Brexit questions

[jack]

The situation now seems very similar to how it originally looked, except that "the government won't jump without having arranged a parachute" became "how long will the government wait after jumping before trying to arrange a parachute" :(

I do admit, if my disagreements with EU policy were larger, I don't know what I would want the country to do, if the choice is basically "join or not".

There's been no progress on a magic solution to keeping customs posts off the Irish border without retaining single market/freedom of movement. Nor to retaining single market without freedom of movement or vice versa. So the original assumption that the government were basically going to have to choose one of the obvious options ("soft brexit", "sea border", or "we're fucked") still seems most likely.

Questions I have. What are different levels of border controls here? I really should understand this and I don't. We already have SOME border controls because you need to show a passport when you enter the country. Except not at Ireland? Do UK and Ireland have identical entry requirements or what?

Single market/freedom of movement mean no more border controls than we have now. Is that right?

Customs union but not single market -- that means SOME border controls? But maybe only on major routes or for large shipments? Is that right? If labour and conservative shift that far but no further how screwed are we?

Comments

[naath]

We have acommon travel area with the Republic of Ireland, neither of us are in Shengen.

[chess]

Freedom of movement is about what happens to EU nationals at your border control (broadly, they should not be treated too much differently to your own citizens), not whether you have one or not.

As Naath says, we currently have a common travel area just with Eire - i.e. we accept Eire's border control as good enough and let people travel freely with no border control between Eire and Northern Ireland (and they do the same in return).

If we leave the EU, a) we might decide to treat EU citizens / shipments differently and therefore would need border control between Eire and Northern Ireland because Eire border control would no longer be the same as ours; b) Eire might want to treat UK citizens / shipments differently etc; c) other EU countries might make trouble about Eire not treating UK citizens / shipments differently because there are rules for non-EU nationals / goods entering the EU.

If we 'leave the EU' but remain as within the single market as it is possible to remain, then there probably doesn't have to a border problem because the border controls will continue to be the same - but c) might still apply depending on how irritated the rest of the EU are at us.

[jack]

Ah, yeah. Thanjk you.

[po8crg]

A border controls several different types of things, and the various bits of the EU remove different barriers.

One thing a border controls is people from one of the countries going into the other. That's what the single market's freedom of movement addresses - citizens of any EU country are entitled to go to any other EU country and the border can't stop them (actually there are a few exceptions, but they're mostly for things like "travelling to commit a crime" and "travelling to incite other people to commit a crime", which are pretty much illegal within a country too)

Another thing a border controls is people from a third country crossing it. The Schengen area means that anyone travelling to, say, France that needs a visa gets a Schengen-wide visa, not just a French visa. That means that they can then go anywhere they like within Schengen, so there's no need for controls on the border between France and Germany. The UK and the Republic of Ireland have (and have had ever since the then Irish Free State became independent) a "common travel area" which works sort-of the same (instead of issuing CTA visas, you get a UK visa or an Irish visa, but you're allowed to cross the border to the other country on a single-country visa - you can't enter the UK from outside the CTA on an Irish visa, but you can legitimately be in the UK, provided you entered from Ireland). This is the one that the UK doesn't have with the non-Irish bits of the EU, which is why there are border controls on Eurostar and Eurotunnel, on flights and at ferry ports. If you're French, you can cross the Channel, but if you're, say, Algerian with a visa for France, you can't come to the UK without having a UK visa too.

Another thing a border controls is goods made in one of the countries. This is what a free trade agreement covers - anything made in the UK can be taken to France without needing to pay customs duties and the regulations on both sides of the border are the same, so if it's legally for sale in the UK then it would be legal in France and vice versa. The US and Canada have a free trade agreement without regulatory alignment, so some things are legal in one but not the other (and the border has to control for that)

Finally, a border controls for goods made in third countries. This is the one that's covered by a customs union - ie we all agree to apply the same tariffs and quotas on, say, Korean computer monitors, so if you land a container-full at Rotterdam, then you pay the same as if you landed it at Felixstowe, which means you can stick that container on the back of a lorry and drive it from either port anywhere in the EU without needing to go through customs again.

For Ireland, we have all four of these covered - three through our common membership of the EU and one through the CTA. Because there are separate extra-EU rules for citizenship, free movement of people between the UK and Ireland isn't threatened by Brexit. The problem is goods - there are three requirements for not needing a border (FTA, customs union, common regulations). FTA and common regulations could be covered by EEA membership, but note we'd need to be in the customs union as well.

For an example of an FTA without a CU, you can look at the Norway/Sweden border, or at Switzerland's external borders. There are pretty extensive de minimis rules for customs, so most tourists or business travellers tend to think there are no border controls, but if you try taking an articulated lorry with a full load across one of those borders, you'll soon notice that you need to go through customs.