Opinion

Allison Morris: Brexit border plan shows just how little Boris Johnson understands the north

Boris Johnson has published the government's Brexit proposals to the EU, including plans to replace the Irish backstop.
Boris Johnson has published the government's Brexit proposals to the EU, including plans to replace the Irish backstop. Boris Johnson has published the government's Brexit proposals to the EU, including plans to replace the Irish backstop.

Boris Johnson's alternative to the backstop, which was revealed this week would involve customs checks set a few miles from the border, once again emphasises just how little this government understands the north.

Despite his denials about infrastructure being placed at or near the border, there has always been a suspicion that his plan to break the Brexit deadlock was actually a hard border, just not at the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Last July the PSNI confirmed it had halted the sale of three border police stations as a "precautionary step" over Brexit.

The stations are at Castlederg and Aughnacloy in Co Tyrone and Warrenpoint in Co Down.

Turning disused police stations into fortified customs posts is possible, but anyone who thinks these buildings won’t become targets, just as they were during the lifetime of their original use, is living in Brexit La La land.

It will be the job of the PSNI to protect customs officials who will have to carry out the checks, something senior officers have already said they are reluctant to do.

Placing police back into a security role in border areas as protectors of customs posts is a propaganda dream for those who would like to see a return to conflict in Northern Ireland.

A hard border, whether at the crossing or ten miles in, is a propaganda lottery win for the dissidents who have been using Brexit as a recruiting sergeant.

Brexit at any cost has become an ideology for those currently in government.

Boris Johnson was elected as Tory leader for one reason and one reason only and that is to deliver an EU exit by October 31.

He does not appear to be a man that considers the consequences of his actions, either on himself or those around him.

His closest aide Dominic Cummings is an unelected deputy, making decisions that will impact all our lives with very little in the way of accountability.

During a visit to Westminster last week I watched Cummings at work, a strange character, who stands out among all the suits and primness of the formal surroundings of parliament.

In Boris Johnson he has found a kindred spirit and one that is willing to facilitate his English nationalist vision for life after Brexit.

What that means for the rest of us I’m not convinced they care.

In Northern Ireland, views on Brexit are split mainly, but not entirely, in terms of unionist and nationalist.

The majority of nationalists voted overwhelmingly to remain, unionists to leave.

This is despite the very real prospect of a withdrawal from the EU damaging the union in terms of how Scotland and Northern Ireland fare socially and economically after Brexit.

In England it is viewed and split very differently, working class English people have been convinced that Brexit will be good for them and that the ‘establishment’ are trying to prevent it.

The referendum was a protest vote against all they despise and the delays in delivering it are being used to stoke up tensions with fracturing community cohesion.

The Johnson administration has tapped into this anger and has been deliberately using language that will feed this uncertainty, the thinking appearing to be that if things get too hot and heavy in the streets that the opposition MPs will agree to an election.

An election that recent polls show the Tory leader is almost certain to win.

But what then?

What happens if Johnson and the posh Oxbridge branch of the Tory party who now hold power get their own way?

How do they put all the bad feeling, all the growing discontent, the open hatred, the racism, the disregard for basic forms of decency, how do they make all that go away?

How do they put the angry Genie they’ve released back into its bottle?

I don’t believe they can, nor do I believe they care.

Whether its winding the clock back in Northern Ireland and turning fortified police stations into customs posts, or pitting community against community in their own back yard, there has been no long-term consideration given to this strategy.

And that is something that we will all have to deal with in the very different, almost Trump like, political landscape that has developed at a pace over the last few months.