So, is this the border? – This is the border.
So, this is which … that's the UK and that's Ireland?
No, other way round. This is the UK … – That's Ireland.
This is Ireland.
I invite them to try imposing passport checks here really, you know,
let them try.
This is border country, the dividing line between the British province of Northern Ireland,
and the Irish Republic.
It was created in 1922 when Ireland became a free state
and Ulster remained British.
The border between the UK and the Republic of Ireland has been divisive all its life.
In Northern Ireland, more hotly loyal to the British crown than England itself,
are 800,000 Ulstermen of Protestant ancestry.
This border is the fault line of a centuries-old conflict between Catholic Republicans and Protestant Unionists.
In 1968 it erupted in three decades of armed violence known as The Troubles.
Now it’s the dead end Brexit can’t get past, it’s triggered the biggest constitutional crisis of most of our lifetimes,
taken down governments and is why Britain faces its
second general election in as many years.
We all agree to go for a general election on December 12.
But how many British voters actually understand why?
We drove the length of this border to meet the people who understand it better than anyone
whose lives and futures are at the very heart of the Brexit crisis.
Our first stop was Omeath.
The middle of the road now is the border so that side's in the Republic and this side's in Northern Ireland,
so you're in the Republic, I'm in Northern Ireland.
Seamus Murphy is a local historian and former journalist
who is campaigning against Brexit.
He gave us the Republican view of the border.
I was reared, you know, not to accept it. Simply, we don’t.
It's imposed, it's not our border and we will laugh at it at every opportunity.
And we will cheat it and smuggle across it and whatever because it's not ours.
The soldiers put in a set of iron spikes in the road there and myself and my brother
pulled them out.
Were they hard work to get out? – No, no, we just biggy-rocked them.
20 minutes and we had them all out.
What kind of year was it that you and your brother were …?
Around 1971 … – You were picking up posts.
We pulled the spikes out.
In 1970/71.
Would you consider yourself a criminal for doing that?
Not at all!
I consider the people who put the posts there were criminals.
This is my country, somebody else can't tell me, you know,
what's right and wrong.
Well, there are two graveyards and the fence that runs between them is the border.
Divided even in death and all that.
What is the border for you? What does it mean for you?
This Brexit has been imposed upon us just as the border was once imposed upon our people in 1921,
and once again that was done by force and this has effectively being done in the same way.
The worst possible outcome is one which ruins the local economy,
particularly in regard to farming products and food products that's where we are most vulnerable.
That will inevitably play into the hands of those who wish to see some sort of resumption of violence.
I hope personally that Boris Johnson's deal goes through
because that's the best way of leaving us alone.
As for what he wants to do in the Irish Sea,
honestly that's his problem.
Farming is Northern Ireland's biggest industry and farmers in particular worry
that any changes along to the border brought about by Brexit could be devastating.
As they're about to leave, the farmer finally appears.
It isn't long before he's chatting and complaining about some bomb damage to his farmhouse.
In Belcoo, Unionist John Sheridan’s land is surrounded on three sides by the Republic.
He voted remain.
… and just behind it is the South.
If that border, that is just all around us now, becomes the border with Europe,
what difference is that going to make to your life?
Confinement, end of freedom.
We're confined from our markets also, 50% of our lamb have to go south for processing.
37% of the milk that's produced in Northern Ireland goes south for processing.
And how much of your business is with Europe?
50%.
Our markets will be gone.
Do you think you'd be better off as being in Europe but not in the UK
or do you think it'd be better to be in the UK but not in Europe?
Oh, no, I've always been an advocate of Europe.
One for the peace that it helped broker and at the end of the day you know when
you're paying your mortgage or paying your hire purchase bills on cars
you need for your business, you know, you need to be able to put bread and butter on the table
and you can't eat a flag, Phoebe, you know.
Do you think a lot of people who live along the border who voted remain,
just feel completely done over by the rest of the UK?
Of course they do, yes, of course they do.
Because they weren't thought about and sure it's quite obvious.
What has been the problem with Brexit all along?
Only that border on this island.
We drove on to Pettigo a pretty town divided by a river which currently marks the border
between the Irish Republic and the UK.
A long history of everyday smuggling here will take in a whole new life
if this river becomes a border with the EU.
This is a smuggler, she's on a return trip from Britain into Ireland with
quantities of butter, bread and tinned food all of which are cheaper in Ulster.
Smuggling is an old tradition around here and they start them kind of young.
Irish police have warned it will mean an increase in organised crime
but a more immediate concern for local businesses is what it will mean for cross-border trade.
So, how many of your customers are from the north and how many are from the Republic would you say?
35/40% of them are from the north.
What kind of impact is that gonna have if, you know, it's gonna be illegal for people from
the north essentially to come and buy your milk?
Are you worried about it?
Probably a little but it seems you've got delayed again, Brexit, and then as soon as that happens
you forget about it, and then once Brexit is about to take place, you start to worry again
but this is going to go on and on for years.
Years nearly now, yeah.
You see people marching ‘they don’t want borders’ and all that,
so it doesn't take too much sometimes to get people
doing things that you wouldn’t like them to be doing, you know?
A few miles back into the UK, we reach Castlederg in County Tyrone.
This is Loyalist heartland but the upcoming general election is expected to be a
tightly fought race between Republican and Unionist candidates here …
not for the first time.
They say this is three elections in one.
Firstly, it is a general election, then it's a test of the bitterly divided
Unionist vote …
54% of people in Northern Ireland voted to remain and many view this election as Brexit round two.
The divided Unionist block is so anxious about winning here it's only putting forward one unity candidate.
But voters like Delma McConnell are still confused.
Did you vote in the referendum?
I did.
I did vote and voted not to leave because, it's not that I know a lot about Brexit,
I don't.
In mainland and England it's quite simple,
well, sort of simple, but like if in the election if your pro-Brexit you probably vote Tory
and if you're anti-Brexit you're more likely to vote Lib Dem or Labour.
What are the options in Northern Ireland? Because it's different, isn't it?
I really don't know. – Yeah …
If somebody would come in, any member of the political parties would come and say,
OK Delma, you're here 24 years and this is what Brexit is going to do to you…
that's good, that's bad. I'll go out, I'll put in my vote.
Do you think people are bored of Brexit?
Absolutely, yeah.
Do people talk about it anymore?
Nobody talks about it.
I reckon that if people are already bored of Brexit though, they may not
bother going out to vote, what do you think?
I think people will go out to vote because they've had enough of it
and I think that they want it finished.
Lovely.
Oh, look at that.
Ten times better.
You wouldn't think I was on a mountain this morning.
No, not at all.
Are you finished? Brilliant, thank God.
Just over the road at the Castle Inn, pub landlord Derek Hussey, a former Ulster Unionist Party politician,
is firmly pro-Brexit.
His concern, like thousands of other Loyalists, is that
Boris Johnson’s deal is a betrayal that will force Northern Ireland
closer towards Unification with the Republic.
Are you surprised by how the British government has treated Northern Ireland
in this Brexit … ? – Yes.
It doesn't surprise me but more or less shocks me
and I find it concerning but there is something which would more closely align us in Northern Ireland
to the Republic of Ireland as opposed to the United Kingdom.
A lot of the media coverage and political commentators,
they talk about the conflict coming back, security concerns …
At this moment, I can't see it returning to that level
but there is the situation where our policing has been reduced dramatically
and the military presence within Northern Ireland is
very, very far from what it was, in fact.
Now, that's to be welcomed but there's also
a fear in that because if trouble did materialise
who would be there to defend the ordinary people of Northern Ireland?
The uncertainty to me has been the biggest issue
that we have had to deal with in this area.
It's not the problem of Brexit, it's the problem of uncertainty.
30 minutes up the road, Strabane rivals Castlederg as the most bombed town in Ireland.
200 bombs in five years have reduced the town centre to rubble.
Strabane is 90% Catholic.
It has strong Republican traditions.
During the Troubles, Strabane also had the highest unemployment rate in the industrialised world.
It’s still among the highest in Europe.
Shop fast while shops last, is the word in Strabane.
At the Strabane Chronicle, we met staff photographer Davy Ralston.
You know, Strabane historically has been so far away from the seat of power, you know,
that basically no one cares about it.
What's it like now?
It's got slightly better.
People live and work on both sides of the border, you know, their lives are both sides of the border,
everything here is both sides of the border.
To all intents and purposes there is no border.
With Brexit coming along, it could change and that's going to make a huge difference to us, like.
People will start to feel fearful again on both communities by the way, not just one side or the other.
You'll find if you speak to Unionist Loyalist communities, they're going to find the exactly same thing.
A search for an English identity has caused Brexit
which having fall-out everywhere within the UK and
its closest neighbourhood which is Ireland.
Our last stop was Londonderry or Derry a city so divided it's got two names.
It's where the Troubles began with civil rights protests, then riots, and the Bloody Sunday massacre.
It’s also where the conflict claimed its most recent victim journalist Lyra McKee,
who was killed in clashes between police and protesters in April this year.
In a gym in the city's waterside area, we met all Ireland bodybuilding champion,
Danny Butterfield who tried to explain the city's sectarian tensions.
So, you lived in Londonderry all your life? Londonderry or Derry, which one?
Derry. – Derry.
What's the thing with Londonderry and Derry?
Derry is usually considered to be Roman Catholic
and Londonderry is considered to be Protestant.
I would call it Derry, my brother-in-law calls it Londonderry, and that's fine,
it’s really a religion thing. – OK.
It is a legacy that will take more than my lifetime to fizzle out.
How do you think life in Derry would change if that border, that's only five miles away …
Right.
Wasn't a border with the Republic but it was a border with Europe?
Again, it’s down to a religion thing.
If the protestants get in and they get a border,
or sorry, they don't want a border … oh, they do want a a border, sorry, it’s confusing!
It's confusing even for you, isn't it? – It is! It is confusing.
For people like yourselves from outside looking in, it must be completely insane, completely insane.
For both sides actually, it will make things more difficult …
How? I don't know but only the future can tell us that.
What we have here is a confidential report by Johnson’s own government marked “Official, sensitive”.
Johnson has said definitively, and I quote,
“There will be no checks between Northern Ireland and Great Britain” under his deal.
In private the government says something very, very different.
It says there will be customs declarations and security checks
between Northern Ireland and Great Britain - it’s there in black and white.
No-one we met could tell us how life on the border will change after Brexit.
But what they all said is the uncertainty is dangerous.
In this election, it feels like once again the futures of people on this border
are being gambled with by politicians and voters who can have no idea
how high the stakes here really are.