UK is utterly clueless about our Brexit border concerns

THE anniversary of another historic referendum went unmentioned this week. Twenty years ago last Tuesday, over two million Irish people, North and South, voted for the Good Friday Agreement. Amazingly, 95% of voters in the Republic gave the agreement an overwhelming Yes – a result we will never see again in any referendum. So when a British cabinet minister in charge of immigration reveals she has never read the document, we are in more trouble than we once thought as Brexit looms.

Caroline Nokes has been sitting at the UK cabinet table for the last five months and is in charge of policing its borders, including the one on this island. She stumbled and fumbled her way through a series of innocuous questions at the Northern Ireland Affairs committee. She seemed totally unaware of diesel smuggling on the border which, of course, comes as no surprise as she has never bothered to visit. The prime minister of Belgium has visited our border more often than a British cabinet minister in charge of it!

So a UK minister central to Brexit tries to spoof her way through on Brexit.

And then it was pointed out to her that one of the central tenets of the agreement – the right of those from the South living in the North who want a UK passport to get one – has been compromised by the insistence that they go through a ‘naturalisation’ process costing €1,600. The reverse process is free in the Republic.

And have little faith that the British Labour Party is any better. Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of Labour in September 2015. Some 31 months later, he makes his first visit to the ‘province’.

He used his visit on Thursday to promote the ‘max fac’ solution to the border, a solution favoured by hardline Brexiteers that would keep the UK out of the Customs Union. But in the same week, civil servants in Britain estimated that max fac would still cost £20bn!

Corbyn, of course, did not address the biggest issue in Northern Ireland at the moment: the perilous state of the economy, which almost totally depends on public service jobs. But, of course, in the week when the shadow chancellor, Labour’s John McDonnell, could not name, despite being repeatedly asked, one single business or company he actually admired, it’s clear why they were at the forefront celebrating Karl Marx’s 200th birthday this month.

And the omens from mainland Europe aren’t much better. This week, Italy got a new prime minister, described locally as the perfect Mister Nobody. The election of Guissepe Conte, a little-known law professor who seems to major in exaggerating his academic qualifications, proves Italy is truly a perfect democracy – everyone gets a chance to be prime minister.

The first demand of the new PM – supported by Eurosceptic parties – is that the EU cancel Italy’s €250bn debt! By the way, when it comes to debt there’s one country in Europe in a worse position than Italy – Ireland.

Yes we’ve had a seismic referendum. Meanwhile, our economic prospects have taken a tumble.