Thread by @pmdfoster

Lots of Brexiteer jubilation of late that @MichelBarnier saying 'no hard border' in Ireland in a 'no deal' proves that 'MaxFac' works - and that the whole Irish border issue is an EU put-up job to trap UK in a Customs Union.

Here's a thread on why that's not right IMO. 1/Thread

@MichelBarnier This is the kind of Brexiteer stuff I mean...which is superficially understandable because Mr Barnier did say "no hard border".

But let's see what he DID mean... /2

https://twitter.com/HughRBennett/status/1113020751735554048

@MichelBarnier I asked a senior EU official. He said “No deal means SPS [animal health/food products] and custom checks. The backstop is actually avoiding a border full stop. No deal is how to avoid *as far as possible* a visible border. No deal will show the beauty of the backstop to all.” /3

@MichelBarnier Add to that what @simoncoveney said to Irish Parliament yesterday - that the Irish government cannot let a 'no deal' impede on its relationship with EU single market. So all that talk about checks between Ireland and EU26/Mainland is done. /4

@MichelBarnier @simoncoveney So that narrows things down. Commissions wants Single Market integrity defended. So does Ireland. And yet the EU wants to show solidarity with Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement.

Hmm...that's a new Brexit trilemma. All three of those can't be true at same time. /5

@MichelBarnier @simoncoveney There is one way through that 'trilemma' from an EU perspective - force the Brits to put the checks on the Irish Sea border, which you will recall was the original EU position.

And EU ambassadors have show solidarity on this point... /6

@MichelBarnier @simoncoveney In a 'no deal', if UK wants to advance from the limited mitigatory measures set out so far, it will need to guarantee money (initial deadline was April 18), citizens' rights..and Irish border.

Will the UK do that, in a 'no deal' world? Would the politics play that way? Hmm. /7

@MichelBarnier @simoncoveney The answer to that is hard to predict. But I note that HMRC in talking to NI businesses is clear that the UK's own open border approach is "strictly temporary" and that there will need to be talks with Dublin/Brussels soon enough - to agree what is unspecified. /8

For it's part, the Irish government has still not told trader how such a border (as described by EU official above) will operate, but parameters are pretty narrow. /9

If you haven't read this @tconnellyRTE piece then it gives you an idea of Irish thinking...worth reading. To the end. Because it is an ugly picture. /10

rte.ie/news/analysis-…

@tconnellyRTE Without legal derogations, which do not at the moment appear to be forthcoming from Brussels, the border will need to function sooner rather than later. Let's take milk...which criss-croses the border, sometimes North and South sloshing in same tanker. /11

@tconnellyRTE As Mike Johnston, at Dairy Council for Northern Ireland Northern Ireland, explains,duty will also need to be paid.

“If the EU imposes tariffs of 19p per litre, you need to put that into context of an average pricefor milk of 26/27p per litre,” he explains. /12

@tconnellyRTE How is that going to work - for supply chains, for milk raised in the North, processed in the South.

As @JP_Biz likes to remind us, you cannot put a RIFID chip on a load of milk.

But what about hard goods..say textiles? Well I asked someone about that too. /13

@tconnellyRTE @JP_Biz Take O'Neills Irish International Sports Company Ltd, which imports yarn into Dublin, spins cloth in Strabane outside Belfast, before shipping it South for printing and dying, then north again for sewing and distrubution...often back to the South! /14

@tconnellyRTE @JP_Biz “Some of our products typically cross the border eight times. Under no deal, with duties in the southern direction on textiles of nine per cent, we don’t have a business,” says Kieran Kennedy, the Managing Director at O’Neills. /15

@tconnellyRTE @JP_Biz Even personal consumption items will fall foul of EU rules - as has been pointed out today, you won't be able to take pork pies to Brussels. So without a derogation for personal consumption of products of animal origin... /16

https://mobile.twitter.com/JamesCrisp6/status/1113410232020033536

@tconnellyRTE @JP_Biz ...you wont' be able to take sausage rolls across the border from South Armagh!

I don't mean to trivialise. On the contrary. But that's one example of where, without derogations, and big ones, the border quickly can't function. /17

@tconnellyRTE @JP_Biz Because as @hayward_katy explains, 'MaxFac' is still 'facilitating' checks...not magicking them away. You still need surveillance, you still need buy-in from the community and checks to stop the criminal element. /18

theconversation.com/can-technology…

@tconnellyRTE @JP_Biz @hayward_katy So you can see why the man from Brussels says that 'no deal' will show the "beauty of the backstop" and why all those mitigation measures ferreted out by @tconnellyRTE are - to quote one official - "nothing more than window-dressing". /19

@tconnellyRTE @JP_Biz @hayward_katy And its why people like @MichaelAodhan of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium and Stephen Kelly of @ManufacturingNI
get so frustrated with being told that MaxFac can work, if the EU really wanted. /20

Even though there is no such border in the world. Even in advanced, highly aligned countries. Not Norway-Sweden, not US-Canada.

No wonder Malthouse Compromise people didn't even dare to visit @BorderIrish when invited by NI trade groups. /21

@BorderIrish As @MichaelAodhan says: “The technology simply doesn't exist if it did the companies who owned the technology would be shouting about it. We are wasting time considering this self-indulgent unicornology when what we need is a mechanism to take ‘no deal’ off the table.” 22/ENDS