{"id":710,"date":"2019-03-11T20:30:12","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T20:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedissenter.co.uk\/?p=710"},"modified":"2019-03-11T20:30:12","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T20:30:12","slug":"border-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www1.thedissenter.co.uk\/?p=710","title":{"rendered":"Border control"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Let’s get some perspective on that 0.001% risk to the EU single market collapsing in chaos.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A while back, in January, on the Clare Byrne show a guest who was ex Irish Military<\/a> made a not often heard point on the Irish Border that so obsesses the EU and virtually every commentator on Brexit.<\/p>\n

His point, that there are three types of border.<\/p>\n

An open border\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 pretty much the CTA for people between UK and Republic of Ireland. For goods, generally within Schenghen, or between States in the USA. That doesn\u2019t mean no differences, simply that those differences are not especially managed at or on a border crossing.<\/p>\n

A controlled border\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 this can be light or not so light. For example anyone from the UK or Republic of Ireland still has to go through passport control when entering a Schenghen member country, and on return to point of departure. While borders are always territorial they can be located anywhere \u2013 the USA has pre-Authorisation Immigration at Dublin Airport, with passengers entering USA once past the US Border officials. Controlled borders require visas or visa waivers for people, and tariffs and checks that are paperless or physical in triplicate for goods; and for services there are sometimes regulations and\/or controls on operation. These are all the stuff of international law and treaties, and of international disputes.<\/p>\n

A closed border\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 was the Berlin Wall, and many other States whose borders were to keep their own people in as much as others\u2019 out. These were usually highly militarised and with physical barriers. There was some possibility to cross such borders \u2013 an exchange of West Marks to East Marks and a tram ride for the adventurous. Thankfully the world has fewer to these than were common even 40 years ago. The line between North and South Korea is perhaps the only obvious such border that might spring to mind today. The chaos of Syria might make that a border few wish to cross, more from confusion and ill-defined order than any physical barrier, but the problem arises perhaps that it is not a closed border in any sense. That said a closed border is just that \u2013 closed to crossing.<\/p>\n

Where on the point between the description of open border and closed border do we put the mark on the map between the UK and the Republic of Ireland over the past half-century? Undeniably the current land border is fairly open and is in considerable contrast to the border during the height of the IRA terrorist years, and moving through ports and airports is completed with considerably more ease.<\/p>\n

Yet even at the height of the IRA terror there was never a completely closed border.<\/p>\n