The Law.

As a civilised nation belonging to the Free World, we have to both co-operate and abide by international agreements, including treaties which we negotiated and signed; This could be UN agreements, the ECHR, or a whole host of other international agreements.

There is no easy way forward regarding Northern Ireland that I can see - we negotiated and signed the Northern Ireland Peace Deal, which specificaly states that there cannot be a hard border on the island of Ireland.

On the other hand, Boris Johnson obviously negotiated and signed the Northern Ireland Protocol without understanding its consequences.

The border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is the border between the Free Market of the European Union and the United Kingdom, and the only realistic way of overcoming this problem, would have been for the whole of the UK to stay in the European Economic Area same as Norway and Iceland. The people who are to blame are the rabid Tory ERG and the Europhobia Brigade.

SAME WITH FISHING

THe - Fly in the Ointment - is the fact that the UK fishing industry relys very heavily on Europe for exports, with something like 70% of all shellfish caught going to Europe, plus a large proportion of other fish. We could be like Donald Trumps "America First" .... selfish and think only of ourselves.

In this troubled and uncertain world, why not come to a mutual agreement, a situation which benefits our fishing industry in return for safeguarding the French fishing industry.

In my home town, a new Lobster Hatchery is been developed, just like other on the Yorkshire Coast and in Scotland, thereby helping to safeguard and sustain a traditional industry, but without exports to Europe, that industry would be devastated.

sandypine  >> "There was an alternative, the problem of a border and its controls could be left to the Republic and the EU to sort out. The border is there to protect their market, not the UKs and any breach of the GFA would have been down to them."


Of course the bottom line in all this is divergence on our now well established EU regulations, in particular those relating to food / agricultural standards. The EU standards are the best in the world, with the default goal NOT on protecting business, as in the United States, but on protecting The Consumer ... as it should be.

The Tory attitude makes no sense - why would it be such a big problem in (A) keeping the EU regulations we have, and (B) to accept no divergence, meaning that both trade between NI and the Republic AND between the whole of the UK and Europe would be made easier and simpler. ?

Or am I missing something ?

Perhaps the sheer Pig Headedness of many in the Tory party who just wont accept Europe-wide regulations, because they believe WE can make our own rules, even to the detrement of our economy. 

Did you do much research, Andy? The idea that we can't deal with the "Rest of the World" (by which you mean the EU) without total subservience to it seems a bit, well ill thought through.

The EU regulations are not the best in the world. They do not protect Business they protect Big Busines, conglomerates and Corporations who can wallow in the liquid mud of the regulations and come through on the backs of lawyers advisers and lobbyists. The small business has no such luxury, the regulations are there to control them not in the slightest in the interest of the consumer. We just need to look at what happened to Abattoirs post 93 where many had to close as the new regulations of one size fits all ensured that small scale abattoirs could not meet the requirements even though many were not directly applicable to their business but had to be met. This was done in the name of protecting the Consumer but resulted into the move to large scale centralised abattoirs which many people did not want.

Take one whereby toilet, and wash and rest rooms had to be provided for visiting drivers yet for some small operations most drivers came to them from a 20 mile radius and had no need of those facilities.

You are talking absolute nonsense. There is no socialist government in the United States. Trump is far more akin to a fascist than the Democrats. And how can you say with a straight face that the Republicans fight for democracy when so many of them refuse to accept democratic votes they don't like? Is it because you share that trait perhaps?