Prague News reaches me that Europe is getting closer to a Czech-out. Any substance in this or is it nonsense?
A what???
My term for Chexit
Oh, you mean Czexit...
a few months ago I might have been somewhat more concerned but in that few months the populists have generally backed away from such talk (as they have in Hungary, btw). Rather unfortunately, the BBC let Czech PM Babis loose in English at the Salzburg summit. It didn't help the Remain side here, but Babis is no Macron. I could fill a page with a list of his crimes, but he is courting the populist vote. So his comments here are telling, in respect of your question..
Of course we do have our extremists, screeching about a referendum. They are called SPD (not at all to be confused with the German one) and the ludicrous hate-filled cartoon racist who leads them is called Tomio Okamura. Now I know you have been here a few times and may think that isn't a Czech -sounding name, and you'd be right. You might even think it sounds a bit Japanese and you'd be even more right. That is exactly what he is. A half- Japanese screaming to the Czechs about keeping out the foreign aliens. He has a brother who is a normal politician in a normal party, who has completely disowned him. I need to learn the Czech equivalent of "you couldn't make it up"...
Who or what suggested to you that Czexit is a thing, out of interest?
Well I called it Czech-out.
I was just asking your opinion - perhaps if you google your version of the concept you will find many references to it.
But, as you read German press so diligently, you will be aware of the raft of articles since the spring, intimating that the Czech's will be the next to leave.
Edit- cant be bothered to find electronic versions of print, but in answer to your question, here's a headline from DW from earlier in the year.
Czexit — a real possibility? Some resurgent populist parties in the Czech parliament are demanding a referendum on EU membership. But the prospect of Czexit —the Czech Republic leaving the EU — is a nightmare for many of the country’s business leaders.
Prague News reaches me that Europe is getting closer to a Czech-out. Any substance in this or is it nonsense?
A what???
My term for Chexit
Oh, you mean Czexit...
a few months ago I might have been somewhat more concerned but in that few months the populists have generally backed away from such talk (as they have in Hungary, btw). Rather unfortunately, the BBC let Czech PM Babis loose in English at the Salzburg summit. It didn't help the Remain side here, but Babis is no Macron. I could fill a page with a list of his crimes, but he is courting the populist vote. So his comments here are telling, in respect of your question..
Of course we do have our extremists, screeching about a referendum. They are called SPD (not at all to be confused with the German one) and the ludicrous hate-filled cartoon racist who leads them is called Tomio Okamura. Now I know you have been here a few times and may think that isn't a Czech -sounding name, and you'd be right. You might even think it sounds a bit Japanese and you'd be even more right. That is exactly what he is. A half- Japanese screaming to the Czechs about keeping out the foreign aliens. He has a brother who is a normal politician in a normal party, who has completely disowned him. I need to learn the Czech equivalent of "you couldn't make it up"...
Who or what suggested to you that Czexit is a thing, out of interest?
Well I called it Czech-out.
I was just asking your opinion - perhaps if you google your version of the concept you will find many references to it.
But, as you read German press so diligently, you will be aware of the raft of articles since the spring, intimating that the Czech's will be the next to leave.
Edit- cant be bothered to find electronic versions of print, but in answer to your question, here's a headline from DW from earlier in the year.
Czexit — a real possibility? Some resurgent populist parties in the Czech parliament are demanding a referendum on EU membership. But the prospect of Czexit —the Czech Republic leaving the EU — is a nightmare for many of the country’s business leaders.
As is Brexit to the vast majority of UK business leaders.
Prague News reaches me that Europe is getting closer to a Czech-out. Any substance in this or is it nonsense?
A what???
My term for Chexit
Oh, you mean Czexit...
a few months ago I might have been somewhat more concerned but in that few months the populists have generally backed away from such talk (as they have in Hungary, btw). Rather unfortunately, the BBC let Czech PM Babis loose in English at the Salzburg summit. It didn't help the Remain side here, but Babis is no Macron. I could fill a page with a list of his crimes, but he is courting the populist vote. So his comments here are telling, in respect of your question..
Of course we do have our extremists, screeching about a referendum. They are called SPD (not at all to be confused with the German one) and the ludicrous hate-filled cartoon racist who leads them is called Tomio Okamura. Now I know you have been here a few times and may think that isn't a Czech -sounding name, and you'd be right. You might even think it sounds a bit Japanese and you'd be even more right. That is exactly what he is. A half- Japanese screaming to the Czechs about keeping out the foreign aliens. He has a brother who is a normal politician in a normal party, who has completely disowned him. I need to learn the Czech equivalent of "you couldn't make it up"...
Who or what suggested to you that Czexit is a thing, out of interest?
Well I called it Czech-out.
I was just asking your opinion - perhaps if you google your version of the concept you will find many references to it.
But, as you read German press so diligently, you will be aware of the raft of articles since the spring, intimating that the Czech's will be the next to leave.
Edit- cant be bothered to find electronic versions of print, but in answer to your question, here's a headline from DW from earlier in the year.
Czexit — a real possibility? Some resurgent populist parties in the Czech parliament are demanding a referendum on EU membership. But the prospect of Czexit —the Czech Republic leaving the EU — is a nightmare for many of the country’s business leaders.
In the Spring it was a bit of a thing, in media terms, I agree. But as I said, it seems to have died down, and I think that's because of the spectacle of the absolute toilet that is Brexit. That is closely observed in Czech media. The SPD are the only party pushing for a referendum, and they generally poll around 8%, higher in back of beyond places, of course, where they've never seen an obvious refugee.
Czechs have always been Eurosceptic. It's generally agreed that they are "sceptic" about any foreign "influence" , so populists obviously looked at that, and asked how that can help them cement power. But it seems that most of them, including the PM decided that it isn't in their interests.
More interesting is perhaps why Orban stops short of threatening to leave. I'll never find it but 2-3 weeks ago the Today programme allowed one of his goons on (because he speaks posh English). Having slagged off the EU for "interfering", he was asked about an EU exit and his reply was "Not a chance, not even 1%". I was quite startled by that response.
I don't pretend my German is good enough to read their papers diligently, as I had to concede last week, but the English language web version of Spiegel is really worth a visit sometimes, especially if you think Digby Jones might not actually have the best handle on German business attitudes (he was on again this morning, claiming 150,000 redundancies there, after we stop buying their Beemers)
The Conservative party, who want us to believe that all issues around the Irish border can be solved by "technology", have released an app covering their conference, with a gaping security hole.
They can't keep their participants' data safe. They can't prevent people hacking data. And they can't determine who is doing it.
A decade after apps first became widely available on mobiles, the Conservative party can't launch one without security breaches, holes and the embarrassing publicity associated with the failure of their version of the technology. But they expect us to believe they can design, build, test and deploy a new "technology" by the end of March, which will be reliable, trustworthy and robust.
I'm sure it will be fine. And, if not, perhaps we can all call "Alexander Boris de Pfeffle Johnson", whose phone number, now made publicly available via the app, is 0781X XXXXX3.
Good news then, Prague. Encouraging to hear, unless they are waiting to see how bad the Brexit deal is.
In touch with a worried acquaintance who has rubbed up against Okamura, who seems an 'interesting' character over your way.
Oh he's a piece of work alright, but I honestly don't think he is in the same "class" as Orban, or Farage. I think he will shaft himself. One thing he has in common with Farage is that he cannot seem to attract and keep others who can front up to the cameras effectively.
The Conservative party, who want us to believe that all issues around the Irish border can be solved by "technology", have released an app covering their conference, with a gaping security hole.
They can't keep their participants' data safe. They can't prevent people hacking data. And they can't determine who is doing it.
A decade after apps first became widely available on mobiles, the Conservative party can't launch one without security breaches, holes and the embarrassing publicity associated with the failure of their version of the technology. But they expect us to believe they can design, build, test and deploy a new "technology" by the end of March, which will be reliable, trustworthy and robust.
I'm sure it will be fine. And, if not, perhaps we can all call "Alexander Boris de Pfeffle Johnson", whose phone number, now made publicly available via the app, is 07811 222333.
Splendid. I've just sent him a polite message on behalf of the Olympic Stadium Coalition. Seems to have gone through: -) However in the excitement, I see that I have spelt my own name wrong (no, not in a Jeremy Hunt way)
The Conservative party, who want us to believe that all issues around the Irish border can be solved by "technology", have released an app covering their conference, with a gaping security hole.
They can't keep their participants' data safe. They can't prevent people hacking data. And they can't determine who is doing it.
A decade after apps first became widely available on mobiles, the Conservative party can't launch one without security breaches, holes and the embarrassing publicity associated with the failure of their version of the technology. But they expect us to believe they can design, build, test and deploy a new "technology" by the end of March, which will be reliable, trustworthy and robust.
I'm sure it will be fine. And, if not, perhaps we can all call "Alexander Boris de Pfeffle Johnson", whose phone number, now made publicly available via the app, is 07811 222333.
To be fair, that app's probably been knocked up on the cheap out of conservative party funds.
On the other hand, the actual government, with a budget of billions, will always find a whole new host of interesting and expensive ways to cock up IT projects.
The Conservative party, who want us to believe that all issues around the Irish border can be solved by "technology", have released an app covering their conference, with a gaping security hole.
They can't keep their participants' data safe. They can't prevent people hacking data. And they can't determine who is doing it.
A decade after apps first became widely available on mobiles, the Conservative party can't launch one without security breaches, holes and the embarrassing publicity associated with the failure of their version of the technology. But they expect us to believe they can design, build, test and deploy a new "technology" by the end of March, which will be reliable, trustworthy and robust.
I'm sure it will be fine. And, if not, perhaps we can all call "Alexander Boris de Pfeffle Johnson", whose phone number, now made publicly available via the app, is 0781X XXXXX3.
Splendid. I've just sent him a polite message on behalf of the Olympic Stadium Coalition. Seems to have gone through: -) However in the excitement, I see that I have spelt my own name wrong (no, not in a Jeremy Hunt way)
Of course, it may not have been Boris Johnson. It may have been someone who had hacked the app and set up a fake account.
The following entries on this person's account may help to determine whether it's really the sacked journalist, failed Mayor of London, failed Foreign Secretary and serial adulterer, or someone having a jolly jape. The data listed for this account is as follows:
Title - Mr First name - ALEXANDER Last name - JOHNSON Position - Twat Organisation - Parliament Location - The Kremlin
Prague News reaches me that Europe is getting closer to a Czech-out. Any substance in this or is it nonsense?
A what???
My term for Chexit
Oh, you mean Czexit...
a few months ago I might have been somewhat more concerned but in that few months the populists have generally backed away from such talk (as they have in Hungary, btw). Rather unfortunately, the BBC let Czech PM Babis loose in English at the Salzburg summit. It didn't help the Remain side here, but Babis is no Macron. I could fill a page with a list of his crimes, but he is courting the populist vote. So his comments here are telling, in respect of your question..
Of course we do have our extremists, screeching about a referendum. They are called SPD (not at all to be confused with the German one) and the ludicrous hate-filled cartoon racist who leads them is called Tomio Okamura. Now I know you have been here a few times and may think that isn't a Czech -sounding name, and you'd be right. You might even think it sounds a bit Japanese and you'd be even more right. That is exactly what he is. A half- Japanese screaming to the Czechs about keeping out the foreign aliens. He has a brother who is a normal politician in a normal party, who has completely disowned him. I need to learn the Czech equivalent of "you couldn't make it up"...
Who or what suggested to you that Czexit is a thing, out of interest?
Well I called it Czech-out.
I was just asking your opinion - perhaps if you google your version of the concept you will find many references to it.
But, as you read German press so diligently, you will be aware of the raft of articles since the spring, intimating that the Czech's will be the next to leave.
Edit- cant be bothered to find electronic versions of print, but in answer to your question, here's a headline from DW from earlier in the year.
Czexit — a real possibility? Some resurgent populist parties in the Czech parliament are demanding a referendum on EU membership. But the prospect of Czexit —the Czech Republic leaving the EU — is a nightmare for many of the country’s business leaders.
As is Brexit to the vast majority of UK business leaders.
You been round asking them all..you must have a few bob.
..the towering arrogance of the man who tells "Krish" to read his Borisgraph article. As Krish says, he has read it. Of course he has. He is a professional who masters the detail of his work. If Johnson took a leaf out of his book, Nazarin would be out of that Iranian hell-hole, nobody in Europe would be making cake jokes, West Ham would be paying a sensible rent for the stadium, and millions would not have been wasted on the Garden Bridge fiasco. And at the very least, the overall level of public discourse on Brexit would be at least three notches higher.
Really, tell me, who are the people taking this steaming pile of excrescence seriously? To be fair to the Brexiters on CL, I have not read a single positive message about him for years.
He is categorically one of the worst people in our political system. I’m ashamed to have someone like him serving as an MP.
Agree with Prague, haven’t seen any Brexit voters on here that seem to support/back him. Honestly, if you’re one of these people that says ‘oh I quite like Boris’ or ‘he’s funny’, you need your head testing. The bloke is incredulous. We need him as far away from British politics as we do RD from Charlton
..the towering arrogance of the man who tells "Krish" to read his Borisgraph article. As Krish says, he has read it. Of course he has. He is a professional who masters the detail of his work. If Johnson took a leaf out of his book, Nazarin would be out of that Iranian hell-hole, nobody in Europe would be making cake jokes, West Ham would be paying a sensible rent for the stadium, and millions would not have been wasted on the Garden Bridge fiasco. And at the very least, the overall level of public discourse on Brexit would be at least three notches higher.
Really, tell me, who are the people taking this steaming pile of excrescence seriously? To be fair to the Brexiters on CL, I have not read a single positive message about him for years.
Last week he infamously failed to rule out a challenge to Teresa May. He obviously has support within the parliamentary Conservative party and we know that even now after years of bluster and buffoonery he is popular in the constituency parties. It is alarming and incredulous in equal measure.
..the towering arrogance of the man who tells "Krish" to read his Borisgraph article. As Krish says, he has read it. Of course he has. He is a professional who masters the detail of his work. If Johnson took a leaf out of his book, Nazarin would be out of that Iranian hell-hole, nobody in Europe would be making cake jokes, West Ham would be paying a sensible rent for the stadium, and millions would not have been wasted on the Garden Bridge fiasco. And at the very least, the overall level of public discourse on Brexit would be at least three notches higher.
Really, tell me, who are the people taking this steaming pile of excrescence seriously? To be fair to the Brexiters on CL, I have not read a single positive message about him for years.
Well said. The media (BBC!!) have been giving the Tories in general and him in particular a very easy ride, they need to start treating his nonsense like RP & C4 just have.
Incidentally I told my boys of you, @PragueAddick, texting Johnson about the Olympic Stadium (following conference app fuck up) and they thought it was brilliant.
May wants to spend £120m on a festival of Brexit. FFS.
Shortly after the vote some Leavers on here said they that they were looking forward to the street parties to celebrate 'independence day'. Are there really likely to be any?
I agree that nowadays even the most ardent brexiters and Tories on here are not writing in support of Boris. They may still be covert supporters of him though, justified to themselves that he deserves support because he is not Corbyn or Abbott. I see on Marr this morning that May is persisting with her Chequers sales pitch, like trying to sell an orange covered in green mould on the basis that it is the only orange available. The government position that it is down to the EU to make genetics is laughable. The UK voted to leave, geddit brexiters? Then we have the leave without a deal scenario, and May did not counter what Marr said about the practical disasters that will follow, she did not call them project fear.
Fintan O'Toole heard @Henry Irving's plea last week, so this appeared in Saturday's Irish Times...
Gibraltar's experience exposes British Brexit lies
The Spain-Gibraltar border shows what a customs-union divide looks like
Some of the titles still on the shelves of the old Garrison Library in Gibraltar: Charles Mayer’s Jungle Beasts I Have Captured; GP Sanderson’s Thirteen Years Among the Wild Beasts of India; the Maharajah of Cooch Behar’s Shooting in Cooch Behar: A Record of Thirty-Seven Years of Sport and my favourite, Major AE Wardrop’s Modern Pig-Sticking.
The library was founded in 1793 and remained as a refined retreat for the officers of the British military garrison until 2011. Inside the elegant Georgian building, there is a stellar gathering of historians at a conference called Bordering on Brexit, itself part of a wider project called “Embers of Empire”.
Outside, looming above the lush back garden, is the massive Jurassic bulk of the Rock of Gibraltar surmounted by a huge union jack on which, I can report, the sun does actually set. Few places on Earth are at once so imposingly real and so utterly symbolic.
Gibraltar is, in a sense, all border. Its historic importance is that it marks and controls the border between the Atlantic and Mediterranean oceans. And its contemporary importance is that, along with the Irish Border, it will be, after Brexit, the other land frontier between the European Union and British territory.
In that regard, it has some things to tell us about both the physical realities of Brexit and the complexities of the post-imperial Britishness that surround it. For just as “no hard border” has entered our political phrasebook, the Gibraltarian government says of Brexit that its priority “will be to give people certainty on the fluidity of the frontier” with Spain.
In a sense, the Gibraltar border is a massively simplified version of our own. From the top of the Rock, you can look down and see it all laid out: the Spanish town of La Linea, the narrow isthmus, the border fence and the runway of the Gibraltar airport that almost immediately abuts it.
Politically, it is a frontier almost as fraught as our own: Spain does not accept long-term British sovereignty over the Rock and also disputes the area on which the airport was built. But geographically, it could not be more straightforward. It is 1.2km long compared to Ireland’s 500km. It has a single, controlled crossing point, compared to 208 official crossings on our island and an infinite number of unofficial ones. If ours is the Finnegans Wake of frontiers, this is Borders for Dummies.
Border infrastructure But even so, the first thing you see when you come out of Gibraltar airport is the very thing we never want to see again in Ireland: physical border infrastructure. It is relatively small and it is pleasantly topped on the southern side by the flags of the UK, Gibraltar and the EU but it is exactly what you would expect to see if you were crossing, for example, from the United States to Canada or from France to Switzerland: buildings, barriers, police, border guards.
This is striking because, for now, both sides of this border are in the EU. How can this be? The reason is highly significant from an Irish point of view: Gibraltar, when it joined the Common Market along with Britain and Ireland, stayed out of the customs union.
So what you’re seeing when you look at the Gibraltar border is exactly what the line between a member of the customs union (Spain) and a non-member looks like. You are not just looking at the present, you are looking at what, without a satisfactory deal on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, is Ireland’s future.
It is true, of course, that Gibraltar is not in the Schengen travel area while Spain is, so there are passport checks. Assuming, as everyone does, that the Common Travel Area between Britain and Ireland remains intact after Brexit, this will not be our problem.
But even if Gibraltar and Spain were not in different travel areas, they would still have to have the same infrastructure because of customs checks. Since the British government insists that Northern Ireland must leave the customs union, the situation will in this regard be the same.
And this raises a very stark question: if the British know of some magical technological way to have a customs frontier with no physical infrastructure, why have they not already applied it in Gibraltar?
The other obvious thing about the Gibraltar border is that it is inescapably political. In one sense, what has happened here in recent decades is very similar to what has happened on our island. This frontier was so bitterly contested that Spain, under General Franco, closed it entirely between 1969 and 1985, ironically solidifying the British identity of the enclave’s indigenous people. cont..
Comments
Just to keep accentuating the positive...
I was just asking your opinion - perhaps if you google your version of the concept you will find many references to it.
But, as you read German press so diligently, you will be aware of the raft of articles since the spring, intimating that the Czech's will be the next to leave.
Edit- cant be bothered to find electronic versions of print, but in answer to your question, here's a headline from DW from earlier in the year.
Czexit — a real possibility?
Some resurgent populist parties in the Czech parliament are demanding a referendum on EU membership. But the prospect of Czexit —the Czech Republic leaving the EU — is a nightmare for many of the country’s business leaders.
Patrick has done 20 tweets about the situation and the GFA, well worth a read.
Czechs have always been Eurosceptic. It's generally agreed that they are "sceptic" about any foreign "influence" , so populists obviously looked at that, and asked how that can help them cement power. But it seems that most of them, including the PM decided that it isn't in their interests.
More interesting is perhaps why Orban stops short of threatening to leave. I'll never find it but 2-3 weeks ago the Today programme allowed one of his goons on (because he speaks posh English). Having slagged off the EU for "interfering", he was asked about an EU exit and his reply was "Not a chance, not even 1%". I was quite startled by that response.
I don't pretend my German is good enough to read their papers diligently, as I had to concede last week, but the English language web version of Spiegel is really worth a visit sometimes, especially if you think Digby Jones might not actually have the best handle on German business attitudes (he was on again this morning, claiming 150,000 redundancies there, after we stop buying their Beemers)
Encouraging to hear, unless they are waiting to see how bad the Brexit deal is.
In touch with a worried acquaintance who has rubbed up against Okamura, who seems an 'interesting' character over your way.
They can't keep their participants' data safe. They can't prevent people hacking data. And they can't determine who is doing it.
A decade after apps first became widely available on mobiles, the Conservative party can't launch one without security breaches, holes and the embarrassing publicity associated with the failure of their version of the technology. But they expect us to believe they can design, build, test and deploy a new "technology" by the end of March, which will be reliable, trustworthy and robust.
I'm sure it will be fine. And, if not, perhaps we can all call "Alexander Boris de Pfeffle Johnson", whose phone number, now made publicly available via the app, is 0781X XXXXX3.
On the other hand, the actual government, with a budget of billions, will always find a whole new host of interesting and expensive ways to cock up IT projects.
The following entries on this person's account may help to determine whether it's really the sacked journalist, failed Mayor of London, failed Foreign Secretary and serial adulterer, or someone having a jolly jape. The data listed for this account is as follows:
Title - Mr
First name - ALEXANDER
Last name - JOHNSON
Position - Twat
Organisation - Parliament
Location - The Kremlin
Really, tell me, who are the people taking this steaming pile of excrescence seriously? To be fair to the Brexiters on CL, I have not read a single positive message about him for years.
Any ideas what might be promoted? I'll start:-
1. Money laundering arranged.
Agree with Prague, haven’t seen any Brexit voters on here that seem to support/back him. Honestly, if you’re one of these people that says ‘oh I quite like Boris’ or ‘he’s funny’, you need your head testing. The bloke is incredulous. We need him as far away from British politics as we do RD from Charlton
Last week he infamously failed to rule out a challenge to Teresa May. He obviously has support within the parliamentary Conservative party and we know that even now after years of bluster and buffoonery he is popular in the constituency parties. It is alarming and incredulous in equal measure.
Incidentally I told my boys of you, @PragueAddick, texting Johnson about the Olympic Stadium (following conference app fuck up) and they thought it was brilliant.
They may still be covert supporters of him though, justified to themselves that he deserves support because he is not Corbyn or Abbott.
I see on Marr this morning that May is persisting with her Chequers sales pitch, like trying to sell an orange covered in green mould on the basis that it is the only orange available. The government position that it is down to the EU to make genetics is laughable. The UK voted to leave, geddit brexiters?
Then we have the leave without a deal scenario, and May did not counter what Marr said about the practical disasters that will follow, she did not call them project fear.
I'm sure everyone across the United Kingdom will join Theresa May in celebrating this.
If she's still in office.
And if the United Kingdom still exists.
Gibraltar's experience exposes British Brexit lies
The Spain-Gibraltar border shows what a customs-union divide looks like
Some of the titles still on the shelves of the old Garrison Library in Gibraltar: Charles Mayer’s Jungle Beasts I Have Captured; GP Sanderson’s Thirteen Years Among the Wild Beasts of India; the Maharajah of Cooch Behar’s Shooting in Cooch Behar: A Record of Thirty-Seven Years of Sport and my favourite, Major AE Wardrop’s Modern Pig-Sticking.
The library was founded in 1793 and remained as a refined retreat for the officers of the British military garrison until 2011. Inside the elegant Georgian building, there is a stellar gathering of historians at a conference called Bordering on Brexit, itself part of a wider project called “Embers of Empire”.
Outside, looming above the lush back garden, is the massive Jurassic bulk of the Rock of Gibraltar surmounted by a huge union jack on which, I can report, the sun does actually set. Few places on Earth are at once so imposingly real and so utterly symbolic.
Gibraltar is, in a sense, all border. Its historic importance is that it marks and controls the border between the Atlantic and Mediterranean oceans. And its contemporary importance is that, along with the Irish Border, it will be, after Brexit, the other land frontier between the European Union and British territory.
In that regard, it has some things to tell us about both the physical realities of Brexit and the complexities of the post-imperial Britishness that surround it. For just as “no hard border” has entered our political phrasebook, the Gibraltarian government says of Brexit that its priority “will be to give people certainty on the fluidity of the frontier” with Spain.
In a sense, the Gibraltar border is a massively simplified version of our own. From the top of the Rock, you can look down and see it all laid out: the Spanish town of La Linea, the narrow isthmus, the border fence and the runway of the Gibraltar airport that almost immediately abuts it.
Politically, it is a frontier almost as fraught as our own: Spain does not accept long-term British sovereignty over the Rock and also disputes the area on which the airport was built. But geographically, it could not be more straightforward. It is 1.2km long compared to Ireland’s 500km. It has a single, controlled crossing point, compared to 208 official crossings on our island and an infinite number of unofficial ones. If ours is the Finnegans Wake of frontiers, this is Borders for Dummies.
Border infrastructure
But even so, the first thing you see when you come out of Gibraltar airport is the very thing we never want to see again in Ireland: physical border infrastructure. It is relatively small and it is pleasantly topped on the southern side by the flags of the UK, Gibraltar and the EU but it is exactly what you would expect to see if you were crossing, for example, from the United States to Canada or from France to Switzerland: buildings, barriers, police, border guards.
This is striking because, for now, both sides of this border are in the EU. How can this be? The reason is highly significant from an Irish point of view: Gibraltar, when it joined the Common Market along with Britain and Ireland, stayed out of the customs union.
So what you’re seeing when you look at the Gibraltar border is exactly what the line between a member of the customs union (Spain) and a non-member looks like. You are not just looking at the present, you are looking at what, without a satisfactory deal on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, is Ireland’s future.
It is true, of course, that Gibraltar is not in the Schengen travel area while Spain is, so there are passport checks. Assuming, as everyone does, that the Common Travel Area between Britain and Ireland remains intact after Brexit, this will not be our problem.
But even if Gibraltar and Spain were not in different travel areas, they would still have to have the same infrastructure because of customs checks. Since the British government insists that Northern Ireland must leave the customs union, the situation will in this regard be the same.
And this raises a very stark question: if the British know of some magical technological way to have a customs frontier with no physical infrastructure, why have they not already applied it in Gibraltar?
The other obvious thing about the Gibraltar border is that it is inescapably political. In one sense, what has happened here in recent decades is very similar to what has happened on our island. This frontier was so bitterly contested that Spain, under General Franco, closed it entirely between 1969 and 1985, ironically solidifying the British identity of the enclave’s indigenous people. cont..