That is true, but both sides are saying that they want to safeguard The Good Friday Agreement and just how are they going to do that if they both stay behind their walls and throw verbal stones at each other?
The protocol is completely workable and the benefits to NI of having a foot in the UK and a foot in the EU far outweigh any minor inconveniences. The issue is Arlene and her band of throwbacks have made a complete mess of Brexit from day one, misplayed every single step. They are now winding up the more gullible and stupid cohort of their followers by saying, simply, that the Catholics/Republicans are āwinningā. The good news is that Poots is even more of a bigot than Arlene and the DUP could implode. Meanwhile not an inch should be conceded by he EU.
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?.. but if you lived in Belfast and wanted to get some seeds from Thompson and Morgan in Ipswich or a Walls sausage in Tesco Belfast and now couldnāt how would you feel?
Support Macron and the EU stance that the single market is sacrosanct and must be respected, and if there is to be no border on the mainland so avoiding a return to conflict then there is no alternative to the status quo of no seeds or sausages?
ā¦ or question why Macron et al canāt be flexible and allow such products in for local consumptionā¦after all, is a load of sausages with Tesco labels on and a few seeds for a garden really going to threaten the S market integrity.
Its not unrealistic for UK to maintain that there is little single market risk from some flexibility, just as it not unrealistic for EU to expect and demand a trading border between their economic block and a āthirdā country.
Itās not a matter of the EU standing firm against a grumpy Johnson nor Johnson expecting the EU to abandon its border standards.
As Jonathan Powell, who negotiated the GFA said itās a circle that canāt be squaredā¦ Unionists and Republicans wonāt agree to a mainland hard border and the EU quite rightly say there must be a border somewhere between two trading regimes.
The problem is solvable - itās just that Johnson and his Brexity chums donāt like the solution.
Simple John, there is no border between NI and Ireland.
Whatever shit Bojo is determined to allow the poor British to eat in order to sign trade deals should under no circumstances be allowed into the EU by the back door. As I have pointed out elsewhere the NI paramilitaries make their living thorough smuggling. Shit that arrives in the UK will arrive in the EU via NI.
That depends on how you define the āmainlandā.
Itās amusing that Northern Ireland unionists are actually Scottish, not Irish, and that their true homeland is trying to leave the UK.
Pray howā¦?
The EU understandably demand a border berween a member state and third country, NI and UK govā , Unionists and Republicans demand the GFA be respected with implicates no land border.
Stay in the Single Market/Customs Union.
of courseā¦but that has now been rejected by ALL political parties in the UK. Suggesting that or even entertaining it for a moment indicates a total misreading of UK political reality. So given that its not clear how ir will be resolved.
Or just sanitary / phytosanitary alignment - this would, I believe, take out 90% of the border checks between Britain and Ireland.
Yes though the 10% of tests remaining still necessitate a border.
Yet Johnson and Frost are still sticking dogmatically to the mantra that they will not align with the EU simply because it is the EU (despite having agreed similar or even more restrictive alignment clauses with Japan).
Not the EU nor Irlās problem.
Reason for none alignment is because they say it will hinder the free trade agreements they dream on about.
True or false?
Which would remove Bojoās ability to sacrifice the health of UK citizens in the noble cause of exporting more British cheese to Australia.
Probably true, but why should we, the EU, give a damn about a third countrieās dilemma? Especially as they claim to be a super power strutting the World stage? Demerdez vous.
Thin end of wedge.
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Plus trust between the EU and UK is at an all time low.
I wonder if it would also be illegal.
WTO rules apply unless there is a trade deal modifying them - but if the trade deal is only theoretical - ie. not implemented - then surely WTO rules re-apply?
So either there is a land border in Ireland (breaking the Good Friday Agreement) or all the UK and EU borders have to be open, at least to the unchecked goods, under most favoured nation rules (breaking all the other trade agreements of both UK and EU).
Either way, international law is breached.
