The UK is no closer to solving the Brexit border conundrum

So another UK Brexit plan greeted with scepticism in Northern Ireland and the Republic, and across the EU. The wonderfully nicknamed “two borders and four years” plan appears to make half a step forward in recognising that Northern Ireland needs to be part of the single market, but then gives the unionists a veto over introducing this, and every four years, with no clarity on what happens then. On top of regulatory checks on Great Britain-Northern Ireland trade, customs checks are introduced into the island of Ireland without being called that. If not dead on arrival in Brussels, Boris Johnson’s plan certainly seems to be in intensive care.

It may appear that we are doomed forever to go round this same loop, with the same discussions had in exit negotiations, or if no deal then future trade negotiations. Jokes suggesting that in 20 years’ time we’ll still be discussing this amuse briefly, then become seriously scary on second thought. We start to wonder if there’s a way out other than staying as EU members or never having a deal. There may be, but it will require real changes to the way negotiations have progressed to date.

By now the fundamentals of Brexit and the Irish border problem are well established. The Good Friday Agreement rested on allowing both major communities of Northern Ireland to identify as they wish, with either Ireland or Great Britain, with no virtually no barriers to either. However if the UK diverges from the EU in terms of regulations or tariffs for food and other goods, processes need to be put in place. Outside of the EU this currently always means border checks, where goods and paperwork can be examined, and duties and VAT paid as appropriate.

In order to protect all-Ireland trade and identity, the EU initially proposed that the UK carry out GB-NI border checks at ports of entry to Northern Ireland, angering unionists, rather than on the land border, which would anger nationalists. Northern Ireland would thus be part of the EU customs and regulatory area, in this then Northern Ireland-only backstop.

The UK government under PM Theresa May initially sought to persuade the EU that customs checks would not be required, but having failed, suggested a UK-EU customs union as a compromise, with Northern Ireland inside the EU regulatory area. This was accepted as a UK-wide backstop, incorporated into a Withdrawal Agreement, then rejected in parliament three times. Subsequently PM Johnson rejected any kind of backstop.

Brexit supporters had already written numerous articles and publications saying that the backstop, indeed most customs and regulatory checks, were unnecessary and just an attempt to trap the UK in a customs union. A new body was established, the Alternative Arrangements Commission, to draw on this work, and try to prove it in detail. The UK government has evidently drawn upon this extensively.

For all of the talk of whizzy technology, the commission’s proposals were actually grounded in two simple principles. One of these was to move checks away from the border, the other, for where that wasn’t possible (sanitary and phytosanitary checks) was common regulation, though with some ability for the Northern Ireland assembly to decide alignment. Much of the rest of the report showed that checks could be minimised, but never fully eliminated, and always through politically sensitive surveillance and at the risk of greater smuggling.

Unfortunately neither principle is currently acceptable to the EU. In December 2017 the UK and EU agreed that there would be no “physical infrastructure or related checks and controls,” ruling out checks away from the border. On the regulatory front there is no question of Ireland leaving the single market, and therefore any process allowing Northern Ireland to diverge from the Republic would lead to the question of what happens to the border, putting uncertainty over the whole process.

Brexit supporters argue frequently that the EU’s terms for Northern Ireland amount to the UK never being able to leave the EU, particularly given the unionist desire not to have an entirely different regime in Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK. And thus the discussion goes round and round, and we always end up back at square one.

We can perhaps take heart from the fact that this UK government has for the first time admitted that regulatory and customs checks are in fact required if the UK, or parts thereof, are outside the single market and customs union. Finally some realism. Equally the Stormont lock proposed, while crude in the extreme, at least does recognise the democratic issue of Northern Ireland being subject to EU laws with no say.

If we then understand the EU’s concerns properly as the principles of single market protection and the Irish peace process, rather than some desire to trap the UK, we then have the basic principles around which ultimately a solution would have to be constructed. We could also recall that the Good Friday Agreement was not obvious, but required huge amounts of negotiation and consultation, and ultimately a large degree of political finesse by numerous politicians.

There’s a flexible solution that could be found with the same effort, one that provides guarantees to Northern Ireland while also allowing the UK, probably over time, to pursue a Brexit with trade deals with other countries. That it hasn’t been found yet isn’t because it doesn’t exist, but is going to be phenomenally difficult, and can’t even start until you really understand the problems.

There is a final issue, which is the problem of whether the UK really wants such an outcome. In parliament there seems to be a feeling that the Brexit vote should be delivered, but in a way that is least economically damaging. However successive governments have put immediate exit and trade deals ahead of considerations of the economy or the Irish peace process. With the debate over priorities remaining unsettled any proposal the UK makes is always going to be problematic.

It always comes back to UK politicians, or at least a sufficient plurality, agreeing on what Brexit means. No proposal can cover up for that continuing gaping hole in the strategy.