"Overview of Northern Ireland Trade"

From the BBC:

A No 10 source says a Brexit deal is "essentially impossible" after a call between the PM and Angela Merkel... They also claimed she said a deal would never be possible unless Northern Ireland stayed in a customs union.

I'm all in favour of a (re)united Ireland and NI remaining in the EU customs union is a step in that direction. I'm not sure why the EU is so adamant, but it's not necessarily A Bad Thing.

It depends largely on whether NI trades more with RoI or more with GB? It makes sense to be in a customs union with your largest trading partner.

NISRA says that NI-GB trade is about four times as much as NI-RoI trade (or twice as much as combined NI-RoI and NI-rEU trade). GB is further away, but fifteen times as big as RoI, so that looks about right. Which means that NI would be better off (or less worse off) in the UK customs union and not in the EU customs union (which is not the answer I wanted).

Ho hum.

Brexit negotiations. Questions, questions...

1. In the pub on Friday, BenJamin' reminded us that the Benn Act is borderline insane. If somebody has no choice but to agree a deal, any deal, then that more or less negates that person's ability to haggle. The almost inevitable outcome of this would be, by default, for the UK to remain in the EU for another few months. Suitably heartened, MPs can then keep doing the same thing over an over forever. He asked, rhetorically, whether he had understood that properly and we all concurred.

2. My follow-up point was, our PM has made a compromise offer re Northern Ireland, which is some sort of fudge whereby Northern Ireland remains part of the EU for regulatory purposes (food and product safety standards etc) but remains part of the UK for customs purposes. I'm not sure if this is even workable, but you do get weird things like this, like the German enclave in Switzerland and they seem to manage somehow.

But never mind, superficially this is a compromise between:

a) the EU demanding that the whole of the UK remain in the EU for regulatory purposes and/or that the regulatory and customs border would be 'in the Irish Sea'.

b) the extreme (on both sides) idea that there should be a 'hard' border between Ireland and Northern Ireland (the EU appear to be pushing for this more than the UK or Ireland itself).

My question is, from the UK negotiators' point of view, this is a compromise (however insincerely meant) - so what compromise did they demand from the EU in return? Nobody talks about that, maybe they didn't ask for anything. Or is the counter-compromise that the EU no longer insists on 'the backstop' (which is too gruesome to even describe)?

"Everyone suddenly an expert on Northern Ireland"

From Newsthump:

Absolutely everyone on the British mainland is suddenly an expert on Northern Irish politics, it has emerged today.

Irish politics have proven a nigh-intractable problem for centuries, but all of a sudden everyone on the Internet has a depth of knowledge on the best possible solution for Brexit and the Irish border, which has eluded the world’s finest minds to date.

As one of the UK's top experts on Irish politics (definitely in the top 60 or 70 million or so), all I can say is, stop fannying about.

Just hand Northern Ireland back to the Republic of Ireland. Don't bother with a referendum (as vaguely planned in Good Friday Agreement), that's asking for trouble, just do it, schedule it for midnight 31 October/1 November 2019 for simplicity.

Withdraw any UK troops we might still have there, shut the Northern Ireland department, cancel all government payments to Northern Ireland, tell Westminster MPs from Northern Ireland that they are sacked, the lot.

The DUP and their ilk will be pretty miffed... but what are they going to do about it after the event? Then tell the EU they can shove their back stop up their collective arses.

More exquisite Remainer logic.

From The Independent:

The English are blindly driving Northern Ireland to conflict – the fear is that they are too stupid to care. A return to violence is not a worst-case scenario but an inevitability if a hard border returns, as it will if there is a full Brexit.

OK, why's that then?

Focus is often placed on the sheer difficulty of policing the 310-mile border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland because there are at least 300 major and minor crossing points.

But the real problem is not geographic or military but political and demographic because almost all the border runs through country where Catholics greatly outnumber Protestants.

The Catholics will not accept, and are in a position to prevent, a hard border unless it is defended permanently by several thousand British troops in fortified positions.

Sounds like a terribly stupid idea to me, it fails for practicality, so whose idea is it?

The EU could never agree to a deal – and would be signing its own death warrant if it did – in which the customs union and the single market have a large unguarded hole in their tariff and regulatory walls.

Jolly good. Let Them sort it out then, not the UK's problem. What if the UK sensibly refuses to get involved with imposing a 'hard border'?
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UPDATE, let's re-write this to state the actual position:

The EU is blindly driving Northern Ireland to conflict – the fear is that they are too stupid to care. A return to violence is not a worst-case scenario but an inevitability if a hard border returns, as it will if there is a full Brexit.

The EU could never agree to a deal – and would be signing its own death warrant if it did – in which the customs union and the single market have a large unguarded hole in their tariff and regulatory walls.

Focus is often placed on the sheer difficulty of policing the 310-mile border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland because there are at least 300 major and minor crossing points.

But the real problem is not geographic or military but political and demographic because almost all the border runs through country where Catholics greatly outnumber Protestants.

The Catholics will not accept, and are in a position to prevent, a hard border unless it is defended permanently by several thousand EU/Irish troops in fortified positions.

The actual Good Friday Agreement says very little about cross-border trade

George Carty (on Twitter) trotted out a lazy misconception: "Surely the main problem is the Irish border (again) - IIRC we can't be in EFTA and also (as required by the GFA) in a customs union with the EU."

Fraggles points out in the comments: "The GFA does not state that NI must be in a customs union with the EU. It simply doesn't. Who keeps making this stuff up?"
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In such situations, I find it useful to write down what you know, and look up what you don't.
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1. Fraggles is quite correct. The full official text of the Belfast Agreement (as it was originally called) is available here. It's 35 pages long so I haven't read it all, but if you search for the word "border" it shows up ten times, but only as part of the catch-all expression "all-island and cross-border [matters]"; the word "trade" appears once as part of the expression "trade union".

Fact is, the GFA had very little to do with cross-border trade. Somebody who worked for the Northern Ireland Office (or Department or Ministry or whatever it was called at the time) under John Major (Tony Blair picked up the baton and finished off the process after he became PM) confirmed that the main aim was ending The Troubles, duh!

They did this quite simply by stuffing the mouths of the leaders of extremist movements/terrorist organisations on both sides with gold. The UK governments' own bullet points are:

* the creation of a democratically elected Assembly
* the creation of a North/South Ministerial Council
* the creation of a British-Irish Council and the British-Irish Governmental Conference

In other words, creating lots of lovely, well-paid public sector/political sinecures which were awarded to the likes of Gerry Adams and Rev. Ian Paisley etc. Every man has his price. In return, said trouble makers agreed to lay down their arms, and all in all, it has worked very well (at considerable cost to the UK taxpayer, but worth it IMHO).
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2. We know perfectly well that there was only a 'hard border' between NI and RoI because the NI police needed to minimise the amount of weapons being smuggled into NI and/or terrorists moving back and forth.

(Ever since Irish independence, the UK has always honoured freedom of Irish citizens to move to and from the UK (and vote in elections here), and there was never a reason to try and impede cross-border trade.)

The GFA enabled the border to be 'softened' to the point of irrelevance by buying off the terrorists/extremists. The only reason the UK would reimpose it is a resurgence of nationalist terrorism.

So people who say that if there's a No Deal Brexit we'll go back to the Bad Old Days of hour long queues at the NI-RoI border with armed guards and frequent inspections have completely lost the plot.
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3. If you search the full text for the word "EU", the most relevant paragraph is this:

The British Irish Council will exchange information, discuss, consult and use best endeavours to reach agreement on co-operation on matters of mutual interest within the competence of the relevant Administrations. Suitable issues for early discussion in the BIC could include transport links, agricultural issues, environmental issues, cultural issues, health issues, education issues and approaches to EU issues.

I think that Brexit falls squarely under their competence, so what is the British Irish Council doing about it? I haven't heard a peep from them. In fact, I'd never heard of them at all.
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4. More facts:

The population of NI voted by a reasonable majority to Remain in 2016.

The vote share of the two biggest Unionist (broadly, pro-Leave) parties in the 2017 General Election was 46%, against 40% for the two biggest Nationalist (broadly, pro-Remain) parties.

So a bit of an uncomfortable contradiction there!
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5. We know that borders are artificial, but a line has to be drawn somewhere and compromises made.

The UK is not a single political unit, there is a whole hodge-podge of territories which are 'British' for some purposes but not others (Isle of Man, Channel Islands - both use GBP and have same titular head of state - Gibraltar, Falkland Islands etc). Scotland is autonomous in some respects and has a fairly powerful Assembly (which they cheerfully refer to as the Scottish Government), Northern Ireland has a similar Assembly, which spends most of the time trying to get itself shut down again. And we manage just fine.

Similarly, there isn't actually a neat line round the Member States of the EU. There is a whole hodge-podge of territories which are in the EU for some purposes and not in the EU for other purposes, full list here. Gibraltar is on this list as well. And they manage just fine.

I'm thinking, surely it is not that difficult to think up some fudged arrangement whereby Northern Ireland falls into the categories of half-in, half-out of the UK and similarly half-in, half-out of the EU?

Where there's a will there's away. Problem is there is absolutely no will on EU side to do something sensible and Mrs T May is being held to ransom by the fairly extremist DUP.
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6. Cross-border trade is very important to the NI and RoI economies, making up about 5% of either side's GDP. I'm not sure if cross-border workers are included in that.

But NI or RoI trade with Great Britain (i.e. the rest of UK) is several times greater than trade between themselves.

Which stands to reason. Although the island of GB is a bit further away from RoI than NI is, the population of GB is thirty times the population of NI and fifteen times the population of RoI.

"Statistics misuse 'biggest health problem in Northern Ireland'"

From the BBC:

Figures obtained by BBC News NI show the number of alcohol-related deaths in Northern Ireland is the highest on record. Between 2001 and 2016, more than 3,500 deaths in Northern Ireland were attributed to alcohol.

Coroner Joe McCrisken said: "We have an enormous problem with alcohol use, misuse and abuse in Northern Ireland. The figures are frightening because they show that the number of alcohol-related deaths is increasing, so it's important to raise awareness about the dangers."

Okey doke.

Northern Irish population 1.9 million, average life expectancy 70 years, makes about 25,000 deaths a year.

3,500 'alcohol related' deaths (whatever that means) in 16 years = 220 per year.

In summary, only one in a hundred deaths has been accelerated by 'alcohol misuse' or is 'alcohol related'.

Dealing with alcohol-related illnesses costs the health service about £250m a year, said Dr George O'Neill, the chairman of Addiction NI.

And how much does VAT and duty on alcohol sales raise? About three or four times as much as that.

He added that 12,000 people were admitted to hospital each year with alcohol-related problems in Northern Ireland...

£250 million a year divided by 12,000 hospital admissions = £20,000 per admission. That is surely a completely made-up number and at least four times as much as the overall average cost per admission.

... where 170,000 people drank hazardously and 47,000 drank harmfully.

And out of 170,000 'hazardous' drinkers, only 220 die a year (see above) and 99.9% will survive quite happily, so it can't be that 'hazardous', can it?

The Irish border - tail wagging the dog.

Far too much attention has been paid to this issue, for example from The Sun:

The issue of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic has been a stumbling block to Brexit talks

The whole thing is nuts. The underlying logic is that any country with a land border with an EU Member State must also be or become an EU Member State to avoid the 'hard border' issue.

I don't see why the Irish-Irish border is of any more significance that the Swedish-Norwegian border, or the German-, Austrian-, Italian- and French-Swiss borders.

Put it another way, just imagine The Republic of Ireland had only recently become an EU Member State and the UK never had been - whose problem is it to sort it out?

Reader's Letter of Last Week

From The Metro:

If the Supreme Court finds that Daniel and Amy McArthur discriminated for refusing to do a 'gay cak' (Metro, Wed), does this mean halal butchers can be forced to provide port to customers if asked?

Anon.

Possibly not the best analogy, but surely there is a Muslim cake shop somewhere we could use as a test-case? Ask them to lace a cake with alcohol and decorate it with a pig?

Indian Bicycle Marketing* in Northern Ireland

From the comments at Coppola Comment, h/t @johnb78:

The reason for the polarisation was a cycle of one side aggravating the other and vice versa.

The DUP would say or do something obnoxious to spite SF, this would annoy Nationalists and make them more inclined to support SF. This in turn made Unionist voters angry that IRA members were getting support, so they would give more votes to the DUP to put the Shinners in their place.

After several cycles of this, the UUP and the SDLP were ground down. The Brexit vote opened up constitutional issues, which has turned every vote into a proxy border poll, which further incentivises people to vote for hardline parties.

A further structural incentive was the fact the largest party gets to be first minister. This was the result of a SF-DUP deal back in 2006. This lets the DUP prey on unionist fears of an SF FM to ensure that Unionists voted for them for fear of splitting the vote and letting SF slip through. Of course, this makes Nationalists angry and inclined to vote SF, in turn giving the DUP a boogeyman to get more votes.

SF are facilitating this polarisation so Catholics end up filled with resentment. SF are now an extremely powerful party within the context of NI, so this strategy was successful in narrow terms.

* Indian Bicycle Marketing is a tactic where competing producers of more or less identical products agree to carve up a market between themselves.

Nobody move or the border gets it!

From The Guardian, after some vacuous drivel from Gordon Brown which is not even worth taking the piss out of:

Enda Kenny, the Irish prime minister, has said that a vote to leave the EU would lead to the return of some form of border controls at the border with the Republic. Speaking at the University of Ulster, he said:

"The re-establishment of customs checks on the border, or indeed of any customs arrangements, would be a regrettable and backward step for North-South trade and cooperation...

"We are standing here today less than 50 miles from the United Kingdom’s only land border. Can anyone credibly suggest that nothing would change if that became the western border of the European Union? We remember when it was a hard border. We remember the delays, the cost and the division. One of the most beneficial effects of the peace process and our common membership of the EU has been the virtual elimination of that border."

There was a very open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland/UK until The Troubles, 1970 or thereabouts, when neither country was in the EEC. Ireland and the Irish retained preferential treatment after it/they demerged from the UK in (the 1920s or 1930s? Never really clear to me), for most purposes, they are still treated on a par with full UK citizens (Irish passport holders have the right to vote in UK elections, certain tax advantages etc).

Both countries joined the EEC as was at the same time in 1973.

The armed police, border controls persisted until the 1990s when the worst of The Troubles had died down again (thanks to The Peace Process i.e. massive bribes and diplomatic spadework by John Major, with Tony Blair riding in to get the glory).

To thank the EU for this is laughable. I'm sure it did no harm, but it deserves little or none of the credit. For once, the Yanks were a moderating force in all this.

Nobody move or Northern Ireland gets it!

Emailed in by MBK, from The Daily Express:

The Chancellor, who kicks off a two-day Ulster visit today, will say unemployment in the region will skyrocket if British voters opt to ditch the 28-member bloc later this month. And the Remain campaigner will insist prosperity in the Republic of Ireland – the only EU state that shares a land border with Britain – would also be hit.

Osborne is the latest high-profile Europhile to claim that Northern Ireland faces a grim future outside of the EU. Labour grandee Lord Mandelson was last month slammed as "ridiculous" for claiming that Brexit would bring an end to peace in Northern Ireland.

Osborne will argue that the economic shock caused by a vote to Leave will wipe £1.3 billion off the value of the Northern Irish economy by 2018 – despite claiming that the region is a "great success story"...

He is also set to warn of the impact on trade with the Republic, warning that border and custom checks will have to be introduced. The Chancellor will also question whether the current free movement of people across Ireland under the Common Travel Area arrangement between the UK and Ireland could be maintained.

Of course those 'open borders will be maintained', it is in the interests of people in both parts of Ireland for them to remain open. The only reason to change that would be sheer spite. End of discussion.

Newsthump nails the gay cake story

From Newsthump:

Judge Johnson declared that not only were the bakers a pack of twats for denying the commission based on a person’s sexual orientation, but also that the bakery should “check out its own shop-front sometime”.

“Seriously, I’ve walked past it, and it looks camper than Dale Winton admiring a row of tents” said Johnson. “So where exactly they get the nerve to tell someone else that their gayness is inappropriate for something covered in pretty icing is absolutely beyond me.”

The Fenians Won't Like this...

Caption under Telegraph photo here:

"Snow covered graves at St Joseph's Church in west Belfast, as an orange weather alert is announced in Northern Ireland"

The Arts Council of Northern Ireland

Presumably abbreviated to ACNI?

Poor Widows In Mansions In Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland never had Council Tax, they stuck with Domestic Rates, the last revaluation was in 2005 and the rates are about 0.8% of each homes 2005 value (or probably more than 1% of its current value). Sadly, the 2005 value is capped at £400,000, rather than having a higher or no cap and a correspondingly lower rate, but there you go.

They sensibly introduced a deferment option for Poor Widows In Mansions to shut up the Mylene Klasses of this world.

A few years later they did a review of the scheme, Andy Wightman uncovered this fine document:

Analysis carried out by NISRA for the Department in 2008 found there were 132,343 pensioner owner-occupying households.

Since its introduction, there have been 116 applications to the scheme – a take-up of 0.09%.

64 of these did not proceed beyond the initial stages. Of those that proceeded further in the application process, 21 were successful (in terms of a deferment agreement being entered into) and 18 were refused.

"Gerry Adams remains in custody over McConville murder, so he does"

From the BBC:

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams continues to be questioned by Northern Ireland police in connection with the 1972 murder of Jean McConville, so he does.

Mr Adams has spent the night in custody after going to Antrim police station, so he has, where he was arrested.

Speaking before his detention on Wednesday evening, Mr Adams said he was "innocent of any part" in the murder, so he did.

Mrs McConville, a 37-year-old widow and mother-of-10, was abducted and shot by the IRA, so she was.

"IN a courageous act of forgiveness..."

From The Express:

IN a courageous act of forgiveness, the Queen is to shake hands with ex- IRA commander Martin McGuinness whose terrorist comrades murdered her cousin Lord Mountbatten.

The historic symbol of reconciliation between Her Majesty and the man who is now Northern Ireland’s Deputy First ­Minister will take place in Belfast on Wednesday.

It comes 34 years after her beloved relative – and uncle to the Duke of Edinburgh – was ­assassinated in a bomb plot.

Meanwhile, from some Irish newspaper or other:

IN a courageous act of forgiveness, Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister is to shake hands with the head of a state which has occupied his country for centuries.

The historic symbol of reconciliation between former freedom fighter Martin McGuinness and the woman who is the United Kingdom's hereditary ruler will take place in Belfast on Wednesday.

It comes 34 years after thirteen of his fellow countrymen were gunned down in the street by British paratroopers.

"Peter Robinson quit threat over IRA Hyde Park bomb case"

From the BBC:

Northern Ireland's First Minister Peter Robinson has threatened to resign unless there is a judicial inquiry into secret letters given to more than 180 Irish republican paramilitary suspects.

In 2009, Mr Robinson was deeply hurt and embarrassed when secret letters came to light which his wife sent to various property developers on behalf of her young lover.

The DUP leader said he was not prepared to remain as first minister in a power-sharing government "kept in the dark" about such an important matter. It is rumoured that he did not like being "kept in the dark" by his wife either.

He was speaking after the trial of Donegal man John Downey collapsed. Unlike his marriage, which rather surprisingly did not collapse.

Downey denied killing four soldiers in the 1982 IRA Hyde Park bombing. It is not known how whether his wife had any affairs with soldiers and if so, whether the liaisons took place in Hyde Park.

"Kingsmills massacre: Alan Black says estate agents involved"

From the BBC:

The lone survivor of an IRA massacre of ten Protestants believes estate agents may have been involved, a coroner's court has heard.

On Monday, a solicitor for Alan Black made the claim at the preliminary hearing of a new inquest into the Kingsmills shootings.

The attack took place near a property which came on to the market in the County Armagh village of Kingsmills in 1976.

The victims were all first time buyers who were shot dead when an IRA gang ambushed the mini-bus taking them for a viewing.

"Northern Ireland: Cameron urges leaders to bring country together"

From the BBC:

David Cameron has said his symbolic visit to Northern Ireland has "drawn attention to the plight" of the Protestant minority in the country.

The Unionists' treatment at the end of the country's Troubles dominated the run-up to the Commonwealth summit, which opened in the capital Belfast earlier.

The UK prime minister has defied calls for him to boycott the event in protest against alleged human rights abuses. He urged the authorities in both halves of the divided island to show "generosity" to all Irish.

Mr Cameron has insisted there should be a proper investigation into alleged IRA crimes in the final months of the conflict which largely ground to a halt in 1998, saying a process of "truth-telling" was essential for reconciliation.

In a historic move, Mr Cameron travelled to the north of the country in early 2013 to open a visitor centre at Giant's Causeway - the first UK Prime Minister to do so since his predecessor Gordon Brown did so in 2009.