Brexit Deal

allandwf

allandwf

Member
Messages
10,995
Oneball said:
America and Canada have a hard border. There are border posts and customs checks.
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I know, I've been many times,and crossed at many different places, but it seems to work fine. There appears to be different levels of checking.
 
Oneball

Oneball

Member
Messages
11,130
allandwf said:
I know, I've been many times,and crossed at many different places, but it seems to work fine. There appears to be different levels of checking.
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The Good Friday Agreement says there won’t be any border checks or post. Apparently if there are the Republicans and Unionists will start blowing things up again.
 
Oneball

Oneball

Member
Messages
11,130
allandwf said:
Can someone explain just why they HAVE to have a hard border? Can they not just implement what they want? America and Canada seem to manage fine.
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If the question is why does a no deal Brexit lead to a hard border in Ireland then:

If we don’t have a deal with the EU some of our trade will be done with countries that we don’t have trade agreements with. In this case we will use the WTO. It is a requirement of the WTO rules that no discrimination will take place. So you can’t have customs and border checks (physical or electronic) at Dover Calais and not have them in Ireland.
 
midlifecrisis

midlifecrisis

Member
Messages
16,253
2b1ask1 said:
Because Brexit means Brexit unless they can avoid it and a pie needs pastry all round or it is not a pie...
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Don't get me started on the Pie Dish! Ever since I broke one in a cafe by stabbing at a pie with a knife at the age of 13 I've never liked them. If we stay in the EU I would like the EU to ban these insipid articles. A Pie means Pie, not a stew with a pastry lid but a fully edible self contained culinary delight. You don't get Cornish Pasties with chinaware around them so while the humble pie.... rant over!
 
MarkMas

MarkMas

Chief pedant
Messages
8,967
Oneball said:
The Good Friday Agreement says there won’t be any border checks or post. Apparently if there are the Republicans and Unionists will start blowing things up again.
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Actually the Good Friday Agreement is completely silent on the matter of border checks and posts, or any concept of a hard or soft border. Indeed it makes the border very explicit, and recognises the sovereignty and territorial integrity of both the Republic and the UK. But it does have some vague language about the people of NI and the Republic having freedom to conduct their daily lives as if the island was undivided, and this has been made easier by the 'borderless' aspects of the EU, but much more importantly by the reduction of violence, making military checkpoints largely unnecessary.
It is the reduction of violence that has reduced the 'hardness' of border, not the other way around.
But, yes, anything that changes the status quo in Ireland is bound to risk increasing tensions, and while a 'harder' non-EU border between the two might aggravate Republicans in NI who have been pretending they live in the Republic, there is no actual breech of any agreement, or real excuse for any return to violence.
Furthermore, any 'harder' border could easily just about ignore all individual citizens crossing for work, social or shopping reasons, even if there were tariff differentials, since it is not material whether someone buys their beer in Tesco in Newry or Dundalk. And illegal immigrants from the EU can just walk across any field and good luck to them. All that is needed is some checks on commercial border crossings to control the transport of large volumes of goods where there are significant tariff or standards differentials between the UK and the EU (which will be negligible anyway).
The whole thing is an exercise by the EU in making it as difficult as possible for the UK to leave, and we should never have engaged with it.
 
Phil the Brit

Phil the Brit

Member
Messages
1,499
MarkMas said...........And illegal immigrants from the EU can just walk across any field and good luck to them.


Not at all sure I want illegals just walking "across the fields" to get in. That really is a big problem to me and millions of people who cited immigrants being stopped from getting in as a reason for wanting out of the EU
 
MarkMas

MarkMas

Chief pedant
Messages
8,967
Oneball said:
If the question is why does a no deal Brexit lead to a hard border in Ireland then:

If we don’t have a deal with the EU some of our trade will be done with countries that we don’t have trade agreements with. In this case we will use the WTO. It is a requirement of the WTO rules that no discrimination will take place. So you can’t have customs and border checks (physical or electronic) at Dover Calais and not have them in Ireland.
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My understanding is that under WTO you can't have discrimination between supplying countries by way of separate tariffs, nor can you have practices that have the effect of discrimination between different countries (eg subjecting Japanese imports to long delays but not German imports), but I think it is perfectly possible, under WTO rules, to have different levels of scrutiny at different ports of entry or border crossings, whether due to security issues, geography or anything else. As long as it is not just a ruse to discriminate against one set of suppliers. I think the WTO would really struggle to rule against the UK on this issue, and it would take 5 years to consider it anyway.
 
GeoffCapes

GeoffCapes

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Messages
14,000
midlifecrisis said:
Don't get me started on the Pie Dish! Ever since I broke one in a cafe by stabbing at a pie with a knife at the age of 13 I've never liked them. If we stay in the EU I would like the EU to ban these insipid articles. A Pie means Pie, not a stew with a pastry lid but a fully edible self contained culinary delight. You don't get Cornish Pasties with chinaware around them so while the humble pie.... rant over!
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Is a pasty a pie? Think we need @Crofty in on this one.
 
MarkMas

MarkMas

Chief pedant
Messages
8,967
Phil the Brit said:
Not at all sure I want illegals just walking "across the fields" to get in. That really is a big problem to me and millions of people who cited immigrants being stopped from getting in as a reason for wanting out of the EU
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Well, it is a 310-mile border mainly through rural areas, with a lot of complex interactions (with roads dipping in and out, for example), so while it would be possible to build a 310-mile wall/fence, and also to check every single person and vehicle crossing the border, in practice, I think it would be impractical (and really would cause a problem in relations between the Republic and NI). If you are concerned about illegal immigration, the first solution is to have strong controls on the movement of people across the Irish Sea, where everybody making that crossing would need to show appropriate paperwork. The second, more generally useful step would be to introduce identity cards and empower the police to check the status of everyone they encounter.
For me, immigration was the least important reason for wanting to leave the EU. Illegal immigration has been broadly unaffected by our EU status because of our non-participation in the Schengen Agreement. Peoiple would be coming from France by boat or overstaying their visas whether we were in the EU or not. And while I would have liked legal immigration from within the EU to have been better controlled (which it could have been anyway), in general I am in favour of immigration at a sensible rate.
 
CatmanV2

CatmanV2

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Messages
48,852
GeoffCapes said:
Unless it's a shepherds pie. Or Cottage Pie. Or a fish pie for that matter.
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I've already explained this to you. These are naught but travesties of the pie world. Not fit to crimp or be eggwashed.

I mean you wouldn't look at pile of mash (no matter how fine) and say 'fancy a chip' now would you?

C
 
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