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'A recipe for chaos': UK Brexit plan provokes alarm along Irish border 'A recipe for chaos': UK Brexit plan provokes alarm along Irish border
(about 5 hours later)
The British government’s proposals for a soft border with the Republic of Ireland after Brexit were greeted with scepticism and anxiety on both sides of the border. Until last June there was nothing to observe on the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland except a change in the colour of markings on the verge of the road from yellow to white. But 14 months after the UK voted to leave the European Union, giant billboards calling for “no EU frontier in Ireland” and “no hard border” mark the divide between the countries.
The president of the chamber of commerce in the Republic border town of Dundalk, Paddy Malone, said the proposal to exempt small business from a host of customs regulations was “a recipe for chaos”. The concern on both sides of the open 310-mile (499km) border is whether the signs represent just the beginning, a change made worse by an air of mistrust of all politicians.
Malone, a tax accountant and a member of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael party, said the exemption proposal was not workable. “It will be a back door in and out of the EU and that cannot be allowed to exist,” he said. Hugh Morgan, who has a dairy farm that straddles both sides of the border in Carrickarnon but also runs a fuel business for hauliers in 16 countries, complained that people like him were ignored.
He questioned who would regulate or police the proposed equivalence with EU food and health safety standards, which at the moment involves mandatory farm inspections and veterinary certifications. “The answer is that is the European court of justice. So congratulations, Britain, you are right back in the EU.” “We are the people who will be affected: we employ 80 people here on the border, we are putting bread on the table, and not one politician, from Dublin, Stormont, Westminster, Brussels or the local council, has come here to ask people like us how is it going to affect us, or do we need help,” he says.
He said the only solution was for Northern Ireland to stay in the customs union. Morgan describes Brexit as just another challenge for business, arguing “no matter what, business people will have to adapt”, but wonders if the process will ever be concluded because it so complicated.
“Britain has not figured out how to square the circle, because the circle cannot be squared,” he said. “I’m not living in oblivion, but there will another election, then European elections, then more negotiations with another set of politicians. I can’t see this ever happening because it will take 20 to 30 years to get straight.”
He also took issue with an interview the former Tory MP Edwina Currie did on Irish radio, Newstalk, on Wednesday morning in which she said a certain amount of smuggling would have to be tolerated. Andy Lecky, a truck driver, who is taking a break at the derelict customs inspection post on the south of the border, stressed the importance of north-south negotiation. “I think Brexit could be a good thing if they would knuckle down instead of fighting everybody.
He said exemptions for small businesses, which would include the majority of cross-border traders, would not just fuel smuggling, “it will destroy an awful lot of legitimate business in the area”. “This scaremongering about the border isn’t helping anyone. If only Ireland and England could just work together and stop fighting. I don’t think this hardline stance helps anyone,” he says.
“This attitude that a certain amount of lawlessness is OK is deplorable,” he said. On this point there is wide agreement among locals: a hard border is in nobody’s interests. But it is not clear whether the British government’s desire to retain a largely invisible border is realistic.
He also said hauliers of agricultural products in the border area faced huge risks to their business if there were border checks or random checks, particularly those using the UK as a “land bridge” to the continent, travelling to Holyhead and onward to Dover. Conor Patterson, chief executive of the northern Irish Newry and Mourne Entreprise Agency, describes the paper as “strong on aspiration” but “weak on deliverability”.
“I was speaking to one of the largest hauliers in the town and he said if his drivers were stopped for an hour or two and held on the side of the road, that would be counted as part of their driving time and they would have to take a break and could miss their ferry to Dover and with perishable goods that could also mean shelf life is compromised. It adds risk, higher insurance, higher business costs.” He welcomes the British proposal to mirror customs arrangements with the EU in order to exempt small businesses from customs checks on the border but says this amounts to staying in the EU customs union. “If it walks like the customs union, talks like the customs union, which it does, then why not just commit to the customs union?” he asks.
Joe Daly, who runs his own decorative glass business on the Northern Ireland side of the border in the village of Jonesborough, said some people were already encouraging him to move his business to the other side of the border because his main clients are pubs and hotels in the Republic. Morgan makes the additional point that it is misleading to assume the border is invisible today. His cross-border farm is essentially divided in two – one south and one north of the border. Under EU law he cannot move cows registered as grazing in the north to the Republic, because of strict controls on moving livestock to stop cross-border infection such as foot and mouth disease and swine flu.
“That wouldn’t suit us at all,” he said. He remembers the customs checks on the border. “They were random checks, there would be queues, it was a mess. We would certainly be concerned if there was a return to that on a daily basis.” A few miles south of the the border, Paddy Malone, the president of Dundalk chamber of commerce, said the “British elite” had no idea what they were landing Ireland with and should have started working on the programme three years ago.
Asked what he thought of the latest proposals he said: “We don’t know what to think. Does anybody actually know how this is going to work?” Malone said there was “merit” in the British government’s proposed trusted trader scheme but said the proposal to exempt small business from a host of customs regulations was “a recipe for chaos”, facilitating everything from smuggling of alcohol and cigarettes to hormone-treated beef that may find its way onto Northern Irish supermarket shelves as a cheap alternative to homegrown food.
He voted remain in the referendum and said the public should be allowed another vote on the final deal. “It will be a back door in and out of the EU and that cannot be allowed to exist,” said Malone. “Who would regulate or police that? “The answer is the European court of justice. So, congratulations Britain, you are right back in the EU. Britain has not figured out how to square the circle, because the circle cannot be squared.”
It is estimated that 30,000 people commute across the border in both directions for work.
One woman who works for Paddy Malone crosses the border four times a day. “She’s asked me would she get home to see her kids on time, would she get to work on time if there were checks. The answer is we don’t know,” he said.