On the one hand, there is no dispute that creating a hard border around Northern Ireland will disrupt supply chains, damage the political settlement, and generally cause unnecessary hardship. On the other hand, if there is no real border, Northern Ireland will effectively remain part of the EU, with massive implications for the entire island and the rest of the UK. If Brexit actually occurs on schedule, what will happen next?
In all likelihood, Boris will rely on legal fictions, which is a polite way of saying he’s going to lie about border enforcement. My guess is that he will simply say that the border is now being policed without providing anything like the amount of resources that are necessary to actually do it. And so, life will go on as before, except that everyone will be pretending that something meaningful has actually happened.
Hey, do you have a better solution, other than stopping Brexit?