| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:The Will of the People and Brexit | |
| Posted by: | Andy Jones | |
| Date/Time: | 02/07/18 16:16:00 |
I never disputed that many Remain campaigners and, indeed the Government's material on the issue equated leaving the EU with leaving the single market. I suspect they deliberately did so to raise the stakes in the referendum. This doesn't change the fact that many leading leavers believed it would be possible to leave the EU and remain in the single market and many voters did too. It was only when the EU made its position on the four freedoms absolutely clear that many Brexiteers realised that if they wanted to end freedom of movement for EU workers then the single market had to be sacrificed. For most this enlightenment did not arrive until after the vote. It may be correct to say that most of the people who voted Leave also had a firm belief that this entailed leaving the single market but a significant number (significant at least in the sense of the size of the majority) held no such view or positively wished to stay in the single market. I don't recall the Irish border issue being mentioned in debates although it may well have been. It certainly was never front and centre of discussions as a key issue as it currently is. I never gave it the slightest thought in casting my vote and that would probably be the same for 99% of the electorate without an Irish connection. The problem I have with your assertion that this can be sorted out 'fairly easily' is that nobody outside the wing of the Tory party advocating Brexit believes this is possible. We don't know the nature of the trading arrangement we will have yet with the rest of Europe but I think it is naive to talk in small scale evasion. I have a friend who grew up close to the border between the north and south of Ireland and the point he makes is that there isn't really a natural border between the two areas. You can be driving along the same road and cross the border several times without being aware. Many people have land which straddles the border. It is basically impossible to police effectively. He says that prior to EU entry the only people with real wealth where he lived were people involved in smuggling. Fortunes were built by arbitraging differences but you had to bribe the police on both sides as well as the paramilitaries which is why this became such an important source of revenue for them. With the advent of the EU most of the arbitrage differences disappeared and this led to a fall in criminality in general and funding for terrorism in particular. He points out that in many cases people who were involved in paramilitary organisations are now tied up with organised crime and would leap at the opportunity if the border hardened. Basically the further apart the EU and the UK are in terms of a customs arrangement the more opportunities will be presented to those who seek to illegally exploit these differences. The idea that a few cameras could sort all this out simply isn't credible. |