Hard Border – and all its problems – looking likely

THE British political scientist Prof Tim Bale summed up Brexit rather pithily in Dublin recently. “The bad news is that there is no good news,” he said. Viewed from another standpoint, we can say that the bar for what now passes as good news on Brexit has come down and down. So, we can give one piece of Brexit “good news” today as we report that Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney reportedly believes a deal to keep the common travel area (CTA) between the islands of Ireland and Britain is imminent.

Yes, it is encouraging to find that the CTA, in existence since the foundation of this State and long pre-dating the European Union in all its manifestations, will persist despite Brexit’s other depredations.

In practical terms, it means that citizens can move freely across both islands and that co-operation in areas like health care and social welfare can be sustained as before. It seems a little ungracious to note that there was rarely too much danger of that one ending otherwise. So, let us simply log it as a gain when it comes.

But nothing of the same can be said of another Brexit issue that this newspaper reports today. It is that, should a ‘hard Brexit’ happen, and right now we have few reasons to believe it will not, then there are huge security issues for authorities in the Republic to face.

Gardaí conversant with Border issues say they already face serious difficulties with criminals who exploit the two jurisdictions. The reinforcement, if not the full return, of a pre-ceasefire Border would compound these difficulties.

British Prime Minister Theresa May says there will be “no physical infrastructure on the Border”. But that implies an electronic border, or another name for the same thing.