Leo Varadkar says there could be checks at ports on the whole island of Ireland if the UK crashes out of the EU, thereby avoiding any infrastructure along the land border between the Republic and Northern Ireland. The Irish prime minister’s comments show it’s not just Brexiters who believe in fantasy.
One can see why Varadkar doesn’t want a land border between the north and the south. It would divide the island of Ireland. Any infrastructure could be a target for terrorists.
The return of border controls wouldn’t just be a symbol of division. It would gum up trade between two economies that have become massively intertwined – with goods and people criss-crossing the invisible frontier. Both economies would be hammered.
However, if the UK crashes out of the EU, Ireland will need to police its frontier with the UK. Otherwise, products that don’t conform to EU standards will be able to cross into Ireland and, from there, enter the rest of the EU without any hindrance. This will undermine the integrity of the single market.
The Irish prime minister’s alternative is to treat the whole island as a single zone for agricultural and food safety rules – and check live animals and animal products when they come into the ports of both the north and the south.
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On its own, this would not do the trick. Northern Ireland would also have to follow the EU’s standards on manufactured goods and customs. There would then need to be checks on goods coming into the island of Ireland to make sure they didn’t enter the EU’s single market or customs union. And there would have to be controls at airports, not just ports.
Just thinking about that for a moment makes it clear this is a political non-starter for the UK. Northern Ireland would effectively be annexed to the Republic for the purposes of trade in goods and agriculture. Even if Boris Johnson, the probable next prime minister, was willing to sign up to it – making a mockery of the Tories’ official name, the Conservative and Unionist Party – Northern Ireland’s DUP, on whom he will rely for a desperately slender majority, would go ballistic.
The sort of arrangement needed to keep the Irish land border open in the event of “no deal” would go further than the notorious “backstop” in Theresa May’s defunct deal with the EU. Because that required a bare-bones customs union for the whole of the UK, the checks in the Irish Sea were to be limited to ensuring that goods entering Northern Ireland from Britain followed EU rules. The DUP were understandably not willing to swallow even that.
If there’s no deal, there will have to be controls on the land border in Ireland. The sooner everybody – both the Irish government and Brexiters – fesses up to that, the better.
There’s only one way to avoid both a land border in Ireland and a sea border. That’s for there to be no border controls between the UK and the EU. And unless we want to be turned into what Johnson calls a “vassal state” – following EU rules without a vote on them – the only way of doing that is to stay in the EU and help make the rules.
That’s one reason we’ll be saying “no to Boris, yes to Europe” on Saturday. Join us on the demo.