Thread: So the Brexiteers have been trying to say that the EU or the EP have no problem with a tech based border solution to the Ireland/Northern Ireland problem. This is, of course, utter tosh. 
2/ The first thing to note is that there are referring to a report To an EP committee and not to a report by the EP or any other EU institution:
europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes…
europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes…
3/ The second thing they fail to note is that the report is addressing a specific research questions. It is not addressing @TheGFAgreement or obligations relating to this. It is also not addressing security concerns specific to NI.
4/ The next thing that the Brexiteers fail to understand that the proposed "solutions" in the report are not in line with what Teresa May has promised. The solutions involve putting up cameras and gates along the Ireland/Northern Ireland border.
5/ This ignores some rather serious security issues with having physical infrastucture along the border:
6/ If also ignores the fact that all of the proposed Smart Border solutions are, by the standards of the Irish and British governments, hard borders. Even the case studies included in the report are examples of hard borders.
7/ The borders of Norway border or the Canada/US border might be relatively frictionless in comparision to North & South Korea but they are far from frictionless. On some days there are delays that last several hours. On some days, they check everybody for everything.
8/ Brexiteers tend to try to solve every problem by pretending it does not exist. They've jumped on this report as a way of saying "even the EU does not believe there is a problem" frequently, seemingly, without even reading the report itself.
9/ Or if they have read it, they've failed to understand the nature of the problem with the NI border. Post-Brexit, the new problems are 1. Ireland & the UK have new international/WTO obligations on the border. 2. Failure to police the border will result in
10/ some sort of sanction when others take Ireland/UK through the WTO mechanisms. 3. Failure to properly police the border when both members have different tariffs could make senior terrorist figures billionaries (they're millionaires already). 4. Border infrasturcture will be
11/ attacked if it is put up. 5. Any visible border risks alienating border communities and this makes the ground more fertile for terrorist recruitment campaigns.
12/ As you can see, most of the problems relate to peace & security. It is not about collection mechanisms for compliant traders. Tech can help in those cases, but it does not solve the most pressing problems.
13/ We can have a hard border where international obligations are met but the local communities are - to put it mildly - upset and there are soft terrorist targets or we can have a soft border which leaves Ireland & the UK liable for claims from 3rd parties, hurts international
14/ standing, enriches terrorist organisations, takes revenue from compliant business/government and makes both markets less attractive for trade deals (given they act as backdoors to each other).
15/ The only alternatives to these scenarios involve either the UK or Northern Ireland staying, or virtually staying, in the CU or SM. Alas, Teresa May has already ruled out these solutions.
16/16 Why? The DUP want to difference between NI and the rest of the UK. The Moggys want out of the Single Market & the Customs Union. She offers only the 3 basketcase non-solution. This suggestion is about keeping her coalition together. She knows it is not a serious proposal.
