DUP's solution to the Irish border brexit problem?

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 jkarran 28 Jul 2017
Listening to the DUP's Jeffery Donaldson on Today this morning I got the distinct impression he was under the illusion the simplest and therefore most logical solution to the problem we (to a lesser 48% extent) and they (DUP, our bungling Conservative government et al) have created would be for Ireland to follow us out of the EU. Did anyone else catch it, perhaps I misunderstood where his reasoning seemed to be leading since he never quite got to stating it explicitly? Delusional madness.
jk
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 TobyA 28 Jul 2017
In reply to jkarran:

There is a senior Irish diplomat (perhaps retired, or now an academic) who has made exactly the same suggestion openly.
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 goatee 28 Jul 2017
In reply to TobyA:

There are idiots everywhere. Ireland will NOT be as silly (and I'm being polite ) as the UK and will definitely stay in the EU. I think there is a much better chance of the UK staying inside. My god people what were you thinking??
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 wintertree 28 Jul 2017
In reply to jkarran:

> Delusional madness.

I am not so sure.

Of all the EU nations, Ireland looks particularly vulunerable if the EU throw up punitive trade barriers to an independent UK.

Throw in the action against Apple and the Irish Government by the EU where the EU effectively affected a retrospective change in national tax rules against the government's will and the interests of a major employer.

It may not be the most likely outcome but I don't think it's delusional.
Post edited at 14:23
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 TobyA 28 Jul 2017
In reply to goatee:

> There are idiots everywhere.

I think that's very unfair to say of what sounded to me like an Irish patriot making a strong argument based on a macro economic understanding. Perhaps he is wrong, but it was the success of the Irish economy that he was interested in.

Ireland of course has a history of taking different position to the rest of the EU when it judges its relationship with the UK to be more important - not joining Schengen being the case in point.

 Mike Stretford 28 Jul 2017
In reply to TobyA:

> There is a senior Irish diplomat (perhaps retired, or now an academic) who has made exactly the same suggestion openly.

I don't think many will want that as there is also the future possibility of the Northern Ireland joining the south in the not too distant future.
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In reply to wintertree:

> Throw in the action against Apple and the Irish Government by the EU where the EU effectively affected a retrospective change in national tax rules against the government's will and the interests of a major employer.

Ireland's business model is to be a low tax, English speaking country within the EU. If it left the EU all the multinationals who are there, either with manufacturing plants or as a place to have a registered office and finance people for activities like leasing would have no reason to stay. Dublin is going to do OK out of Brexit, it will pick up some of London's business and quite likely there will be some other opportunities if there are different rules or prices on each side of a border which is weakly controlled.

I see the Irish government are now suggesting the border should be a sea border so Northern Ireland is effectively inside the EU and part of the rest of Ireland as regards trade. That's a nice step towards Irish re-unification and shows just how much the Tories are kidding themselves if they think anything about Brexit is going to be easy.
baron 28 Jul 2017
In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

The Ulstermen are going to love that idea.
 TobyA 28 Jul 2017
In reply to TobyA:

This is the report I remembered http://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2017/0703/887294-uk-report-ireland-needs-to-c... but I see former Taoiseach Ahern has just said "we're mad but we're not that mad".
 sensibleken 28 Jul 2017
In reply to wintertree:



> Throw in the action against Apple and the Irish Government by the EU where the EU effectively affected a retrospective change in national tax rules against the government's will and the interests of a major employer.

Thats not what happened with the Apple tax judgement. The findings of the commission were that the Apple arrangement was not lawful in the first place. It was not affecting nor overruling Ireland's tax law which is not within the competency of the EU.

Remember Ireland paid 42% of the cost of the Eurozone crisis. That is an extraordinary burden for a country of such a small population to carry, yet even taking that into account it is still very pro European membership.

If there are bad consequences to Brexit in Ireland, it won't be the EU we'll be blaming.




 Coel Hellier 28 Jul 2017
In reply to sensibleken:

> Remember Ireland paid 42% of the cost of the Eurozone crisis. That is an extraordinary burden for a country of such a small population to carry ...

Not really true:

"What Taft did was notice that there were two types of bailouts for banks around Europe. One type (promissory notes and the like) increased public debt because it was just a straight handover of money to the banks with nothing in return. The other type of bailout was governments buying shares in the banks, which technically didn't increase public debt because you got bank shares in return.

"Guess which one we did a lot of, and everybody else didn't? Yes, promissory notes and straight handovers of cash to our banks. We did about €42bn of that. Round all of Europe a total of around €100bn of that was done, so, yay, Taft claims we spent "42% of the European bank bailout".

"Does that cover the total cost of European bank bailouts? No, it doesn't - it doesn't even cover the total cost of ours. We spent €64bn, but Taft's figure leaves out €22bn of ours, because that bit was spent buying shares in the banks, and doesn't show up in his figure.

"What was the total cost of bank bailouts across the EU? It seems to have been around €600bn total. And yes, that means we spent about 11% of the total, which is still impressive.

"Were we "bailing out the European banking system", though? No, we weren't. We were bailing out our banks."
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 goatee 28 Jul 2017
In reply to TobyA:

Perhaps I worded it too strongly. I merely think the person is very wrong. Of course an argument can be made for Ireland to once again align itself with the UK and leave the EU but I fancy that, although there will undoubtedly be difficulties, Ireland will make a political (and economic) decision to have an outward-inclusive outlook. Being a relatively small economy it will change and adapt easier than others might. I would fear for the long-term stability and prosperity of the UK if this decision is not reversed. But it is just my opinion
 Aly 28 Jul 2017
In reply to TobyA:

> I think that's very unfair to say of what sounded to me like an Irish patriot making a strong argument based on a macro economic understanding.

Now I haven't heard the interview but I suspect any DUP MP would be described as being about as far from an 'Irish patriot' as you can get!

 TobyA 28 Jul 2017
In reply to Aly:

I was talking about an Irish ex diplomat (former Irish ambassador to Canada), not a UK MP.
 Dr.S at work 28 Jul 2017
In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

> I see the Irish government are now suggesting the border should be a sea border so Northern Ireland is effectively inside the EU and part of the rest of Ireland as regards trade. That's a nice step towards Irish re-unification and shows just how much the Tories are kidding themselves if they think anything about Brexit is going to be easy.

The Irish farmers I was talking to last week where dead set against re-unification with the north, and receptive to the concept of Ireland leaving the EU.

mind you we were all pissed.
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 Aly 28 Jul 2017
In reply to TobyA:

That makes more sense! Thought you meant the chap in the OP.
 sensibleken 29 Jul 2017
In reply to Coel Hellier:

Who are you quoting?
 TobyA 29 Jul 2017
In reply to goatee:

Yep, absolutely. It was only one opinion and written for a right of centre British think tank too, but I guess the Schengen thing does show just how close the Irish economy is aligned to the UK economy - something that the Irish government clearly take seriously, even if in a perfect world they would wish is wasn't quite so much the case!
 Ridge 29 Jul 2017
In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

> I see the Irish government are now suggesting the border should be a sea border so Northern Ireland is effectively inside the EU and part of the rest of Ireland as regards trade. That's a nice step towards Irish re-unification and shows just how much the Tories are kidding themselves if they think anything about Brexit is going to be easy.

I honestly can't see that suggestion even being considered.
 RomTheBear 29 Jul 2017
In reply to jkarran:
> Listening to the DUP's Jeffery Donaldson on Today this morning I got the distinct impression he was under the illusion the simplest and therefore most logical solution to the problem we (to a lesser 48% extent) and they (DUP, our bungling Conservative government et al) have created would be for Ireland to follow us out of the EU. Did anyone else catch it, perhaps I misunderstood where his reasoning seemed to be leading since he never quite got to stating it explicitly? Delusional madness.

> jk

Whatever they do, whether the stay in the EU or leave the EU (don't see that happening !) the Irish will be shafted, either way. They can thank selfish UK for it.
Then again Ireland's been shafting the rest of the EU for years with their tax arrangements. Karma ?
Post edited at 13:32
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