Thread by @hayward_katy

What is most interesting about this piece by Dr Graham Gudgin on @BrexitCentral is how virtually identical it is to every other pro-Brexit piece on the Irish border.

Here's a brief thread noting some of these common features.

1/
brexitcentral.com/dublin-needs-t…

The border as battleground:
"The Irish border thus remains the key battleground in the war of attrition that is the UK-EU Brexit talks."

This has the effect of asserting that if UK moves on red lines here it loses the Brexit war.

Thus raising the stakes & raising tensions.
2/

It blames the change of Taoiseach from Kenny to Varadkar for "hard stance from the Irish govt that has soured UK-Irish relations".
It sees Irish intentions as barely disguised irredentism.
Yet lays all responsibility for progress on Irish govt accepting "practical solutions".
3/

It claims technology holds the solution.
It lauds Karlsson's Smart Border 2.0 report.
It says EU's "dismissal of technological options is being used for wider political purposes."
It assumes a hard border is determined by whether there is physical infrastructure at the border.
4/

It places a lot of faith in customs "intelligence".

It appears not to be overly familiar with customs procedures.
Nor with the systems that already exist. E.g. Says inspections of animal products coming into NI from GB could be used as a "fallback", but this already happens.
5/

It claims the UK Union is under threat.
It describes Protocol in draft Withdrawal Agmt as "an EU proposal to annex NI... to ease NI into a semi-detached status within the UK".

It thus explicitly makes #brexit #border a Unionist versus Irish Nationalist conflict.

(why?)
6/

This, then, isn't a negotiation but a zero-sum faceoff:
"We are now in a situation of irresistible forces & immovable objects. One side will have to back down & this clearly cannot be the UK, wh has the firmest of red lines"
But Winner Takes All = anathema to post-1998 Agmt NI
7/