Or, as John Redwood would have it “dum dum dah dum dum…b?”
John Redwood, of Welsh National Anthem fame, keeps banging on about how the border problem on the island of Ireland can be solved by computer technology.
Now, I admit to being a bit of a technophobe. If someone really knowledgeable tells me that it can be done I might well believe them, I guess. But John Redwood doesn’t look like that kind of guy.
He tweeted:
“There’s no need to have an intensified border compared w/ the considerable border we have now. We deal w/ VAT, excise & currency differences electronically as consignments come across. We live in the age of the computer-no need for a person in a kiosk working out a lot of sums.”
To which, the response was:
It seems to me that if there were something that would work between two countries in entirely different jurisdictions, sharing no customs union, and no common market, with no legal commonality and both with trade deals with third nations that were entirely different, then someone serious (not John Redwood) would have proposed it, with detailed plans of how it would work… and what it would cost, both the UK government and the EU. Indeed wouldn’t technology firms be rushing to try to sell their solution to the governments involved before their competitors?
As Dr Mike Galsworthy said: “If your “age of the computer” solutions to the UK-Irish border are so spot on… Then use one: Get on your computer & write a proposal. Just mouthing off on TV won’t prove it. Write a proposal that can be implemented on a stretch of border & thereby proven.”
So, if it is the answer to the biggest issue facing Brexit; the problem which is holding up negotiations, why has no one done this?
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Just a note for those who are calling for a no-deal Brexit. In that event, there will be a hard border in Ireland. No ifs, no buts. A border like Russia and Poland have.
Still, here’s the Welsh National Anthem to soothe your frayed nerves.