Border issue is a unique case

THERE are only two solutions to the issue of the border: either establish a border between Northern Ireland (NI) and Great Britain (GB), or on the ground between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (ROI).

Both of these are unacceptable to one side or the other, while a land border would contravene the Good Friday Agreement.

I have never quite understood why the option of allowing the island of Ireland to become its own free trade zone, while also permitting goods to flow freely between GB and NI and ROI and the continental EU countries has not been explored.

Of course, the immediate objections to such a move would come from the EU suggesting that UK companies would try to ship goods into its market illicitly via that route to avoid paperwork — and, presumably, the UK vice-versa — and perhaps that the purity of ROI goods could no longer be entirely trusted on the continent.

Discounting the fact that a journey through NI and ROI would require two quite lengthy ferry crossings on routes with only limited capacity, plus a drive through the length of Ireland, it would seem to me to be quite simple to control that by, for instance, requiring all lorries over a certain size embarking from ROI ports to continental Europe to be EU registered.

ROI is not in Schengen, so, presumably facilities already exist that could be made use of. A similar arrangement would need to be put in place between NI and GB.

Of course, this is bare-bones stuff and would need development, but something like it would be better than what we have now.

I also appreciate that this would probably contravene WTO rules in one way or another, but, as we know, Ireland is a unique case and, therefore, need not be seen as a precedent, which other countries could reasonably object to.

ROBERT FENNELL

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