The Good Ship EU: Smooth sailing or iceberg ahead?

OP what do the Irish think of the border situation with Northern Ireland as a result of Brexit? It has complicated things, right?

Hugely., R1

If the UK insists on leaving the customs union, there has to be a customs border somewhere. But where? Situating it anywhere will piss someone off. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 envisaged free movement of goods, services and peoples North and South, East and West. Brexit has effectively made that arrangement impossible.

That was the one thing that made me very angry in 2016: the fact that preserving the Good Friday Agreement played such little part in the debate in the UK, despite the fact that ex-PMs John Major and Tony Blair held a joint press conference in Belfast to raise awareness about the potential impact. I was living in the UK at the time and it was the biggest single reason I voted remain.

Brexit won, but the NI Border issue went on to destroy Theresa May's premiership as she couldn't get her compromise through. Boris Johnson won his election in 2019 only by immediately reneging on promises he made to the DUP and accepting a customs border in the Irish sea rather than on the island of Ireland. Since then he has threatened to renege on the deal with the EU itself and unilaterally remove the customs checks he signed up to, raising the possibility of a trade war. Thankfully he probably only has days left in office because of the wine and cheese parties thing.

It is a more or less insoluble problem. Right now we don't have the hard border we didn't want, but Northern Ireland unionists have to fill in customs declarations to ship goods from one part of the UK to another. They are seething about this. I was in a loyalist area recently and saw a *lot* of signs about the sea border.

Like a lot of people in Ireland I'm genuinely grateful to the EU for standing by us and not throwing us under the bus. Preserving frictionless trade on the island was a key negotiatiing aim of the EU in the discussions it had with the UK, and its greater economic weight has won the day, at least so far. The Biden administration deserves thanks too for telling the Brits in no uncertain terms not to fuck around with Ireland too much.

Brexiteers thought that Ireland would have to leave the EU in the UK's wake - not for the first time, they miscalculated big time. ILong term, if things don't change, this may mean that the North is drawn away from London and into Dublin's economic orbit. It remains to be seen what the political impact will be.

R2 are you hinting at a possible unification of Ireland in the future?

Absolutely. Sinn Fein could be the largest party on both sides of the border soon, and that'd be a huge step towards the end goal. It won't happen tomorrow though.

Unification of Ireland? Why not?

Let's face it, Brexit is a mess -- and I hope people in Northern Ireland notice it.

Perhaps they come to the conclusion that the grass is greener* on the other side of the border, ultimately resulting in the UK becoming Little Britain.

If the EU manages to deal with troublemaker countries Hungary and Poland, the future may be bright indeed.

The Bible talks about this- it's the End Times!!

Speaking of UK, there is also a very persistent movement in Scotland that wants independence too. Eventually it seems like the country will pass it by referendum

[quote] Mainly a thread where I and another poster from Croatia can talk about the future of the EU and not clutter up the Novak Djokovic thread.

Aw, I love it when moronic windbags find each other ❤️

Granted, that anti vaxxer from Croatia is a nutjob. But judging by his posts, "Concerned European" seems to be ok. At least he's not a nutjob like the Croatian one.

Was the Croatian guy an anti-vaxxer? Damn, I didn't read those posts. He never turned up here anyway so this was a whole load of pointless.

R11, it wasn't. Your posts were very enlightening. I hope more people join the discussion.

@R11, sorry, but this bloke is a lunatic. A Djokovic stan and a rabid anti vaxxer, although him doing the Djokovic stanning only started when the entire Djokovic affair began (he still posts ranking from just silly to truly delusional in favour of Djokovic in the Djokovic threads). Judging by his usual posts, he doesn't give a fuck about discussing stuff properly, he's just here to spread his bullshit.

And no @11, this thread isn't pointless. In fact it's pretty interesting particularly because you're in Ireland, the very country within the EU that is affected by Brexit the most.