Why is Northern Ireland holding up Brexit?
It's the smallest nation in the UK and the one with the fewest residents
but Northern Ireland's has become one
of the biggest parts of the Brexit negotiations. In fact, its border could
end up deciding the future of the whole of Europe. So why is the Irish border
question so important?
After Brexit the border between England, Scotland and
Wales will stay exactly the same because well we're all on one island,
which doesn't border any EU countries and because Northern Ireland is part of the
UK it will leave the European Union too But unlike England Scotland and Wales
it shares a border with an EU country: The Republic of Ireland.
So this 300 mile stretch will be the brand-new external border of the
European Union and there lies the big problem.
You see they're worried about
how you would go about checking the goods crossing in and out of the EU.
So what are the options? Maybe you could just build some customs posts and fences
along the border but for a load of people that is the last thing they want.
Northern Ireland has had fences and checkpoints on the border before
and during that time more than 3,600 people died
in a 30 year conflict known as The Troubles.
And the issue of the border was at the heart of this fighting over the
sovereignty of Northern Ireland. There were fears that putting fences back up
could lead to return of the violence of the past and like I said nobody wants that.
But negotiators, they're struggling to come up with a solution to make the border work.
So why is it so hard?
Well first we need to go back almost 100 years.
This is the island of Ireland.
It all used to be part of Britain until a bloody War of Independence.
Between 1919 and 1921, the Irish Republican Army and British security forces were at war.
Then at the end of the conflict, Ireland was split up.
The southern part became a separate country
but Northern Ireland stayed in the United Kingdom.
But that wasn't the end of the argument. Nationalists and Republicans mostly
drawn from the Catholic wanted a united Ireland.
Unionists and Loyalists most of them Protestant vowed to keep the province British.
In the late 1960s violence erupted, Republican and loyalist paramilitaries fought each other
and British soldiers stationed in Northern Ireland clashed with Republicans.
Finally in 1998, there was a breakthrough peace deal.
The Good Friday Agreement and a drastic reduction in violence.
In the years that followed, the British army checkpoints were removed
and Eydie and custom shells disappeared.
Now the border is almost invisible if you're really paying attention you might
notice the road signs changing from miles to kilometers.
But that's just about it.
Then Britain voted from Brexit.
Theresa May made it clear that any exit deal
we struck would mean leaving the EU Single Market and Customs Union.
That means the border will become the crossing point
for goods entering the EU from outside.
Now that's really the core of the issue.
EU negotiators say they want some kind of customs control, they want to stop
products that don't meet EU standards like unsafe food crossing the border
Police in Northern Ireland say a hard border would become a target for
dissident Republicans, hardline Irish nationalists who have vowed to carry on
attacking symbols of British rule.
The EU and the British and Irish government all
agree that they don't want a half order to return.
But they can't agree on what to do about customs checks.
There has been talk of some kind of high-tech solution
that would mean lorries could cross the
border without being stopped and checked.
All checks could be done away from the border.
This is actually what happens already to control cross-border trade in
some goods including fuel alcohol and tobacco.
But there's a danger that a proper deal can't be worked out in time.
The EU has always said it wants a backstop:
An agreement about what would happen if no detailed plan for Brexit is in place.
Brussels thinks the answer is for Northern Ireland to stay in the Customs Union.
That would effectively mean pushing the border back to here:
The sea border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.
But it also means treating Northern Ireland differently
to the rest of the United Kingdom.
So now it's Unionists not Republicans who'd be angry.
Teresa May's party is still officially called the "Conservative and Unionist party".
The Tories are committed to Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK
and because the last General Election didn't go as well as expected, the Prime Minister now
relies on a Northern Irish unionist party,
the DUP to give her majority in Parliament.
So Northern Irish unionists effectively have a veto on British government policy.
Mrs May needs to hammer out some kind of compromise and she has hinted about
keeping Britain in some kind of customs arrangement.
She needs to find a solution that will satisfy Brussels, her unionist colleagues
and the wider British public.
And if nothing else, the last two years of Brexit negotiations have shown that
it won't be easy.
Now we've done a few of these Brexit explainers so far this is
the third one and there's going to be more coming and if you have any ideas
about what we should talk about whether it's tariffs, which we've already done
and hard border would you just heard about let us know in the comments below
and like and subscribe to keep them coming.