Brexit the economy and house prices part 6

kabayiri

Herzlos wrote: »

This guy seems to have pretty good idea of what's going on, being a Journalist with lots of connections. Probably anti-Brexit biased but pretty detailed and interesting read:


https://www.facebook.com/pestonitv/posts/2202169240107809



I don't think it's ingrained in the UK as much as you'd think. Like I said it's all very superficial in terms of media portrayed and mimicing, but in an actual lifestyle it's wildly different.

Peston sees the NI/Irish border as intractable.

I still don't understand why the Irish border is considered unresolvable, and yet the French Guiana border with Brazil is considered workable, and even unworthy of comment?

It is much longer, and many Brazilians in French Guiana entered illegally.

So why the double standards? We touched upon this before, but I don't remember seeing a full explanation.

cogito

Herzlos wrote: »

I don't the the EU FoM is too ambitious or too soon, it's required for free movement of capital and business. There are some teething problems that are being ironed out regarding wage undercutting, moving without being financially sufficient, etc.

Teething problems? Will the last people to leave Romania, Estonia and Bulgaria please turn out the lights.

The idea of FoM is good in theory but in practice it leads to massive demographic problems. The EU is so wedded to it that it refuses to acknowledge that it might not be working and until it does that, it can't start to address the problem.

Herzlos

cogito wrote: »

Teething problems? Will the last people to leave Romania, Estonia and Bulgaria please turn out the lights.

The idea of FoM is good in theory but in practice it leads to massive demographic problems. The EU is so wedded to it that it refuses to acknowledge that it might not be working and until it does that, it can't start to address the problem.

It has been doing things to address the problem but you don't want to acknowledge them.

kabayiri wrote: »

Peston sees the NI/Irish border as intractable.

I still don't understand why the Irish border is considered unresolvable, and yet the French Guiana border with Brazil is considered workable, and even unworthy of comment?

It is much longer, and many Brazilians in French Guiana entered illegally.

So why the double standards? We touched upon this before, but I don't remember seeing a full explanation.

I have to admit to having minimal knowledge of the French Guiana border, but it sounds like the illegal immigrants goes some way to confirm why the Irish border is intractable. I don't think the Guiana/Brazillian border has an equivalent of the Good Friday Agreement, which is the sticking point.



Can you see any system that allows restricted access of the goods and people that aren't allowed across the border but still allows those in Eire/NI to pass the border unhindered and without prejudice?


The former requires border infrastructure of some point - checks that the people crossing are entitled to be, and that the goods crossing are legal in the destination country with appropriate tax recordings, whilst the latter requires that there be no infrastructure. Even cameras with random spot checks, or a regular/fast track line would violate the GFA.


You could let the GFA take precendence, and allow rampant border smuggling to happen, essentially what we have now where it's irrelevant because largely the same rules about everything are the same on both sides. But should those rules diverge then it becomes less and less tenable. How do you deal with someone who has legal right to be in Eire but not NI? How do you deal with goods which are legal on one side of the border but not the other?
How do you stop all of the illegals Brexiteers are so concerned about, from travelling into the UK from Eire? It's a longer crossing, sure, but not impossible.
Do you think the EU will allow UK produced goods to cross in if we reduce our standards to undercut the EU?


That's why the EU is insisting on the backstop - whilst there's no border, we need regulatory alignment. If anyone can figure out a way to avoid it* then we backstop can dissolve.


*The only 2 options I can see is to move the border to Eire/NI (trash the GFA) or move to the border to NI/UK (Irish Re-unification).

kabayiri

Herzlos wrote: »

...
Can you see any system that allows restricted access of the goods and people that aren't allowed across the border but still allows those in Eire/NI to pass the border unhindered and without prejudice?
...

It's not easy to implement a modern trackable border, which does not mean to say it is not impossible.

We know what movement occurs right now between Eire/NI, both in terms of people and goods. We know that this trade level would want to continue.

NI isn't exactly in growth. We could spot patterns to identify anybody trying to game the post-Brexit arrangement. We should know the trade levels today, and project forwards.

I suspect the NI/Eire border is a pawn in the power play between EU and UK. The French Guiana border shows that imperfect borders already exist, without too much consternation.

Herzlos

kabayiri wrote: »

NI isn't exactly in growth. We could spot patterns to identify anybody trying to game the post-Brexit arrangement. We should know the trade levels today, and project forwards.

How do you do that without violating the GFA?

You can't stop anyone to identify if they are up to anything or not, and I'm pretty sure they won't be happy about being monitored like that (I'm not sure if it's explicitly forbidden).
You can't tell the difference between a minicab who's running citizens between work/home/shops across the border, from a minicab full of illegal goods and persons.



You could potentially track a truck entering Eire from outside, across the border, but you'd still have no way of stopping it before it's on a ferry to UK without violating the GFA. If it stops anywhere to change loads then you'd not be able to follow the load.


You could potentially also have an Eire/NI citizens and a non-Eire/NI citizens crossing, but you'd still have no way to stop anyone using the citizen border without violating the GFA, unless you were positive they weren't. But how do you do that without tracking everyone?



I'd posit that it's not hard to do; it's impossible. The requirements are completely contradictory. If it was solvable, you'd think that someone working for any of the relevant governments or negotiating teams would have pointed it out by now. No-one wants to go through with the backstop mess if it's so easily avoided.

Eric_the_half_a_bee

Herzlos wrote: »

The only 2 options I can see is to move the border to Eire/NI (trash the GFA) or move to the border to NI/UK (Irish Re-unification).

Which clause in the GFA prohibits a border between RoI and NI?

kabayiri

Herzlos wrote: »

...
You can't tell the difference between a minicab who's running citizens between work/home/shops across the border, from a minicab full of illegal goods and persons.

You could potentially track a truck entering Eire from outside, across the border, but you'd still have no way of stopping it before it's on a ferry to UK without violating the GFA. If it stops anywhere to change loads then you'd not be able to follow the load.
...

I'm really not interested in the individual instance of abuse. Take the minicab example.

But it is possible to track the growth in number of minicabs/number of passengers using technology.

In one of our shopping malls, we track the numbers of bags people carry between stores; the labels on the bags; how full the bags are; all using cameras. That technology exists right now.

cogito

Herzlos wrote: »

It has been doing things to address the problem but you don't want to acknowledge them.


I have to admit to having minimal knowledge

I would acknowledge them if I knew what they were. Please share.

The other sentence sums up everything you know about the GFA.

Herzlos

Eric_the_half_a_bee wrote: »

Which clause in the GFA prohibits a border between RoI and NI?

This is actually stumping me, I'm sure there's a passage in it along the lines of "probits any barrier to a person going about their daily business without prejudice" but I can't find that in the text. I can find hundreds of statements saying that the GFA prohibits a hard border (though a few saying security checks are allowed, and there was an exception for the foot and mouth outbreak), but no actually references into the agreement. It's too long for me to digest in a lunch break to find the exact line, but hopefully someone remembers.


I do wonder though, that if it is actually possible to have a hard border without violating the GFA, then everyone has been wasting a huge amount of time, so I'll flip the question - can you prove that the GFA would allow a hard border?

Moby

Herzlos wrote: »

It's like handing a wolf the keys to the hen house because he promised to keep the foxes away.

Nicely put!