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Meet The Brexit-bashing Twitter account followed by Leo Varadkar

‘I thought if the border could speak for itself it would be quite frightened and also a bit angry.’
‘I thought if the border could speak for itself it would be quite frightened and also a bit angry.’ ‘I thought if the border could speak for itself it would be quite frightened and also a bit angry.’

The Irish border is one of Brexit’s key conundrums, but one satirical and acutely vocal Twitter account is tackling the issue head on.

With Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and more than 66,000 other followers, The Irish Border – Twitter handle @BorderIrish – trolled the Brexit process throughout 2018 with its brand of dry wit.

Posts include a picture of a crowded meeting room with a large elephant in attendance, with the caption “there’s me at the Brexit negotiations.”

Another reads: “I dislike Brexit but, speaking as a border, I do admire its ability to completely divide a country.”

So, what is the message The Irish Border is trying to share?

“Probably f*** Off Brexit, to be honest, but that’s not very subtle,” the account’s curator, who chose to remain anonymous, told the Press Association.

The curator created the account after seeing the Irish border talked about “in ignorance of the potential consequences” and with a lack of “care for its fragility or specificity, or its past or future”.

“Northern Ireland, and Ireland, were offered a better future by the Good Friday Agreement, flawed and halting as that is, and here was Brexit trampling all over it,” they said.

“I thought if the border could speak for itself it would be quite frightened and also a bit angry.

“And then I thought it would be quite insulted being told it could be smart, since it already is.”

As with Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit bill and its journey to parliamentary ratification, much of The Irish Border’s rhetoric concerns a backstop, a fall-back plan to ensure a hard border does not return between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

“No one in Parliament understands it,” @BorderIrish tweeted in December. “Imagine you are drowning in icy water cause some idiot told you skating on it would be okay. Then the EU comes to save you. That’s the backstop.”

A tweet on Christmas Day imagined The Irish Border opening gifts and exclaiming: “A backstop! I got a backstop!”

While mocking politicians involved with Brexit, the curator accepts the issue with the Irish border is complex.

“For months people would tweet me ‘solutions’ to the border issue and they would generally use the word ‘simple’,” they said.

“It’s not simple. That’s the message – it’s not simple.”

One piece of role-play tweeted by the account reads: “Jacob Rees-Mogg: I have studied you

“Me: On a map?

“JRM: Yes

“Me: So you know me?

“JRM: Yes. You are not a problem

“Me: This is one of my boggy bits. You’re sinking

“JRM: I’m not

“IB: You are

“JRM: You’re just using this as leverage

“IB: I can only see your head now

“JRM: glug glug glug.”

The account’s curator said they are most proud of being able to make people “laugh or think”.

“Sometimes when you laugh at something you realise how important it is,” they said.

“I believe it’s followed by people involved in the Brexit negotiations and I hope it’s given them a bit of a laugh at themselves and the people across the table from them.”

Aside from a backstop, which was agreed as a temporary measure in negotiations between the UK and the EU in November, the curator is unsure what they would like to happen next in the Brexit process.

“I haven’t a clue what will happen and I’m a bit torn,” they said. “I’d like to see a People’s Vote and for the UK to Remain, but I don’t know how that happens and don’t really see it as a short or even medium-term solution.

“But the Withdrawal Agreement is pretty bad, the actual operation of the backstop is very unclear, and I fear the redundancy of this Twitter account is years off yet.”