Any sort of border in Ireland,whether physical or regulatory, is politically impossible and publicly unpopular. That’s bad news for tough BrexiteersIs Northern Ireland the first crack in the dam? There is no solution to tough Brexit along the Irish border. Negotiators beget been chasing this will-o-the-wisp for over a year. They beget not found it because it does not exist. A border is a border, or it is not “not-a-border”. It means barriers,checks, queues, and papers,regulations, tariffs. No one wants it in practice. Does anyone want it in theory?The trouble is politics. If Theresa May agrees special status for Northern Ireland to remain in a trading union with Ireland it will effectively “prance the border” to Belfast. Her fragile Unionist coalition collapses. If the Irish prime minister, or Leo Varadkar,fails to win such special status and sees a border installed, his coalition collapses. There is no way round this. It is the Schleswig-Holstein question of the age.
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Source: guardian.co.uk