Social Europe

  • EU Forward Project
  • YouTube
  • Podcast
  • Books
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

A Brexit Bonanza For Irish Smugglers And Paramilitaries?

James Anderson 3rd April 2017

James Anderson

James Anderson

Promises from British Brexiteers of a soft border in Ireland are almost worthless. UK Prime Minister Theresa May has other priorities. Anyway, it depends on negotiations involving 27 other governments including the Irish Government, and on what people in Ireland North and South do – or perhaps fail to do. A 56% Northern Ireland majority, including many unionists, voted Remain; very few Leavers want the re-imposition of a hard border; and most in the South are strongly opposed. But there will be a hard border. The only question is where.

The Irish land border between North and South leaks like a sieve. It meanders around for 499 contorted kilometres through towns and their hinterlands, villages, local communities, farms and occasionally houses – front door in one state, back door in the other. Even during the thirty years of ‘The Troubles’, when highly militarised with over 200 cross-border roads closed, it was a leaky border. Now – with those roads open – it is virtually useless for stopping an inflow of immigrants, the main motive for Brexit. So the real, hard border for controlling immigration will actually be the sea around the island of Britain and the ports and airports connecting with the island of Ireland, though with important revisions if there is an independent Scotland and it were to remain in the EU.

Controlling freight depends on whether free trade continues between the North and South of Ireland under some hybrid EU arrangement (e.g., the North stays in the customs union). That would limit Brexit damage to two fairly fragile economies which are now very substantially integrated, and it also locates the hard border for goods at the ports and airports connecting Ireland and Britain. These already have physical infrastructures for controlling freight separate from people. Not so the land border where controls would mean costly delays and clog up border roads for the thousands who regularly crisscross to work, study, shop and socialize, living their lives on both sides.

Attempts to impose a hard land border would still result in one that was leaky for goods as well as people. The South would get a lot of smuggled food and other commodities which were not up to EU standards. Not everyone wants borders but only smugglers benefit from ones that are leaky and uncontrollable. Functionally, having the real border at the ports and airports makes sense within Ireland and for Britain and the EU.

Politically, any attempt to re-impose a hard border would be highly disruptive and extremely unpopular, not only in local border communities but across the island. There would inevitably be widespread popular resistance and civil disobedience.

More ominously, it would undermine the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and a ‘peace process’ explicitly built on cross-border institutions and minimising the border, and on the promise that a re-united Ireland could be achieved by peaceful means if it were voted for North and South in a ‘border poll’. Re-imposing a hard border would simply wreck the strategy. Only the paramilitaries who prefer violent means would benefit. Building land border installations would be an open invitation for the ‘dissident Irish Republicans’ who have never accepted the peaceful route to copy the IRA’s 1950’s ‘Border Campaign’ of attacking border posts and personnel. In the new circumstances of a highly unpopular border, that could boost their at present meager support and recruitment, which in turn would increase the opposition paramilitaries on the unionist side, and together they could conceivably re-ignite at least a mini-version of the Troubles.

Avoiding all the various threats by displacing the hard border to ports and airports won’t be easy. Defining and achieving the crucial ‘hybrid EU arrangement’ for North-South relations faces substantial problems. The administrations in Belfast and Dublin are problematical, not to mention the one in London with its hard Brexit strategy and bullish promises. Northern power-sharing has collapsed and the leading unionist party, the DUP, is pro-Brexit and out-of-step with the majority. The Dublin Government has dismissed a special EU status for Northern Ireland, possibly in mistaken deference to British Brexiteers, on the peculiar grounds that it would deflect from Ireland’s uniqueness.



Don't miss out on cutting-edge thinking.


Join tens of thousands of informed readers and stay ahead with our insightful content. It's free.



But this uniqueness demands a hybrid solution. The EU is well aware of this, having poured millions into the cross-border ‘peace process’, and it is already well used to hybrids and anomalies: Denmark contains Greenland which is not in the EU, while other countries outside the EU are in the EU’s single market or its Schengen travel area.

The Dublin Government must be directly involved in Brexit negotiations. While the EU does not owe Britain any favours, it certainly owes the Irish Republic. It has been ‘EU loyal’ to a fault; it is the only EU state sharing a land border with British territory and will suffer more from Brexit than the others. Northern Ireland will have a big concentration of EU citizens living outside the EU and they can demand to be taken into consideration. If the EU is politically smart – always a question – it will reward its supporters, and that should extend to the Scots who supported Remain.

And if Irish nationalists were smart – sometimes another big ‘if’ – they would avoid the usual re-heated and over-heated rhetoric about a border poll on politically re-uniting Ireland. Brexiteers might eventually bring that about as an unintended consequence of their recklessness; but given the opposition of Northern unionists and the costs to the South of unification, a poll is unlikely to achieve majorities North and South in the continuing economic uncertainties of Brexit. It’s a premature distraction which may simply alienate unionists. Instead the focus should be on the new and immediate challenge of stopping a hard land border, and that requires support from unionists and others as well as nationalists.

James Anderson

James Anderson is Emeritus Professor of Political Geography in the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, and a founder-member of the Centre for International Borders Research at Queen’s University Belfast.

Harvard University Press Advertisement

Social Europe Ad - Promoting European social policies

We need your help.

Support Social Europe for less than €5 per month and help keep our content freely accessible to everyone. Your support empowers independent publishing and drives the conversations that matter. Thank you very much!

Social Europe Membership

Click here to become a member

Most Recent Articles

u4219834dafae1dc3 2 EU’s New Fiscal Rules: Balancing Budgets with Green and Digital AmbitionsPhilipp Heimberger
u42198346d1f0048 1 The Dangerous Metaphor of Unemployment “Scarring”Tom Boland and Ray Griffin
u4219834675 4ff1 998a 404323c89144 1 Why Progressive Governments Keep Failing — And How to Finally Win Back VotersMariana Mazzucato
u42198346ec 111f 473a 80ad b5d0688fffe9 1 A Transatlantic Reckoning: Why Europe Needs a New Pact Beyond Defence SpendingChristophe Sente
u4219834671f 3 Trade Unions Resist EU Bid to Weaken Corporate Sustainability LawsSocial Europe

Most Popular Articles

u4219834647f 0894ae7ca865 3 Europe’s Businesses Face a Quiet Takeover as US Investors CapitaliseTej Gonza and Timothée Duverger
u4219834674930082ba55 0 Portugal’s Political Earthquake: Centrist Grip Crumbles, Right AscendsEmanuel Ferreira
u421983467e58be8 81f2 4326 80f2 d452cfe9031e 1 “The Universities Are the Enemy”: Why Europe Must Act NowBartosz Rydliński
u42198346761805ea24 2 Trump’s ‘Golden Era’ Fades as European Allies Face Harsh New RealityFerenc Németh and Peter Kreko
startupsgovernment e1744799195663 Governments Are Not StartupsMariana Mazzucato
u421986cbef 2549 4e0c b6c4 b5bb01362b52 0 American SuicideJoschka Fischer
u42198346769d6584 1580 41fe 8c7d 3b9398aa5ec5 1 Why Trump Keeps Winning: The Truth No One AdmitsBo Rothstein
u421983467 a350a084 b098 4970 9834 739dc11b73a5 1 America Is About to Become the Next BrexitJ Bradford DeLong
u4219834676ba1b3a2 b4e1 4c79 960b 6770c60533fa 1 The End of the ‘West’ and Europe’s FutureGuillaume Duval
u421983462e c2ec 4dd2 90a4 b9cfb6856465 1 The Transatlantic Alliance Is Dying—What Comes Next for Europe?Frank Hoffer

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

DOWNLOAD HERE

S&D Group in the European Parliament advertisement

Cohesion Policy

S&D Position Paper on Cohesion Policy post-2027: a resilient future for European territorial equity

Cohesion Policy aims to promote harmonious development and reduce economic, social and territorial disparities between the regions of the Union, and the backwardness of the least favoured regions with a particular focus on rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition and regions suffering from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps, such as outermost regions, regions with very low population density, islands, cross-border and mountain regions.

READ THE FULL POSITION PAPER HERE

ETUI advertisement

HESA Magazine Cover

With a comprehensive set of relevant indicators, presented in 85 graphs and tables, the 2025 Benchmarking Working Europe report examines how EU policies can reconcile economic, social and environmental goals to ensure long-term competitiveness. Considered a key reference, this publication is an invaluable resource for supporting European social dialogue.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Ageing workforce
The evolution of working conditions in Europe

This episode of Eurofound Talks examines the evolving landscape of European working conditions, situated at the nexus of profound technological transformation.

Mary McCaughey speaks with Barbara Gerstenberger, Eurofound's Head of Unit for Working Life, who leverages insights from the 35-year history of the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS).

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

LISTEN NOW

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Spring Issues

The Summer issue of The Progressive Post is out!


It is time to take action and to forge a path towards a Socialist renewal.


European Socialists struggle to balance their responsibilities with the need to take bold positions and actions in the face of many major crises, while far-right political parties are increasingly gaining ground. Against this background, we offer European progressive forces food for thought on projecting themselves into the future.


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss the transformative power of European Social Democracy, examine the far right’s efforts to redesign education systems to serve its own political agenda and highlight the growing threat of anti-gender movements to LGBTIQ+ rights – among other pressing topics.

READ THE MAGAZINE

Social Europe

Our Mission

Team

Article Submission

Advertisements

Membership

Social Europe Archives

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Miscellaneous

RSS Feed

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

BlueskyXWhatsApp