Tag: Border

A way to stop the return of a post #brexit #border across Ireland, make the North a UK Special Economic Zone

by dsmooney, posted in Brexit, Northern Ireland, Politics, Stormont, UK politics

(FILES) File picture of British Prime M

Tom Hayes and I have just published a document entitled: NI Special Economic Zone Proposal outlining our ‘modest proposal’ for how the U.K. government can still avoid having its pursual of the worst possible Brexit policy causing a return of the border across Ireland.

To be clear, this proposal is not our preferred outcome. We would far prefer to see the U.K. remain fully in the EU and continue to be a strong partner and ally of Ireland as part of the EU-28.

We would prefer to see the U.K. remain within both the Single Market and Customs Union and minismise the disruption and damage that exiting the institutions of the EU that Brexit will bring. Continue reading “A way to stop the return of a post #brexit #border across Ireland, make the North a UK Special Economic Zone” →

The Tories road to #Brexit is paved with bad intentions

by dsmooney, posted in Border, Brexit, Colum Eastwood, Northern Ireland

This is my Broadsheet.ie column from August 21, 2017. You can find the original online here

thank-you-samantha-bee-for-helping-us-americans-relate-to-the-brexit-mess

According to its Brexit position papers issued last week, the British Government is absolutely determined to avoid a hard Brexit and is hell bent on making sure that there will be no changes to how the border between the two parts of this island operates.

If only it were true.

It isn’t. As many others have already pointed out, you have barely to scratch the surface of the British government’s argument to quickly realise that its glistening yet imprecise language masks a dark and base core.

Last week’s papers were not about the massive machinery of the British government and civil service setting out its key positions on crucial realities arising from Brexit, but rather they were a crude and infantile political attempt to prepare a platform from where current British Ministers can accuse the EU27 of imposing borders and costs when the inevitable hard Brexit happens.

The former Tory Chancellor, George Osbourne called it right a few months back in a tweet when he predicted that the EU/UK Article 50 negotiations will end in failure in 2019 and that the UK will crash out of the EU with no deal and end up a transitional arrangement that resembles Norway’s.

Continue reading “The Tories road to #Brexit is paved with bad intentions” →