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It is (yet again) time to talk Northern Ireland and the no-deal approach we take to @BorderIrish (Thread)
@BorderIrish There are some things we know. 1) Politics does not allow politicians to look reality in the face or speak openly about the border.
@BorderIrish The EU stumbled about this more than the UK did in the past for obvious reasons. If they say “we won’t do a border” the ERG will say “see, there’s no NI problem”. If they say “of course there’ll be a border” - well, it is their fault.
@BorderIrish Anyway. Things got real with the UK no-deal announcement on a Northern Ireland approach. Interest in whether the UK approach was in compliance with WTO law was enormous. But that is a secondary issue. The first one is: what IS the no-deal approach to NI?
@BorderIrish In the official announcement (gov.uk/guidance/eu-ex…) you read this: there won’t be controls. 
@BorderIrish If you abolish all controls at one border with the EU and announce that openly, but keep them at all others - you get smuggling. But read the next para and it seems the policy is different.
@BorderIrish This sounds like goods entering into NI would not be SUBJECT to tariffs. As NI is part of the UK and we are in a no-deal world I would assume that there’d also be no tariffs between NI and the UK. So goods entering through NI wouldn’t pay tariffs - and it would be legal ?
@BorderIrish That doesn’t quite sound like the most sustainable proposition. Because now logically you’d only pay tariffs for goods e.g. on Calais-Dover if transport via NI would cost less. But then... does not seem to capture it either...
@BorderIrish Because then there is this announcement via @JP_Biz
@BorderIrish @JP_Biz So apparently the policy is that old Ireland-NI-GB trade is find, but HMRC will not tolerate trade diversion. That sounds logical until you think about it in legal terms...
@BorderIrish @JP_Biz Because legally either you don’t impose tariffs on Ireland-NI and then on NI-GB. Or you do. If you don’t impose tariffs, well then goods will travel and diversion will happen. If diversion is suspect - then that means that somewhere on the road they should be subject to tariffs.
@BorderIrish @JP_Biz That is a question that logically has to be resolved before you ever get to the question of how you detect diversion. Because, of course, noone wants checks - not on Ireland-NI, not on NI-GB. And DIT says there won’t be
@BorderIrish @JP_Biz So I am not sure what the policy will be. But one thing is increasingly clear: there is no easy solution - and maybe none you can fully admit to.
@BorderIrish @JP_Biz @DavidHenigUK was very fond of pointing out that either you do a NI border, an Irish Sea one or you align with the EU.
