It wouldn't really be a 'new' border though; NI and Eire had border controls from 1922 to 1998, so well into the EEC-EU era. I often had to show my passport on the coach from Belfast to Dublin. My grandparents remembered having to declare NI bacon on the train crossing at Carlingford.
With over 200 border crossing points it wasn't 100% enforced, though.
No, I meant "new" as in, "it wasn't there last year" :) I'm old enough to remember the border, and "the troubles" too.
I also believe the removal of the border was a large factor in the cessation of hostilities, and the reason it's such a hot topic now.
> With over 200 border crossing points it wasn't 100% enforced, though.
My uncle used to have a house (he described it as such, to call it a shack would have been generous) in the south of France close to the Spanish border. Before freedom of movement they used to just walk into Spain as and when they pleased.
The only reason they voted for Brexit was because they think it means they can get rid of all the migrants, they tell me this quite regularly.
One of them moved here from Bahrain, though apparently this means their family were ex-pats, not migrants. The other is from a long line of Christian overseas missionaries.
If they thought for a second that Brexit would mean leaving the border with Northern Ireland wide open, they would be screaming blue murder.
The UK is leaving the EU, borders are implicit in that, and bi-directional. You don't get to leave the EU and not leave the EU.
Can you cite the Poland/Russia thing? I searched but couldn't find anything. edit You referenced https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland%E2%80%93Russia_border in another post.
> Because Kaliningrad Oblast is small, homogeneous and an exclave within the European Union
That's not the same as the NI situation.
Regardless, the EU is negotiating in it's best interests, as anyone could predict it would. If I were French or German or whatever I'd want to get the best deal possible in the negotiations. No-one is going to give us any favours here, everything we want we've got to make happen ourselves. If the EU is using the Irish border as a bargaining position then that's what they should be doing, in the best interests of the citizens remaining in the EU.
As somoene who grew up in the UK with the IRA blowing up bits of the country, some rather close to me, I disagree. It's likely that the communities that would be split by a new border in Ireland would disagree too.
The EU is negotiating in it's best interests, as is the UK. There aren't going to be any favours traded on either side.