3 ms·

The UK doesn't have to put anything up. If the EU/Ireland choose to, that's kind of their problem.

• Silhouette 8y ago
  The UK doesn't have to put anything up. While that is technically true, it is practically false. If the UK reverts to trading on WTO terms, at least initially, the Most Favoured Nation principle essentially says that we have to trade with all other nations on an equal basis unless we make a comprehensive trade deal with someone. So if we let down the barriers and remove all restrictions at the Irish border, we are basically required to let down the equivalent barriers trading with anyone else at any border. That is not a sustainable policy. In practice, if we have a hard Brexit with no big deal agreed at the end of March, I would expect both the UK and the EU/EU27 to make unilateral arrangements to protect their own people and businesses in the immediate aftermath and mitigate the likely negative effects as much as possible until better arrangements can be made. This is likely to include both the UK and Ireland declining to build new border infrastructure and turning a blind eye to any border crossings that would technically become illegal. But the EU would put great pressure on Ireland to address that issue quickly since any Irish border is also an EU border, and both the UK and Ireland would be subject to complaints at WTO level about the favourable treatment, which would take a considerable time to resolve but would inevitably result in some form of enforcement action if the issue was not addressed (which it surely would be to avoid that outcome, but the UK and Ireland would have bought themselves significant extra time by bending/breaking the rules until that point).
• celticninja 8y ago
  Of course it doesn't, but then free movement of people cannot be stopped.