FEATURE IRELAND’S BORDERS AFTER BREXIT


Professor James Anderson examines the impact of Brexit on Ireland. A supposedly ‘hard’ border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is unfit for purpose – it leaks like a sieve for ‘controlling’ immigration and creates a smugglers’ bonanza. What’s the answer?


RELAND COULD SUFFER most from Brexit – Northern Ireland more than other parts of the UK, the Irish Republic more than the rest of the European Union. The issues crystallise in the question of borders. In the North a clear 56% majority, including about a third of unionists, voted Remain, and very few people even among pro-Brexit voters want a ‘hard’ border between the North and South. But few believe British promises about a ‘soft’ electronic border. The Brexit imperative of ‘stopping immigration’ demands a hard border, as does an EU external frontier, and the real question is where?


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Ireland’s borders after Brexit I


Even when highly militarised in the


Troubles, with 200 cross-border roads closed, the border leaked like a sieve The North-South land border is totally ‘unfit for


purpose’, attempting to ‘harden’ it would create a mess of economic, social and political problems, but – the good news – solutions are available. A paradise for smugglers and paramilitaries Based partly on medieval ownership patterns,


the land border meanders around for over 300 miles through towns, hinterlands, local communities, farms and occasionally houses. Even


The hard border for ‘stopping immigration’ will be the sea around Britain and its seaports such as Holyhead


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when highly militarised in the Troubles, with 200 cross-border roads closed, it leaked like a sieve. So, irrespective of what happens in Ireland, the actual hard border for ‘stopping immigration’ will be the sea around Britain and its seaports and airports connecting with Ireland and the continent (though an independent Scotland within the EU would require additional measures). Similarly, the border for freight should be at ports and airports. They already have secure infrastructures for handling goods, whereas a supposedly hard land border would in reality be a smuggler’s paradise. Attempting to harden it would sever the free


trade between North and South, their cross-border production and supply chains, and substantially integrated but fragile economies. It would delay freight movements, clog up border roads, and disrupt travel for 30,000 cross-border commuters and all the other thousands who live their lives on both sides or cross occasionally to socialise, shop or use shared services. Politically it would provoke mass protests and civil disobedience. More ominously, it would undermine a ‘peace process’ explicitly based on cross-border institutions and minimising the border, and only paramilitaries would benefit. Building customs facilities along the border would be an open invitation for the ‘dissident republicans’ to copy the IRA’s 1950’s Border Campaign attacking border posts and personnel. That could boost their presently small numbers, in turn boost opposing unionist paramilitaries and conceivably re-ignite at least a mini-version of the Troubles. Obstacles and omens Avoiding the smuggler and paramilitary paradise won’t be easy. Mrs May’s priorities lie elsewhere; the administrations in Belfast, Dublin and London are currently in flux. The North’s largest unionist party, the DUP, is pro-Brexit and out-of-step with the 56% Remain majority; and there has always been a sizeable fringe of extremely nationalistic right-wing unionists who prefer nostalgic fantasies of British sovereignty to actually dealing with economic and social problems. However, there are some good omens for retaining island-wide free trade and avoiding a hard land border. The EU wants to solve this issue before the trade talks with Britain (which could of course fail). It has poured millions into the cross-border ‘peace process’, and Ireland has already pioneered hybrid border-crossing institutions to deal with practical problems of conventional sovereignty.


14 SOCIETY NOW SUMMER 2017


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