The Irish border is a matter of life and death, not technology | Fintan O’Toole | Opinion | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/08/brexit-irish-border-technology
▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f5fca6e3685824d8b9bba53fab53c341781ad774/0_224_6720_4032/master/6720.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali
“Spaff some money on some geeks.” According to Chris Cook’s excellent account of Theresa May’s Brexit negotiations with Brussels, that was the instruction issued to the civil service by May’s enforcer Fiona Hill in late 2016.
It had finally dawned on the British government that it had committed itself to two incompatible things. One was that under no circumstances would there be a return to a hard border between the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The other was that all of the UK was going to leave the EU’s customs union. May faced exactly the same problem that her successor Boris Johnson is struggling with: you can do one or other of these things but you cannot do both. If Northern Ireland leaves the customs union, there will be border controls.