How the Irish Border Keeps Derailing Brexit

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

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🗓️ 4 November 2019

⏱️ 22 minutes

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Summary

One of the almost unsolvable problems with the U.K.’s exit from the E.U. is that it would necessitate a “hard border” between Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K., and the Republic of Ireland, which would remain a member nation in Europe. The border was the epicenter of bloody conflict during the decades-long Troubles, and was essentially dismantled during the peace established by the Good Friday Agreement, in 1998. The prospect of fortifying it, with customs-and-immigration checks, has already brought threats of violence from paramilitaries such as the New I.R.A. At the same time, moving the customs border to ports along the coast of Northern Ireland—as the U.K.’s Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has proposed—strikes Northern Irish loyalists as a step toward unification with the Republic, which they would view as an abandonment by Britain. Patrick Radden Keefe, who wrote about the Troubles in his book “Say Nothing,” discusses the intensely fraught issues of the border with Simon Carswell, the public-affairs editor of the Irish Times.

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1:11.1	I'm Dorothy Wickendon. On today's Politics and More podcast, the New Yorker's
1:16.4	Patrick Radden-Keefe explores the history of the border between Northern Ireland and the
1:21.4	Republic of Ireland and why that border has become one of the most contentious topics in the
1:26.7	Brexit debate.
1:31.6	The deadline for the UK to leave the European Union has once again been pushed.
1:37.0	Prime Minister Boris Johnson failed to meet his October 31st deadline.
1:41.5	Now if you've been following Brexit closely at all, first of all, give yourself
1:45.5	a pat on the back because that's not easy. Second, you've probably heard the term Irish backstop.
1:52.2	That refers to the border between the Republic of Ireland and the South and Northern Ireland.
1:57.7	That border, barely 300 miles long, has become the third rail of the Brexit process,
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