could-effectively-stay-in-customs-union-after-transition-politics-live?page=with:block-5afd32cfe4b0a1f83476dd4f#block-5afd32cfe4b0a1f83476dd4f">customs union</a>. At the same time, May’s government has committed to protecting the Good Friday Agreement <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pms-florence-speech-a-new-era-of-cooperation-and-partnership-between-the-uk-and-the-eu">by not accepting any physical infrastructure</a> at the Irish land border. So, the UK and the EU have been facing an almost unsolvable riddle. How can they keep open a land border between an EU member state and a country that is outside the single market and the customs union?</p>
<p>The text of the political agreement reached between the UK and EU in December 2017 included <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/joint_report.pdf">a formula</a> to square the circle. It stated that the aim of future negotiations would be to address the challenge of the Irish border through the overall EU-UK relationship. If the final withdrawal agreement doesn’t provide a frictionless invisible border, then “specific solutions” will apply to Northern Ireland. But if the UK and the EU cannot agree on those specific solutions, then Northern Ireland or the UK as a whole will remain aligned to the single market and the customs union. </p>
<p>Since then, the UK and EU negotiators have struggled to find a legally operative text that would both fulfil the commitment to keep the land border open and respect the political sensitivities of all the interested parties. Below are the proposals on the table. </p>
<h2>The EU backstop</h2>
<p>The first attempt to legally codify the December 2017 commitment came in the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/draft_withdrawal_agreement.pdf">Draft Withdrawal Treaty</a> published by the European Union in February 2018. This proposed setting up a common regulatory area comprising the European Union and Northern Ireland. The region would therefore remain in the EU customs territory. May vehemently <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43224785">rejected the plan</a> noting that <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/theresa-may-rejects-draft-brexit-withdrawal-agreement-1.3409215">“no UK prime minister could agree to it”</a>.</p>
<p>The main problem with the suggested arrangement is that it will create a customs border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. This is why EU negotiator Michel Barnier tried to de-dramatise the proposed solution by insisting that the whole arrangement creates neither a land nor a sea border. It is merely <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/18/michel-barnier-rebuffs-uk-calls-for-flexibility-on-irish-border">“a set of technical checks and controls”</a>.</p>
<p>Arlene Foster, leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2017/dec/08/brexit-border-eu-theresa-may-juncker-tusk-markets-live">insists</a> that “the entirety of the UK should be leaving the single market and the customs union”. She has threatened to withdraw the parliamentary support on which May’s government relies if Northern Ireland is treated differently to the UK after <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/dup-would-not-back-may-if-ni-treated-differently-post-brexit-1.3518259">Brexit</a>. </p>
<h2>The UK backstop</h2>
<p>In June 2017, the UK government published its own <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technical-note-on-temporary-customs-arrangement">counter-proposal</a> for a backstop arrangement. The biggest difference between the two proposals is that the UK’s applies to the whole country and not just to Northern Ireland. The entire territory of the UK and the Channel Islands would remain part of the customs territory of the European Union, even after the end of the transition period in December 2020.</p>
<p>However, it is not <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/15/brexit-eu-insistence-on-northern-ireland-backstop-unacceptable-may-tells-mps">entirely clear</a> whether under this solution there would also be regulatory alignment between the UK and the EU, keeping the UK effectively within a significant part of the single market. Be that as it may, such an arrangement respects the DUP’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/dec/04/juncker-and-may-fail-to-reach-brexit-deal-amid-dup-doubts-over-irish-border">red lines</a> but angers Eurosceptic MPs who do not welcome the prospect of the UK being aligned with EU rules in the long term. This group could vote against such a deal when it reaches parliament. </p>
<h2>A backstop to a backstop</h2>
<p>More problematic, from an EU point of view, is that May insists that the backstop should be a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/15/brexit-eu-insistence-on-northern-ireland-backstop-unacceptable-may-tells-mps">“temporary solution”</a> because the UK does not want to be “stuck permanently in single customs territory, unable to do meaningful trade deals”. Given that the UK insists on legally entrenching the deadline of the backstop option, the EU is asking for a <a href="https://theconversation.com/backstop-option-for-irish-border-after-brexit-the-difference-between-eu-and-uk-proposals-explained-97963">“backstop to a backstop”</a> specific to Northern Ireland that will not be time-limited.</p>
<h2>Endgame</h2>
<p>The negotiations for the withdrawal of the UK from the EU are reaching their final stages and it is difficult to see how a solution to the Irish border conundrum can be found without some compromise. The solemn commitment that the UK has undertaken to protect the Good Friday Agreement and to keep the Irish land border open raises a significant dilemma. Either it has to opt for a much closer relationship with the EU than the one described in its red lines or it has to accept some differentiation for Northern Ireland.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105080/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nikos Skoutaris has consulted the GUE/NGL parliamentary group of the European Parliament for Brexit-related issues. He has received funding from UACES and UEA's HEIF Impact Fund for the organisation of a conference on the 'De-Europeanisation of Border Conflicts: The Brexit Effect on Territorial Borders</span></em></p>Negotiations are at a crucial stage, yet this central question remains unanswered.Nikos Skoutaris, Senior Lecturer in European Union Law, School of Law, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1039692018-09-27T11:28:33Z2018-09-27T11:28:33ZChequers vs Canada-plus Brexit trade plans – seven key differences explained<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238318/original/file-20180927-48641-t65sm4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-top-down-photo-harbor-trucks-1056625694?src=l79Mqtl0POsasniDVvL14g-1-15">GLF Media/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Theresa May’s Chequers plan for the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU received a pretty <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/20/donald-tusk-demands-answer-to-irish-border-question-next-month">brutal rejection</a> at an informal meeting of EU leaders in Salzburg in mid-September. </p>
<p>Reports of its demise have revived feverish talk about an alternative “Canada-plus agreement” that would go further than the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-canada-trade-model-and-could-it-work-for-a-post-brexit-uk-58098">EU’s current deal with Canada</a>. Some Brexiters have thrown their support behind a <a href="https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/PLAN-A-FINAL.pdf">policy paper</a> from the Institute for Economic Affairs, which makes the case for such an approach. May insists a Canada-plus arrangement <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit/theresa-may-no-deal-brexit-canada-plus-un-speech-eu-trade/">would be worse</a> than a no-deal scenario. </p>
<p>Both Chequers and Canada-plus propose zero tariffs on all goods traded between the UK and the EU and ostensibly leave the UK free to pursue its own trade policies with other countries. Chequers, however, aims to levy EU tariffs on any goods entering the UK that will ultimately end up in the EU. The general assumption is that after Brexit the UK will lower its tariffs below EU levels either in general or for particular partner countries in free trade agreements. </p>
<p>From what is known so far, it’s possible to highlight seven likely differences as far as trade in goods is concerned. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/chequers-plan-why-theresa-mays-brexit-blueprint-is-not-quite-dead-103642">Chequers plan: why Theresa May’s Brexit blueprint is not quite dead</a>
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<h2>1. Rules of Origin on the EU-UK border</h2>
<p>Rules of Origin (ROOs) are used in free trade agreements to define which goods can be exported to the partner country tariff-free and which cannot. Trade flows more freely if there are no ROOs because no effort is required to prove origin and there is no danger of goods being charged the tariff because they do not meet the rules.</p>
<p>In a Chequers deal, ROOs are not required because anything going to the EU via Britain will already have paid the EU tariff. </p>
<p>In a Canada-plus agreement, they would be necessary because if there were no ROOs, exporters could send their goods to the UK with its lower tariffs, and then transport them tariff-free to the EU, undermining the latter’s tariffs. </p>
<h2>2. Tracking imported goods within the UK</h2>
<p>A Chequers style agreement would require imports into the UK from non-EU sources to be tracked to ensure that importers pay the right tariff. If it’s not clear at the moment a good is imported whether it will be consumed in the UK or the EU, importers must pay the higher EU tariff. The importer can then claim a rebate to the lower UK rate if it can prove (by post-import tracking) that the good has remained in the UK. </p>
<p>A UK government <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/725288/The_future_relationship_between_the_United_Kingdom_and_the_European_Union.pdf">White Paper</a> published in July on the Chequers proposals implies that little trade will need tracking – 16% of non-EU imports. That is an underestimate because it assumes that it will always be clear on entry to the UK whether a final good will end up in the UK or in the EU, whereas in fact in plenty of cases that will only be known later.</p>
<p>In a Canada-plus deal, tracking would not be necessary. Goods pay the UK tariff on entering the UK and can be sold onto the EU tariff free if, and only if, they are incorporated into other goods that meet the EU’s rules of origin. Otherwise they pay the EU tariff on entering the EU.</p>
<h2>3. Regulations checked on the border</h2>
<p>In a Chequers deal, regulations checked on the border such as food standards (notorious <a href="https://theconversation.com/chlorine-washed-chicken-qanda-food-safety-expert-explains-why-us-poultry-is-banned-in-the-eu-81921">chlorine-washed chicken</a>, for example) will be harmonised with EU rules via a “common rule book”. This is to ensure there is no question of checking regulated goods, and hence disturbing their passage, as they pass between the UK and the EU.</p>
<p>The EU will want assurances that the UK really is obeying its rules even though it will be outside the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. The UK says it will voluntarily adhere to the court’s rulings. This means if a UK regulation governing a food standard is aligned with the EU’s, it will be next to impossible for the UK to sign a trade agreement with another country that deals with the same regulation. </p>
<p>In a Canada-plus agreement, there is no such commitment to harmonisation. Part of the “plus” in Canada-plus refers to the UK and the EU mutually recognising each other’s regulations. This would also eliminate the need for checking at the border. However, mutual recognition agreements are difficult and slow to negotiate and typically deal with only narrowly defined products. And they have to be renegotiated every time a regulation changes.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238314/original/file-20180927-48641-1pngduj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238314/original/file-20180927-48641-1pngduj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238314/original/file-20180927-48641-1pngduj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238314/original/file-20180927-48641-1pngduj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238314/original/file-20180927-48641-1pngduj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238314/original/file-20180927-48641-1pngduj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238314/original/file-20180927-48641-1pngduj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Ready for red tape.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/brexit-red-tape-736737817?src=DGXzAAV28i84BIcL-iLCgg-1-6">Pixelbliss/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>4. Regulations not checked at the border</h2>
<p>Chequers offers little commitment about alignment on issues such as working conditions and environmental rules. But in a comprehensive agreement, the UK may choose to make some commitments.</p>
<p>In a Canada-plus deal, there is no need for alignment unless this is agreed in negotiations. Still, the EU may try to insist that the UK does not weaken its regulations and any UK reluctance to agree to this may result in fewer EU concessions in other areas.</p>
<h2>5. Hard border in Ireland</h2>
<p>Chequers is intended to obviate the need for a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, because goods will already have paid the appropriate tariff and will already satisfy all the regulations required to be allowed across the border. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/where-the-uks-brexit-plan-and-customs-bill-leave-northern-ireland-100098">Where the UK's Brexit plan (and Customs Bill) leave Northern Ireland</a>
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<p>In a Canada-plus deal, a hard border is almost inevitable. <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1016192/brexit-news-ireland-irish-border-jacob-rees-mogg">Advocates</a> of Canada-plus claim that technology can remove the need for a border, but <a href="https://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/uktpo/2018/09/26/would-canada-plus-do-the-trick/">the need for controls cannot be avoided</a> even if they are positioned well inside the border. North-South trade in Ireland will inevitably be hindered.</p>
<h2>6. Port congestion</h2>
<p>Chequers aims to preserve the current free flow of trade between the UK and EU and so claims it will not add to congestion.</p>
<p>Even small amounts of additional border formality in a Canada-plus arrangement will <a href="https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/186530/how-imperials-findings-post-brexit-borders-caught/">create queues and uncertainty at ports</a> used for UK-EU trade – most notably at Dover. Other ports may be used instead of Dover (after improvement), but only at extra cost and with longer journey times.</p>
<h2>7. VAT</h2>
<p>Chequers proposes that the UK will remain in the EU’s VAT system. The EU is very uncertain that it wants this and, so far as we know, there has been very little practical discussion so far. </p>
<p>Under a Canada-plus deal, the UK could seek to remain in the EU VAT system. However, with less cooperation than under Chequers, EU agreement to this is less likely. Besides, Canada-plus requires borders already, so administering VAT at the border is only a marginal issue.</p>
<h2>What’s missing</h2>
<p>Neither proposal deals with <a href="https://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/uktpo/2018/07/10/does-the-chequers-agreement-provide-any-steps-to-brexit-heaven/">services or labour markets satisfactorily</a>. On goods, Chequers is an awkward and expensive approach to UK-EU relations, and, while a simple free trade agreement such as Canada’s – even with some pluses – is much cleaner and logically coherent, it saddles UK-EU trade with costly formalities that will curtail UK-EU trade.</p>
<p>Overall, neither proposal is very attractive from an economic point of view.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>L Alan Winters does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Brexiters are arguing for Theresa May to abandon her Chequers deal and push for a Canada-style trade agreement with the EU.L Alan Winters, Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Professor of Economics, University of Sussex Business School, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.