Crossing the Border in the event of Brexit: Whats gonna happen?

Well its 16 days to the Brexit vote. What do people think is going to happen with regards to the RoI/NI border and commuting and transport? Do you cross the border everyday as part of your commute? Are you a truck driver doing the same?

Hard to know whats going to happen to those who cross the border regularly as part of commuting to their place of work. But bringing back customs posts has been mentioned a fair bit so transportation of goods may be affected. Are we looking at a queue of lorries at the border because of this?

Dravokivich

That border has nothing to do with the EU to be honest. Has anyone from Stormont released a comment on it? I'd be more interested in what they had to say, than Westminister.

Avatar MIA

Dravokivich wrote: »

That border has nothing to do with the EU to be honest. Has anyone from Stormont released a comment on it? I'd be more interested in what they had to say, than Westminister.

The border is not a devolved issue.

With that said, I would think it's scare tactics.

I wouldn't see a change in the current (non-existent) status of the border. MORE likely would be that everyone on the island of Ireland would need to present ID before traveling to the UK.

Tarabuses

Avatar MIA wrote: »

The border is not a devolved issue.

With that said, I would think it's scare tactics.

I wouldn't see a change in the current (non-existent) status of the border. MORE likely would be that everyone on the island of Ireland would need to present ID before traveling to the UK.

You mean before travelling to GB?

The border will become an EU frontier in the event of Brexit. I'm not aware of any other EU land frontier that doesn't have customs posts. It is not a matter for Dublin, Stormont or Westminster to decide. Brussels will have its say.

Additionally, since one of the main purposes of Brexit is securing the UK borders, are the British likely to be happy with an open border to the EU in Ireland?

Reinstatement of the border would be disasterous.

Avatar MIA

Tarabuses wrote: »

You mean before travelling to GB?

Yip - Sorry, meant to say GB.

Avatar MIA

Tarabuses wrote: »

The border will become an EU frontier in the event of Brexit. I'm not aware of any other EU land frontier that doesn't have customs posts. It is not a matter for Dublin, Stormont or Westminster to decide. Brussels will have its say.

From Wiki - no border and very limited customs between Norway and Sweden. Norway is not part of the EU.
"Border Control

Both countries are members of the Schengen Area, and there are therefore no immigration controls. However, only Sweden is part of the European Union, so there are customs checks. These are performed by the Norwegian Customs and Excise Authorities and the Swedish Customs Service.[3] These checks are sporadic along the Norway–Sweden border. Cars are usually not forced to stop. Both countries emphasise checks against other countries. For flights and ferries between the countries, there are no formal passport checks at airport and ferry ports, but identity cards are needed to board.
Before 2001, the countries were not part of the Schengen Area. There was even then no passport check. Passengers were led to the passport control at international airports, but could pass simply by showing the ticket and/or speaking and looking Scandinavian. There were more road customs stations then, some have been closed for cost reasons."

Vic_08

Avatar MIA wrote: »

The border is not a devolved issue.

With that said, I would think it's scare tactics.

I wouldn't see a change in the current (non-existent) status of the border. MORE likely would be that everyone on the island of Ireland would need to present ID before traveling to the UK.

The Unionists will love that, their beloved patch of Britain open to all and them having to show their passport to enter the rest of the union.

Avatar MIA wrote: »

From Wiki - no border and very limited customs between Norway and Sweden. Norway is not part of the EU.
"Border Control

Both countries are members of the Schengen Area, and there are therefore no immigration controls. However, only Sweden is part of the European Union, so there are customs checks. These are performed by the Norwegian Customs and Excise Authorities and the Swedish Customs Service.[3] These checks are sporadic along the Norway–Sweden border. Cars are usually not forced to stop. Both countries emphasise checks against other countries. For flights and ferries between the countries, there are no formal passport checks at airport and ferry ports, but identity cards are needed to board.
Before 2001, the countries were not part of the Schengen Area. There was even then no passport check. Passengers were led to the passport control at international airports, but could pass simply by showing the ticket and/or speaking and looking Scandinavian. There were more road customs stations then, some have been closed for cost reasons."

The problem with it is that a very big part of the Brexiters fantasy is chucking out the filthy foreigners, leaving a massive land border open and unguarded will not go down well. Although outside of our nordy friends most of your typical Brexiters barely know that NI exists.

Avatar MIA

Vic_08 wrote: »

The problem with it is that a very big part of the Brexiters fantasy is chucking out the filthy foreigners, leaving a massive land border open and unguarded will not go down well. Although outside of our nordy friends most of your typical Brexiters barely know that NI exists.

Which is why everyone (including card carrying DUPers) will have to have ID to travel to GB. And, yes that will not go down well with them.

timmyntc

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Which is why everyone (including card carrying DUPers) will have to have ID to travel to GB. And, yes that will not go down well with them.

Don't most airlines ask for ID when flying NI to GB anyways?

The land border between NI and ROI is too big and rural to be policed effectively, the obvious and likely solution is to have passport checks at all Northern Irish ports & airports, as well as customs stops along the border - there will need to be some form of customs on the border to prevent us from buying goods in the North (outside the EU) and bringing them home (into the EU) without paying the necessary excise/tariffs/taxes. However it's likely any such checks will be sporadic at best, anything else would slow things to a crawl and be damaging for both sides.

Free movement between the UK and ROI should still stand due to the CTA (which predates EU involvement) and the special status Irish citizens have in the UK, and likewise the status they have when here.

Avatar MIA

timmyntc wrote: »

Don't most airlines ask for ID when flying NI to GB anyways?

And the same for the ferries, so little or no change apart from box ticking customs checks.

LXFlyer

timmyntc wrote: »

Don't most airlines ask for ID when flying NI to GB anyways?

The land border between NI and ROI is too big and rural to be policed effectively, the obvious and likely solution is to have passport checks at all Northern Irish ports & airports, as well as customs stops along the border - there will need to be some form of customs on the border to prevent us from buying goods in the North (outside the EU) and bringing them home (into the EU) without paying the necessary excise/tariffs/taxes. However it's likely any such checks will be sporadic at best, anything else would slow things to a crawl and be damaging for both sides.

Free movement between the UK and ROI should still stand due to the CTA (which predates EU involvement) and the special status Irish citizens have in the UK, and likewise the status they have when here.

BA certainly do not require passengers on UK domestic flights to carry ID. They recommend you do, but there is no requirement to do so. On my last two UK domestic flights with BA (one from Belfast to London, and the other from London to Edinburgh) there were no ID checks.

Other airlines may do (such as Flybe and Ryanair) but that is down to their own conditions of carriage.

Consonata

timmyntc wrote:

Free movement between the UK and ROI should still stand due to the CTA (which predates EU involvement) and the special status Irish citizens have in the UK, and likewise the status they have when here.

But CTA was written in a time when ireland wasn't in the EU and wasn't part of that free market. At minimum there will be customs.

Vic_08

Avatar MIA wrote: »

And the same for the ferries, so little or no change apart from box ticking customs checks.

No official ID requirements on certain airlines or on ferries.

GB - ROI ferries also do not currently require ID, immigration spot-checks only require proof of CTA exemption status for UK/ROI citizens.

timmyntc

Consonata wrote: »

But CTA was written in a time when ireland wasn't in the EU and wasn't part of that free market. At minimum there will be customs.

Thats exactly what I said in my post, there will be customs, likely similar to the Sweden - Norway situation of old.

Our membership of the EU should not affect the preexisting CTA legislation however, as we are not members of the Schengen area.

brandodub

If Brexit happens there will have to be customs posts at the very least. The CTA is attached to the Amsterdam Treaty as a protocol and therefore recognised separately. However if the CTA is changed by either government it may mean Ireland becomes a full Schengen member and so the whole border would have to be patrolled as an external Schengen border.

As it stands after a Brexit the border becomes an external EU border-messy to police. I dont see the Unionist conmmunity accepting passport checks to visit Britain

coylemj

They won't be able to seal the border so the only solution will be passport controls between the island of Ireland and GB and yes, the DUP won't be too pleased but they should have thought of that before they decided to campaign for #Brexit.

If there are no passport controls between the two islands, anyone from within the EU will be able to legally travel with no visa to the south, then (illegally but with no fear of being stopped) cross the border into NI and then get a ferry to GB. Which means that the Albanians currently camped in Dieppe and the migrants/refugees currently in Calais will shift to Roscoff or Cherbourg and attempt to board trucks heading for the Rosslare ferry.

First Up

Good entering the EU are subject to customs procedures. If the border between the republic and NI is the EU border, there will be customs posts.

Avatar MIA

Vic_08 wrote: »

No official ID requirements on certain airlines or on ferries.

GB - ROI ferries also do not currently require ID, immigration spot-checks only require proof of CTA exemption status for UK/ROI citizens.

http://www.irishferries.com/uk-en/faq/passports-identification/

"some form of identification is however required."

Unionists will be upset that they will need a passport to enter GB, whereas a Drivers Licence would currently suffice.

Del.Monte

Non issue as the UK won't be leaving this time. The electorate have been brow beaten into voting to stay. A lot of older voters are afraid of change and the young are too pc to vote against liberal Europe.

First Up

Del.Monte wrote:

Non issue as the UK won't be leaving this time. The electorate have been brow beaten into voting to stay. A lot of older voters are afraid of change and the young are too pc to vote against liberal Europe.

I don't think giving people facts and letting them draw their own conclusions qualifies as "browbeating".

The BOE today estimated the flight of capital at £1.3 million A MINUTE over the past couple of months. £65 billion in total since March - that's more the four times the UK's annual contribution to the EU.

But that's just more scaremongering I suppose.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

First Up

Fred Swanson wrote:

I suppose our DUP friends will be issued special ID cards in lieu of a passport to travel to the rest of the UK.

There is zero chance that the UK would introduce an internal border of any sort between NI and GB. The border will be between NI and the Republic - i.e between the UK and the EU. An internal UK border is politically impossible for Britain and an open border with a non member state is both politically and legally impossible for the EU.

If the UK leaves, the CTA for goods and people is finished. Claims to the contrary are fantasies.

n97 mini

People are either too young or their memories are short. In the 1970s and 80s there were customs posts on the southern side of the border. The northern side was mostly British Army checks, but the point is when we were both in the EEC/EU there was a fairly hardened border. It has been noted that the ROI/NI border is fairly leaky in terms of allowing people get involved in welfare tourism, bogus asylum seeking, etc. So I couldn't see a situation where immigration controls aren't introduced. Immigration is a driving factor for Brexit.

The notion that there could be passport control internal to the UK is ridiculous.

vickers209

If Britain leave the eu would duty free be reintroduced on flights to the uk?

Charles Babbage

First Up wrote: »

There is zero chance that the UK would introduce an internal border of any sort between NI and GB. The border will be between NI and the Republic - i.e between the UK and the EU. An internal UK border is politically impossible for Britain and an open border with a non member state is both politically and legally impossible for the EU.

If the UK leaves, the CTA for goods and people is finished. Claims to the contrary are fantasies

Norway and Sweden have such a border. There is no hardened border between the Isle of Man and Britain
A hardened border would lose the British enormous political capital. Having expended enormous political capital getting things settled in NI, to deliberately start the troubles again would be bizarre. One imagines that Pres Clinton would be impressed.

n97 mini wrote: »

People are either too young or their memories are short. In the 1970s and 80s there were customs posts on the southern side of the border. The northern side was mostly British Army checks, but the point is when we were both in the EEC/EU there was a fairly hardened border. It has been noted that the ROI/NI border is fairly leaky in terms of allowing people get involved in welfare tourism, bogus asylum seeking, etc. So I couldn't see a situation where immigration controls aren't introduced. Immigration is a driving factor for Brexit.

The notion that there could be passport control internal to the UK is ridiculous.

On the contrary your post is ridiculous. Even in the troubles when there were thousands of troops it was pretty easy for people to come and go and indeed truck loads of explosives in many cases. It is questionable whether Britain wishes to deploy thousands of troops again, which wouldn't work anyway and would lead to the entire peace settlement failing apart, when a few dozen inspectors in GB could do the job better. There isn't a huge number of EU immigrants trying to get to NI.

brandodub wrote: »

If Brexit happens there will have to be customs posts at the very least. The CTA is attached to the Amsterdam Treaty as a protocol and therefore recognised separately. However if the CTA is changed by either government it may mean Ireland becomes a full Schengen member and so the whole border would have to be patrolled as an external Schengen border.

Ireland will not be joining Schengen. Ireland would just refuse, and the limitations of Schengen have become apparent to all in recent times, so it is unlikely that anyone would insist.

As it stands after a Brexit the border becomes an external EU border-messy to police. I dont see the Unionist conmmunity accepting passport checks to visit Britain

In reality they cannot do anything about it, except whine, and the DUP are supporting Brexit, so they obviously wanted it. You'd have ID required for flights and boats, but no actual passport requirement to complain about.

Things would be well confused if the Scots managed to bail out.

First Up

vickers209 wrote:

If Britain leave the eu would duty free be reintroduced on flights to the uk?

Probably.

First Up

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Norway and Sweden have such a border. There is no hardened border between the Isle of Man and Britain

Norway and Sweden are separate countries. There are no internal borders in Norway or Sweden. The Isle of Man has free movement within the UK as agreed as part of the UK's accession. The Isle of Man does not have free movement with the EU.

You can have one, but not both.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

First Up

Fred Swanson wrote:

The vast majority of the Manx population would have free movement.

They do under the present UK membership of the EU. The IOM's status was agreed as part of the UK's accession. That would be nullified with Brexit.

Outside of the EU, how the UK and IOM do business is their own affair.

Carawaystick

First Up wrote: »

Norway and Sweden are separate countries. There are no internal borders in Norway or Sweden. The Isle of Man has free movement within the UK as agreed as part of the UK's accession. The Isle of Man does not have free movement with the EU.

You said it was illegal and impossible

firstup wrote:

an open border with a non member state is both politically and legally impossible for the EU.

Here's the border from Andorra into France

Here's the Border from Swiss to France

Swiss German border

Walter H Price

Probably nothing , Britain will take Months to address all of the issues presented by a BREXIT if it happens. in all likelihood they will not want to see an armed bored re instated between the north and south as it would damage allot of the goodwill built up since the Good Friday agreement.

I would imagine the border will remain open as some sort of trade and movement pact will be agreed between Ireland and the UK outside of the EU , similar to those Norway have with Sweeden , Denmark and Finland.

Britiain can well exist comfortably outside the EU , what the constant scaremongering shows is that the EU knows if Britain goes its game over for the whole failed system