The ‘Irish question’ of how Britain can balance an open Irish border while pulling Northern Ireland from the customs union and single market increasingly appears to be the one issue which could bring the Brexit process screeching to a halt.
Leaders in Dublin, Belfast and Brussels spent much of the lead-up to the June 2016 referendum issuing increasingly desperate warnings about the Irish border, which has been ‘invisible’ and free of customs and police checks since the 1990s.
It separates the Republic of Ireland, which is a member of the EU, single market and customs union, and Northern Ireland, which is set to be withdrawn from all three along with the rest of the United Kingdom.
The Brexit riddle of how to keep the Irish border free of customs checks – and even CCTV cameras and ‘smart technology’ – when the invisible line becomes the only land border between the EU and UK remains unsolved and potentially catastrophic for the success EU-UK talks.
Today it was revealed every single one of Mrs May’s proposals to avoid a hard border after Brexit was rejected by frustrated EU officials. The rejection has sent shockwaves through Mrs May’s Brexit team, who are now forced to start from scratch to find some solution to the Catch 22 border problem.
Adding more controversy and confusion is the DUP, who prop up Mrs May’s minority government.
Leader Arlene Foster said she will not accept anything other than Northern Ireland leaving the EU on the same terms as England, Wales and Scotland, ruling out at solution which would see the Republic and Northern Ireland become economically aligned. This, she argued, would place an economic border in the Irish Sea and essentially unite the country’s economy – an unacceptable step towards an united Ireland in the eyes of the ultra-unionist party.
Talks continue – albeit with a growing sense of panic and anger in Brussels, Dublin, Belfast and Westminster.