Cliff Taylor: Brexit and the imaginary invisible Border
Businesses are unlikely to get any more clarity after next week’s crucial summit
The Border issue is showing no signs of going away. Photograph: PA Wire
The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in Westminster has done its work and held its hearings and has come to the same conclusion as all the economic and trade experts. If the UK leaves the EU trading bloc, there is no “technical” solution which can avoid the return of a visible trade Border in Ireland, it says in a report published on Friday. It said: “We have found no evidence that, right now, an invisible border is possible.”
The committee spoke to customs experts and those involved in working on the Norway/Sweden frontier, as well as the borders between Switzerland and the EU. It has said it is concerned at the lack of progress on the issue of the Border after Brexit. Its hearings showed how definitions of a “hard border” differed, although the UK has committed to a Border with no physical infrastructure.