@APHClarkson This tweet of @DuncanWeldon makes in any case just superficially sense and is just "semi-accurate" from a anglocentric perspective.
1) Hard border = any visible border infrastructure. That's very binary, it's too Ireland & NI Republicans a matter of identity not economics.
1) Hard border = any visible border infrastructure. That's very binary, it's too Ireland & NI Republicans a matter of identity not economics.
@APHClarkson @DuncanWeldon 2) The border infrastructure is necessary because UK won't accept FoM and CU. If one of those two elements are missing there needs to be border infrastructure otherwise SM integrity or CU integrity undermined.
@APHClarkson @DuncanWeldon (EU shows willingness to relax CU, since it is arguably not the core of EU - that's SM. But this is a concession of EU to UK not vice versa.)
@APHClarkson @DuncanWeldon Conclusion: NI backstop doesn't make it harder but makes sure that there is a stick to beat UK's economy back to the 19 century in case they dare to demand things which lead to any kind of border infrastructure.
@APHClarkson @DuncanWeldon And as far as I can see that just showing the stick pushes heavily on UK to make demands. Just imagine what happens if they start using it for a while. One thing for sure: Immigration won't be a problem but emigration, most Brexit wonks, however, struggle to understand that ATM.
