Opinion

Newton Emerson: High cost to business of Irish sea border makes it look completely unworkable

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

<span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif, Arial, Verdana, &quot;Trebuchet MS&quot;; ">Filling shelves via the Republic is not a realistic alternative for most retailers</span>
Filling shelves via the Republic is not a realistic alternative for most retailers Filling shelves via the Republic is not a realistic alternative for most retailers

Detailed studies have begun on the operation of the sea border and businesses are baulking at what maximum implementation would entail. One major supermarket has told the Daily Telegraph a typical shipping container of groceries passing from Britain to Northern Ireland would cost £6,000 in customs, veterinary checks and regulatory processes, or about half the value of its contents. Filling shelves via the Republic is not a realistic alternative for most retailers, as the south will have a sea border as well.

Politics may be the art of the possible but cutting off your food supply for someone else’s paperwork is politically impossible.

Brexit tends to be discussed in Ireland, north and south, as a matter of right and wrong, which distracts from questions of what can and cannot be done. Regardless of blame, an unworkable border is no more deliverable at sea than on land. If this is what the UK and the EU have agreed, they will just have to agree they meant something else.

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While London and Brussels sort out the practicalities, DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson has persuaded almost everyone in the party to back the sea border in principle and promote a best-of-both-worlds Brexit. The only significant hold-out on this U-turn is apparently Sammy Wilson, which makes it rather unfortunate he was made DUP chief whip after December’s general election, when Donaldson relinquished the role to become Commons leader. The DUP’s most important policy is now opposed only by the person responsible for making sure everyone supports it.

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The collapse of Flybe is a tragedy for its 2,400 staff, a nightmare for stranded passengers and a calamity for Belfast City Airport, where the airline provided 80 per cent of scheduled flights. However, talk of it being a sea border-level disaster for Northern Ireland is overblown. Aviation is a competitive industry and Belfast is a far more attractive proposition than most of the regional airports Flybe served in Britain. Other airlines will presumably plug the gap. Stormont might be called upon to reconsider its transport strategy, raising issues such as subsidising air passenger duty, extending Belfast City’s runway or building a rail link to Aldergrove. But this is one of those occasions where you do not have to be Margaret Thatcher to think the market should sort it out.

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Coronavirus has led to the postponement of MIPIM, an annual gathering of property investors in Cannes that has become the most outrageous junket in local government. Belfast City Council sent 100 people last year and still seems determined to attend on this year’s new date in June. Naturally, it has all manner of justifications for dispatching a plane-load of officials and councillors to the south of France. Few believe attendance would be as vital if MIPIM was held in, say, Birmingham.

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Sinn Fein MLA Martina Anderson has claimed passport and identity checks on cross-border buses are increasing and has asked “what obligation is Translink under to facilitate these checks?”

This echoes a complaint made last September against Translink by lobby group the Committee for the Administration of Justice, which claimed the checks are discriminatory and have no legal basis, as British and Irish citizens cannot be required to carry passports within the Common Travel Area.

In reality, Irish case law has clearly if perversely established that passports can be requested to prove citizenship. The question is largely irrelevant in any case. Garda Immigration Bureau officers are police officers, entitled under common law to cooperation where they suspect an offence. Expecting bus drivers to ram through checkpoints or lock doors in officers’ faces is absurd. Frankly, it looks like picking on an easy target.

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Queen’s University Belfast has been gripped by a row over the new students' union president apparently supporting pro-IRA internet postings.

This is most unfair, as the university is not responsible for the politics of its students or their union. However, judging by some of the material online, it is responsible for admitting students who cannot tell the difference between “your” and “you’re” or who do not know when to use “did” instead of “done”.

The row then escalated into alleged Protestant fears of students in GAA tops, which again missed the point. Queen’s has previously banned all GAA tops, football tops and tracksuits in its main library during school visits to create a “professional” atmosphere.

No Russell Group university student should be in sportswear of any description.

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Reader advisory: the following item should not be read over breakfast.

Belfast City Council is to consider DNA testing of dog poo to catch irresponsible owners. Fittingly, it has passed a motion and will now perform “a scoping exercise” on the scooping exercise. Although the plan is technically feasible, there may be problems recruiting staff for the medieval-sounding job of town dog poo collector. Cutting benefits to anyone who refuses would at least bring it up to Dickensian.