Thread by @winding_sios

Westminster voted for A hard tourism border on the island of Ireland tonight.

Ireland had zero say.

To be clear:

This means that a French or German person cannot take a trip to Belfast from Dublin for the w/e without UK border documentation.

Disaster for #NI.

#Brexit

Another own-goal for the UK Union.

This will go down like a bucket of cold sick amongst Irish born people in Northern Ireland.

Full story in the Irish Times

(In case UK media doesn’t consider it even newsworthy. Chances of that?)

#Brexit impact upon island of #Ireland.

irishtimes.com/news/ireland/i…

Have you seen this? @StevePeers @DavidHenigUK @BrigidLaffan @AlexTaylorNews @alexhallhall 👆

#Donegal is in the #EU too 👀

Also worth saying that the Good Friday Agreement created an all-island intergovernmental tourist board:

@TourismIreland

The island is marketed as one, abroad.

How is @TourismIreland supposed to do it’s job when Tory MPs are passing a law that undermines Strand 3 of the #GFA?

How would this Westminster vote impact tourism? Here’s one way:

Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way.

At 2,500 km, it is the longest defined sea drive in the world, which starts (or ends) in Northern Ireland.

#Brexit

Amongst those Westminster MPs whose votes carried this amendment were:

All 8 DUP MPs!

This is a very hostile political manoeuvre by the DUP.

And very bad news for DUP voters who make their living from tourism in NI.

https://twitter.com/eoinyk/status/1506550316925337600

Apologies, not all 8 DUP MPs, since the rest were evidently not in the House.

The DUP MPs that voted for this are:

Jeffrey Donaldson MP
Ian Paisley MP
Gregory Campbell MP
Carla Lockhart MP

Here is a list of all the Tories who voted in favour of this:
votes.parliament.uk/Votes/Commons/…

Here is #Ireland’s Foreign Minister confirming that the UK has ignored Irish concerns.

https://twitter.com/simoncoveney/status/1506413267081744388

Enter retired #Brexit official David Frost with another unhelpful and not-nuanced contribution.

https://twitter.com/winding_sios/status/1506597513486381060

To assess the impact of this Westminster vote, here are the official tourism figures for Northern Ireland:

EU citizens (excl Irish) account for 1 in 8 overnight tourist stays in Northern Ireland.

EU citizens (excl Irish) account for 8% of the total tourism spend in NI.
#Brexit

EU citizens bring £232,00 per day into the economy of Northern Ireland (8% of £1 billion tourism spend per annum).

Yet the DUP and Tory MPs last night voted that they can no longer cross the border from Ireland into NI, without UK documentation.

#Brexit will harm NI tourism.