The incendiary and outrageous comments by Leo Varadkar and his Foreign Minister are a clear ramping up of rhetoric designed to derail any realistic prospect of a deal. The flippant Dublin reaction to the Prime Minister’s proposals has also exposed the reality that the Irish government would never have consented to the United Kingdom leaving the backstop if it had been implemented.
Our message to Leo is simple. He should reflect on his comments and his intransigent approach. He is destined to go down in history as the Taoiseach who restored a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland because his friends in Brussels will insist on it.
– DUP Deputy Party Leader Nigel Dodds
The border issue is that Ireland wishes to remain in the EU regardless of developments in these isles; the fundamental reason that there is any need for checks around crossing the border is that Ireland prefers to be in the EU and its customs union to anything else, which is fine and is their right, but its consequences are Ireland’s responsibility and not the UK’s.
If Ireland regained its hard-won independence, it could then determine if it wished to have no checks on goods coming in from the UK or not, and the UK could agree to respect Ireland’s customs and agri-arrangements. If the UK did not want to do that, then there could be grounds for complaint.
Mr Dodds is, once again, a righteous Ulsterman.
The (false) imagery conjured up and the language used seem to be designed to gull the public into thinking barbed wire fences and watch towers.
In terms of actual border infrastructure, I recommend the main road crossing from Bulgarian Macedonia into Greek Macedonia: presumably a soft border, but lost of infrastructure and huge queues of lorries. Quick processing, but this is just EU to EU Schengen, What the crossing between ‘North’ Macedonia and south Macedonia is like…
The little chieftain needs to shut up before he reveals more of his innate mendacious stupidity.
The Irish Republic can do as they like, can bitch to their EU overlords as much as they like and they can veto the deal between the UK and the EU if they like. All of these things are within their political gift.
The problem is that none of this changes the fact that the UK will not put up a border on the island of Ireland just because the EU wants it. The UK might make a one-off contribution to the additional costs in the UK->EU agreement on the Irish government (since these costs arise because of BRExit which was a UK decision), but that is about all.
That Leo “The Lion” Varadkar wants to have his EU cake and eat it is all very well, but the UK can (and will) do what is in the best interests of the UK and Northern Ireland and Leo can go fuck himself.
Can’t see either of these political pygmies being around much longer.
The Irish border has always been little more than a line on a map and apart from a bit of Anglo/Ulster/Irish propaganda when the price differences on one side of the border were better or worse than the other, both sides have ignored small-scale smuggling and used cross-border intelligence to target large-scale smuggling. Anyone who thinks this is going to change post-BRExit is either lying, a politician or both.
Interesting interview in Spiked with someone who knows. https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/10/03/theres-nothing-complex-about-the-irish-border/
TL;DR: There is nothing to worry about.