Opinion

Claire Simpson: No deal on Brexit really is the worst option

Prime Minister Theresa May's border Brexit plans could be rejected by Brussels, the Irish government warned
Prime Minister Theresa May's border Brexit plans could be rejected by Brussels, the Irish government warned Prime Minister Theresa May's border Brexit plans could be rejected by Brussels, the Irish government warned

So that’s it then. Once the UK leaves the European Union next year we can look forward to a customs border in the Irish Sea, the break-up of the union and certain Irish reunification.

Thank goodness hundreds of years of conflict have finally been resolved by Brussels. Hooray for those faceless EU bureaucrats.

Of course these are the worst fears of the DUP. The largest unionist party has warned that the draft agreement on the UK’s ‘divorce’ from the EU is “reckless”, damaging to the constitution and “economically disastrous”. To be fair they do have a point. It seems completely unworkable for Northern Ireland to either have different regulations to the Republic or align itself to the Republic at the expense of trade with Britain. References to unionist anger can be used too often but in this case their concerns are understandable.

Unfortunately, rather than have a calm and reasoned debate about a potential solution, the DUP sent in its agitator-in-chief Sammy ‘all guns blazing’ Wilson.

The East Antrim MP hit out at former prime ministers Tony Blair and John Major for daring to suggest that a Brexit which threatens the foundations of the Good Friday Agreement might damage the peace process. This is the same Good Friday Agreement which the DUP strongly opposed.

Displaying an alarming lack of perspective, Mr Wilson likened remainers to the Provisional IRA. “Just like the plans by IRA terrorists to blow us out of the UK failed, so their plans to keep the UK within the EU will also fail,” he thundered.

But if Mr Wilson was guilty of exaggeration, foreign secretary Boris Johnson took a cavalier approach to real concerns about a hard border. Showing the in-depth knowledge of Ireland we’ve come to expect from senior Tories, Boris likened any future border controls to traffic congestion zones in London.

He asked a reporter if they had ever driven into a congestion charge zone, adding: ”Do you slow down? Do you feel any let or hindrance? Do you check your progress? Do you brake? Do you?”

Those of us who endured checkpoints for decades wished that someone, anyone, would check Boris’s inexorable political rise. But then this is a man who really is the epitome of white upper-class male privilege, who makes blunders that would have ruined the career of anyone who isn’t an Eton and Oxford-educated calculating buffoon.

He only backed Brexit at the very last minute and even then, according to a former close aide of David Cameron, told the ex-prime minister the campaign for the UK to exit the EU would not succeed. Boris, you see, is one of those terrifying politicians who push policies they do not appear to believe in, only making a decision according to how they think the wind is blowing.

Prime Minister Theresa May herself only came out to back remain after coming under pressure from Mr Cameron. In an interview with a French television station in January she said she feels European and hinted she would vote remain if another referendum was called.

And then there’s Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a grudging remainer who did little to back the anti-Brexit cause. Now, following a decision-making process that took roughly as long as it does to form coal, he has said he wants the UK to be part of a customs union. The strange thing about his speech last week was that it explicitly pushed a pro-Brexit agenda. The divorce will work, he seemed to suggest, it’s only those sniping Tories who will ruin the whole thing by arguing over access to the children.

We’re now in an age of anti-Chicken Licken politics, where the people who are supposed to be governing us insist the sky falling in is actually just an acorn bouncing on their head. When the House of Lords EU committee raises concerns about the British government’s "apparently contradictory commitments" over the border and Brexit you know we’re in serious trouble.

How can the government leave the customs union, avoid a hard border and ensure no new barriers between the north and Britain? Either Theresa May decides to shaft the DUP allies who are propping up her unstable government, or we can expect the cold war between her government and the EU to continue.

Mrs May has insisted that “no deal is better than a bad deal”. But it really isn’t. If there’s no deal the sky really will fall in.