The northern Ireland brexit thing

You're not alone Marc, if British politicians or the populace understood NI, there would have never been a Brexit.

The issue is the Good Friday agreement. This gives NI residents citizenship to both Ireland and the UK and promises no hard border on the island of Ireland. If this promise is broken we'll understandably be back to bombings and blood on the streets.

The Brexiteers issue is that if we want different trade rules as the EU, there needs to be checks at the border, to ensure quality. This cannot be on land in Ireland as per the Good Friday agreement, so Johnson decided to put the border in the middle of the Irish Sea. This meant goods going between Britain and NI had to be checked, extra paperwork, cost admin etc and made NI a much less appealing place to trade and do business. It was not 'oven-ready'.

This massively pissed off the pro-UK unionists in NI, it doesn't take much, but they do have a point here. It essentially gave NI different rules to the rest of the UK, made it poorer and pushed political sentiment towards reunificiation with Ireland and joining the EU. So they have refused to power share and NI hasn't had a sitting government.

Sunak's deal gives a 'green lane' for goods which will stay in NI which gets rid of the sea border and all paperwork etc. NI can also trade with the EU over its land border, so its the best of both worlds.

The goal is to get the DUP back into power sharing. Will they accept the deal? They are ******* cretins, so who knows. But they really should.

 

The red lane is for goods going from the UK to Ireland/EU via NI. You'd imagine that would be quite rare, although may affect Scottish produce going to Ireland somewhat, but not vice-versa.

 

DUP are utter idiots, as are the ERG Tory group. They have no interest in the ordinary people of Northern Ireland that have had no help with their heating bills due to the stand off. Not speaking up for the other side, just sayin'...

 

There’s going to be a lot of stuff routed through Northern Ireland if this comes off

 

There can be no border on Ireland because of the Good Friday agreement. The EU have border checks for imports from third countries (of which we are one). These checks must, therefore, take place somewhere else. Johnson’s “oven ready deal” placed these checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of Great Britain. So pushing NI away from the UK and towards Ireland - something which is anathema to Unionists.

this is something I told anyone who would listen during the referendum campaign . Shame only my daughter took note….

 

All you need to know is that Richy boy stated that NI business was now in great position because it could trade freely with the rest of the UK and the EU which is exactly the same position the Brexit morons voted the rest of the UK out of. You really couldn't make this **** up you really couldn't. It's ok for NI to be able to trade freely with the EU but not ok for England Scotland or Wales to be able to. But it's OK cause Rees Mogg Johnson and Co can still hide their cash away in tax havens without the EU being able to stop them which is the real reason for Brexit.

 

Well you say that but aren't we actually ruled by an unelected half greek half German and ruled by a criminal, unelected bureaucrat (of south African and indian heritage for those who don't like being ruled by foreigners) who unilaterally decided upon the cabinet to govern the country and who replaced an unelected bureaucrat who in turn had replaced a criminal.

I can taste the freedom with every bite of my 56 quid Asda special price 2% chicken nuggets

 

Without dragging up all the in and out again....

I think what he's trying to get at is what does it mean. And in some respects yea, it's exactly as they were before, trade with UK and EU. However, the difference now is, any trade deal the UK does outside of what they had with the EU, northern ireland get access to that. And are in a better position than everyone. For example, if one was struck with the USA (and I'm not engaging in merits of that if it's good or not) just pointing out that would mean NI, get access to EU, UK, and USA....

Hence my earlier post of them hitting the jackpot

 

Rob I'm broadly in agreement with much of your piece, but just to point out... the Good Friday Agreement does not preclude a hard border between North and South.

 

Brush, the Good Friday Agreement does not say there can be no border, in fact it accepts that there may need to be a border for security purposes, the issue of Customs per se was not discussed at the time as both sides were in the EU.
"
In the Belfast Agreement, the only specific reference to the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland appears in a section on security. This includes the statement, “The British Government will make progress towards the objective of as early a return as possible to normal security arrangements in Northern Ireland, consistent with the level of threat … dealing with:the reduction of the numbers and role of the Armed Forces deployed in Northern Ireland to levels compatible with a normal peaceful society;

• the removal of security installations;
• the removal of emergency powers in Northern Ireland; and
• other measures appropriate to and compatible with a normal peaceful society.”

FactCheckNI previously published an article that explains the historical experience of the customs and security border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile, the paper “UK Withdrawal (‘Brexit’) and the Good Friday Agreement” (published by the AFCO Committee at the European Parliament) discusses the issue of cross-border movement of goods and people, with the objective of minimising the needs for physical border controls: “If the Irish border is not intended to be a block to the movement of people/goods, then the question becomes one of effective tracking of such movement in order to allow for the enforcement of border controls away from the border itself.”
The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement does not exclude Northern Ireland or Ireland from establishing cross-border checkpoints and other security measures. However, an explicit objective of the UK Withdrawal Agreement is to minimise physical border controls."

 

To dumb it down even further you can remove all the details about agreements & borders. In essence the heart of the problem is that the Unionist are suspicious (rightly) that the majority of mainland UK would happily get shut of Northern Ireland if it could & that a united Ireland isn't in truth that big of an issue for us. Therefore they see any circumstances that differentiate NI from the mainland as a step in that direction & so will fight it every step of the way. In the end it is an emotional issue for them.

 

The Brexit deal struck puts every business within England Scotland and Wales wanting to trade with the EU at a serious disadvantage when competing against one from another part of the UK in Northern Ireland and that is simply unjust and unfair.

 

I have to disagree...technically you're correct, but when you consider the s***storm and disadvantage the poor ordinary people had to endure for most of the last fifty years...who cares if they finally get a bit of something going their way?

 

Thanks for that, I think the crux of the matter is that The Good Friday Agreement is predicated on the free movement of people and goods between Ireland and NI as you say, therefore, the restoration of such a border - even though not specifically mentioned - runs contrary to it. That is certainly the way it is interpreted in the USA - hence why a border would rule out any future trade deals with them. Further there is wide recognition that a border would be a red rag to the bull of terrorists, nobody wants that except the DUP and other unionist nut jobs.

 

Apart from abortion.

 

Don't worry Marc, this "new Brexit deal" - in fact only a way of implementing the "oven ready deal" that all the tories campaigned for, won an election on the back of, wrote into law and subsequently threatened to renege on - heralds a new future. Sunak's praising of the Single Market and emphasis that NI is now in a unique and exciting position - a position that Wales Scotland and England are being denied - can only mean that he intends to take the UK back into the Single Market. Freedom of movement WILL return sometime in the next 5 to 10 years.

 

Cracking deal? It’s the exact same deal that Frosty the snowman negotiated. All Sunak’s done is sit down with the EU and work out a way to implement it. All Johnson did was threaten a trade war - one that we would lose. Jees, we can’t even cope without a trade war so god help us if there was one. Well done to Sunak for a bit of common sense, but that’s all it really is.

 

Excellently put.