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I have to question whether there is at present any border infrastructure as such, little or otherwise. Compare, for example, with the border between England and Scotland. There are big signs saying "Welcome to Scotland" "to England". The road numbering changes from M6 to A74M and the junction numbering changes from counting up from M1J19 to down to M8J22. No doubt there are the usual speed cameras. There may even be surveillance cameras in case someone steals the Gretna Green sign. Is that "border infrastructure"? I don't think so.
So looking [via Google Street view, I've never been there!] at the Irish border, there are even fewer such markers. On the N1/A1, the margin lines changed from dashed amber to continuous white. There are signs advising motorists of that speed limits are in kph or mph as the case may be. That's it. No red/white barriers, no document inspection, no customs, nada. So essentially the same - just like Belgium/Netherlands, Italy/France. So it seems to me that the article should say "no" infrastructure. So I'll change it to "little or no" as a reasonable compromise. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 22:45, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Users Ahdjd and Naficki (if different people) seem to be just vandals: their interventions contain too many types of error, of reasoning and of language, to be products of mere eccentricity. If they continue, they should be blocked. Wikiain ( talk) 22:55, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
The vandal is back again using floating IPs. Is it time to request an authentication block for a month or three? -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 13:46, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
I can't find any sources, but it would be interesting if we can put into the article, exactly how the EU can force a hard border. GoodDay ( talk) 16:36, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-no-deal-irish-border-hard-backstop-theresa-may-withdrawal-good-friday-agreement-a8740676.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.179.197.160 ( talk) 18:51, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
I reverted a good faith edit by an IP editor who pointed out (in #Reactions) that NI had voted remain: it was unsourced (though true) and in the wrong place. But the article should mention that, probably in the background section. I would do it but don't have time to track down the citation, so could someone else oblige? Maybe also opinion polls that say that NI would vote to join the RoI if there is a hard brexit with hard border? -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 15:38, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: consensus to move the page to Brexit and the Irish border at this time, per the discussion below, with a redirect also created at Irish border and Brexit. Dekimasu よ! 21:30, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
Irish border question → Irish border and Brexit – The Brexit Irish border question is *a" question, not "the" question. The whole Partition of Ireland since the Ulster crisis of 1912 is a succession of "Irish border questions". jnestorius( talk) 12:00, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
The Irish border question is a controversy about the impact that Brexit, the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, will have on the Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border on the island of Ireland,in other words "Impact Brexit will have on the Irish border", which means "Effects of Brexit on the Irish border", not the other way round. feminist ( talk) 15:50, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
I think "Technical solutions" would be possibly more NPOV if it was "Proposed Technical Solutions". The text of the section does clarify in places but I think it may be clearer if the section name was updated. Cros13 ( talk) 02:35, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
Per WP:BRD, I have reverted recently added material about what the Telegraph calls a "Stormont lock". I did so because the material is about the balance of power that the DUP holds over Parliamentary approval of the Brexit withdrawal agreement and so belongs in another article per wp:fork. The position of the DUP is, as I understand it (!), that the possibility of a regulatory barrier down the Irish Sea, that would see NI treated differently from (say) East Anglia, is unacceptable to them. (Note that this is not the same "Stormont lock" that was being floated a year or so ago that would leave it to the Northern Ireland Assembly to decide separately whether or not NI should remain in the EUCU if GB were to leave. The outcome of that was the PM's 'deal' that all of the UK should stay in the EUCU until the magical solution is found). But others may disagree? -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 15:17, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
I have heavily edited Northern Ireland Protocol (née Irish Backstop) to try to make it a more balanced. I may have gone to far the other way! Also, I don't have the familiarity of Irish matters that others here do. There are quite a few uncited statements that need follow up. So would interested editors please review. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 19:33, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
I have briefly summarised in the lead Tony Connelly's analysis of the paper (Irish land border - existing and potential customs facilitations in a no-deal scenario - see External Links). But for it to stand in the lead, there must be a more extensive discussion in hte body. I don't have time, would someone else please do the honours? -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 21:45, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
The IfG has done a detailed paper on the implications of a no-deal Brexit, which contains references to NI and the border. May provide some material for this article? See https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/preparing-brexit-no-deal-final.pdf -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 22:28, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
You have clearly been around here long enough to know that deletion of credible content is the last resort, not the first. I'm at a loss to understand your reasoning, since the material is certainly credible and was widely reported. I have reverted your deletions, this time tagging with template:cn as you should have done. -- Red King ( talk) 19:20, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
I accept that it is a leap of logic to go from a decision to have dedicated negotiating strands on these points to declaring them the most important. How about "most difficult"? -- Red King ( talk) 00:25, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
I am deleting the Hard Border paragraph from the article and placing it here for the moment. The entire section is completely unreferenced. Yet it sounds useful and has a ring of truth about it.
In the context of Brexit, a "hard border" means one where there are limited number of authorised (and physically controlled) crossing points, staffed by customs officers and police, supported in times of tension by military forces. Drivers of vehicles crossing are required to declare goods in carriage, commercial carriers must produce bills of lading and evidence that the goods comply with the minimum standards of the territory being entered. Tariffs (in the form of customs duty) may be payable. This was the position that pertained on the border from 1922 until the Single European Act in 1993. (In this context, a "hard border" does not mean a fortified border but, during The Troubles, Crown Forces blocked many unapproved crossings for security reasons. Under the terms of the Common Travel Area agreement, British and Irish citizens are free to cross the border without any passport controls).
Please find references for the various claims made and then place it, properly referenced, back into the article. 86.178.175.34 ( talk) 11:59, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
I added the following template to the article: Parts of this article (those related to Brexit withdrawal agreement) need to be updated. The reason given is: The article focuses on negotiation positions, mainly pre-2019, but does not describe the agreement regarding the Irish border. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. In general, Brexit was held in very high attention in the UK during the negotiation process, causing a lot to be written in various Brexit articles on Wikipedia, even if nothing was really decided. After the approval of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, everyone seem to be fairly tired of the subject, leaving the articles with a lot of negotiation and debate statements but little on final decision and post-Brexit development.-- BIL ( talk) 09:40, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
BDD removed the hatnote that provides a shortcut to the section that gives the terms of the final agreement and I reinstated it for now. BDD is correct that it is rather odd to use {{ about}} for this purpose. But it seems to me that we do need to give readers s shortcut through the briar patch of the May Ministry negotiations. Another way to do it would be to give all those negotiations off to a subsidiary article. Or to give the final agreement its own article. I admit that the hat note was the lazy way out. Does anyone feel sufficiently in touch with the topic to do any of those. I only got here wanting to understand what the "border down the Irish Sea" meant and nearly list the will to live ploughing through all the false starts and dead ends. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 18:41, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
The article doesn't really touch on the practical (as opposed to political) difficulties of a hard border.
How can one possibly control the movement of goods, services and people across 499km of that ?
Why is this point important ? When the uninitiated hear the word "border" they probably imagine large rivers with a handful of bridges like the Oder–Neisse line or a small number of perpendicular road crossings on straight open roads conveniently away from towns etc. The complexity of the Irish border rivals that of Baarle-Nassau !
2A00:23C3:70A:4100:194D:E18B:F9DF:EAF ( talk) 21:55, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
I should add to this discussion that the "Fisheries" section I added a couple of months ago discusses the problems with the water ends of the border, the issue raised in the last bullet point. Daniel Case ( talk) 06:00, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
As the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland is now covered in a paragraph on this page, and a paragraph on the Brexit withdrawal agreement, and doesn't have its own article, I propose to use the paragraph here as the basis for a stand alone article. An alternative is to convert the old proposal ( Irish backstop) into the present protocol, but I would prefer to keep that article for historical purposes. Thoughts are welcome. L.tak ( talk) 15:54, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
Hmm, this seems a bit mute... I am going to take a bit of a middle way here. Get a new protocol-page, with the information in. This is to have a separate paragraph on the older version (the backstop) with a "main-template" referring to the the backstop.... L.tak ( talk) 16:04, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
A new article has been created, Irish Sea border, that probably could do with more eyes and a broader perspective. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 15:10, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
Still at the WP: crystal stage as sanity may prevail, but thought it worth saving this link here in case we might need it later:
No doubt there will be more to follow. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 11:38, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
This issue is relevant but, per WP:NOTNEWS, it is maybe a bit too early to cover it? When the fog of war clears a bit, maybe someone might add a paragraph? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 ( talk) 11:12, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Brexit and the Irish border article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() |
Daily pageviews of this article
A graph should have been displayed here but
graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at
pageviews.wmcloud.org |
I have to question whether there is at present any border infrastructure as such, little or otherwise. Compare, for example, with the border between England and Scotland. There are big signs saying "Welcome to Scotland" "to England". The road numbering changes from M6 to A74M and the junction numbering changes from counting up from M1J19 to down to M8J22. No doubt there are the usual speed cameras. There may even be surveillance cameras in case someone steals the Gretna Green sign. Is that "border infrastructure"? I don't think so.
So looking [via Google Street view, I've never been there!] at the Irish border, there are even fewer such markers. On the N1/A1, the margin lines changed from dashed amber to continuous white. There are signs advising motorists of that speed limits are in kph or mph as the case may be. That's it. No red/white barriers, no document inspection, no customs, nada. So essentially the same - just like Belgium/Netherlands, Italy/France. So it seems to me that the article should say "no" infrastructure. So I'll change it to "little or no" as a reasonable compromise. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 22:45, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Users Ahdjd and Naficki (if different people) seem to be just vandals: their interventions contain too many types of error, of reasoning and of language, to be products of mere eccentricity. If they continue, they should be blocked. Wikiain ( talk) 22:55, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
The vandal is back again using floating IPs. Is it time to request an authentication block for a month or three? -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 13:46, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
I can't find any sources, but it would be interesting if we can put into the article, exactly how the EU can force a hard border. GoodDay ( talk) 16:36, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-no-deal-irish-border-hard-backstop-theresa-may-withdrawal-good-friday-agreement-a8740676.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.179.197.160 ( talk) 18:51, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
I reverted a good faith edit by an IP editor who pointed out (in #Reactions) that NI had voted remain: it was unsourced (though true) and in the wrong place. But the article should mention that, probably in the background section. I would do it but don't have time to track down the citation, so could someone else oblige? Maybe also opinion polls that say that NI would vote to join the RoI if there is a hard brexit with hard border? -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 15:38, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: consensus to move the page to Brexit and the Irish border at this time, per the discussion below, with a redirect also created at Irish border and Brexit. Dekimasu よ! 21:30, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
Irish border question → Irish border and Brexit – The Brexit Irish border question is *a" question, not "the" question. The whole Partition of Ireland since the Ulster crisis of 1912 is a succession of "Irish border questions". jnestorius( talk) 12:00, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
The Irish border question is a controversy about the impact that Brexit, the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, will have on the Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border on the island of Ireland,in other words "Impact Brexit will have on the Irish border", which means "Effects of Brexit on the Irish border", not the other way round. feminist ( talk) 15:50, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
I think "Technical solutions" would be possibly more NPOV if it was "Proposed Technical Solutions". The text of the section does clarify in places but I think it may be clearer if the section name was updated. Cros13 ( talk) 02:35, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
Per WP:BRD, I have reverted recently added material about what the Telegraph calls a "Stormont lock". I did so because the material is about the balance of power that the DUP holds over Parliamentary approval of the Brexit withdrawal agreement and so belongs in another article per wp:fork. The position of the DUP is, as I understand it (!), that the possibility of a regulatory barrier down the Irish Sea, that would see NI treated differently from (say) East Anglia, is unacceptable to them. (Note that this is not the same "Stormont lock" that was being floated a year or so ago that would leave it to the Northern Ireland Assembly to decide separately whether or not NI should remain in the EUCU if GB were to leave. The outcome of that was the PM's 'deal' that all of the UK should stay in the EUCU until the magical solution is found). But others may disagree? -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 15:17, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
I have heavily edited Northern Ireland Protocol (née Irish Backstop) to try to make it a more balanced. I may have gone to far the other way! Also, I don't have the familiarity of Irish matters that others here do. There are quite a few uncited statements that need follow up. So would interested editors please review. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 19:33, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
I have briefly summarised in the lead Tony Connelly's analysis of the paper (Irish land border - existing and potential customs facilitations in a no-deal scenario - see External Links). But for it to stand in the lead, there must be a more extensive discussion in hte body. I don't have time, would someone else please do the honours? -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 21:45, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
The IfG has done a detailed paper on the implications of a no-deal Brexit, which contains references to NI and the border. May provide some material for this article? See https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/preparing-brexit-no-deal-final.pdf -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 22:28, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
You have clearly been around here long enough to know that deletion of credible content is the last resort, not the first. I'm at a loss to understand your reasoning, since the material is certainly credible and was widely reported. I have reverted your deletions, this time tagging with template:cn as you should have done. -- Red King ( talk) 19:20, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
I accept that it is a leap of logic to go from a decision to have dedicated negotiating strands on these points to declaring them the most important. How about "most difficult"? -- Red King ( talk) 00:25, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
I am deleting the Hard Border paragraph from the article and placing it here for the moment. The entire section is completely unreferenced. Yet it sounds useful and has a ring of truth about it.
In the context of Brexit, a "hard border" means one where there are limited number of authorised (and physically controlled) crossing points, staffed by customs officers and police, supported in times of tension by military forces. Drivers of vehicles crossing are required to declare goods in carriage, commercial carriers must produce bills of lading and evidence that the goods comply with the minimum standards of the territory being entered. Tariffs (in the form of customs duty) may be payable. This was the position that pertained on the border from 1922 until the Single European Act in 1993. (In this context, a "hard border" does not mean a fortified border but, during The Troubles, Crown Forces blocked many unapproved crossings for security reasons. Under the terms of the Common Travel Area agreement, British and Irish citizens are free to cross the border without any passport controls).
Please find references for the various claims made and then place it, properly referenced, back into the article. 86.178.175.34 ( talk) 11:59, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
I added the following template to the article: Parts of this article (those related to Brexit withdrawal agreement) need to be updated. The reason given is: The article focuses on negotiation positions, mainly pre-2019, but does not describe the agreement regarding the Irish border. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. In general, Brexit was held in very high attention in the UK during the negotiation process, causing a lot to be written in various Brexit articles on Wikipedia, even if nothing was really decided. After the approval of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, everyone seem to be fairly tired of the subject, leaving the articles with a lot of negotiation and debate statements but little on final decision and post-Brexit development.-- BIL ( talk) 09:40, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
BDD removed the hatnote that provides a shortcut to the section that gives the terms of the final agreement and I reinstated it for now. BDD is correct that it is rather odd to use {{ about}} for this purpose. But it seems to me that we do need to give readers s shortcut through the briar patch of the May Ministry negotiations. Another way to do it would be to give all those negotiations off to a subsidiary article. Or to give the final agreement its own article. I admit that the hat note was the lazy way out. Does anyone feel sufficiently in touch with the topic to do any of those. I only got here wanting to understand what the "border down the Irish Sea" meant and nearly list the will to live ploughing through all the false starts and dead ends. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 18:41, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
The article doesn't really touch on the practical (as opposed to political) difficulties of a hard border.
How can one possibly control the movement of goods, services and people across 499km of that ?
Why is this point important ? When the uninitiated hear the word "border" they probably imagine large rivers with a handful of bridges like the Oder–Neisse line or a small number of perpendicular road crossings on straight open roads conveniently away from towns etc. The complexity of the Irish border rivals that of Baarle-Nassau !
2A00:23C3:70A:4100:194D:E18B:F9DF:EAF ( talk) 21:55, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
I should add to this discussion that the "Fisheries" section I added a couple of months ago discusses the problems with the water ends of the border, the issue raised in the last bullet point. Daniel Case ( talk) 06:00, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
As the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland is now covered in a paragraph on this page, and a paragraph on the Brexit withdrawal agreement, and doesn't have its own article, I propose to use the paragraph here as the basis for a stand alone article. An alternative is to convert the old proposal ( Irish backstop) into the present protocol, but I would prefer to keep that article for historical purposes. Thoughts are welcome. L.tak ( talk) 15:54, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
Hmm, this seems a bit mute... I am going to take a bit of a middle way here. Get a new protocol-page, with the information in. This is to have a separate paragraph on the older version (the backstop) with a "main-template" referring to the the backstop.... L.tak ( talk) 16:04, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
A new article has been created, Irish Sea border, that probably could do with more eyes and a broader perspective. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 15:10, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
Still at the WP: crystal stage as sanity may prevail, but thought it worth saving this link here in case we might need it later:
No doubt there will be more to follow. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 11:38, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
This issue is relevant but, per WP:NOTNEWS, it is maybe a bit too early to cover it? When the fog of war clears a bit, maybe someone might add a paragraph? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 ( talk) 11:12, 1 May 2024 (UTC)