Not necessarily "large scale", but it's hard to leave the EU customs union without introducing a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and specifically not having a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland was part of the peace agreement that ended the Troubles.

I disagree. The Single Market is what is very hard to get out of without a hard border on the Irish border. Customs documentation can be addressed away from the border and is potentially fixed with technology, but the necessity of physical checks for standards conformance that cannot be fudged is the real problem.

Right, though technically the EU insists on a border, not the UK.

One of the main pillars of Brexit voters was immigration control.

So, we're going to ruin the entire country to get immigration controls (and destroy trade, and cut ourselves off politically, socially, and from the scientific communities, and...) then just leave the border open?

That's like burning down your luxury rental accommodation because you don't like that exact shade of wallpaper, then moving in to a hovel with graffiti on the walls.

Crossing a legal border physically doesn't give you the right to be there, and work, receive benefits, etc.

So anti-Immigration Brexiteers don't mind illegal aliens?

I doubt that.

A border will do nothing against illegal EU immigration. I doubt any brexit scenario will result in EU nationals requiring a visa to enter the UK (for short term stays). A border is not what will prevent them from overstaying.

Well, nothing is stopping the Republic of Ireland from following the UK. The EU can't even really do anything about it without starting a war, so a sudden surprise exit is entirely possible. This would solve the border issue.

Things would have been much less messy if Brexit had been implemented as a split of the EU, with the UK and Republic of Ireland running their own little 2-member EU government. Scotland could then be allowed to do their split from the UK while remaining in the mini-EU.

Ireland doesn't want to leave the EU. It's entire economy is based on EU membership. And they fought a war of independence in the 1920s specifically to avoid being in a 'mini union' with the UK. This kind of 'it would be easier if everyone did our bidding' thinking is one of the reasons exit negotiations with the EU have gone so badly.

The 'war', if it happens, would be a restart of the intractable civil kind among the various NI groups, not EU vs us.

I think Republic of Ireland not wanting to leave is "stopping them". They're much more integrated into Europe than the UK too. Have the euro for example.

Are you English? The sheer ignorance in this response suggest so.

Ireland is a Soverign Country. England made its choice, and now has to live with it. The empire is gone.

Well, that is the EUs problem, not the UKs.

Neither the UK or Ireland will ever ever be the ones the enforce the hard border.

It would have to be the EU enforcing it, if that is what their trade deals demanded. And I sincerely doubt that the EU would be happy with the consequences of them stationing troops on that border.

Both the UK and Ireland have stated that they will not be enforcing a hard border.

I thought immigration was one of the issues that was driving Brexit. How can they control immigration from the EU if they don't have border enforcement? There is something I'm missing here.

Make people fill out proof-of-right-to-work-in-the-country paperwork when they get employed and proof-of-right-to-live-in-the-country paperwork when they rent or buy housing. That's essentially what most countries do. Border security is definitely helpful--especially if you want to deter outright criminals from trafficking drugs and human beings--but it's not sufficient, because if you enter the country on a time-limited visa and your visa expires, you still need a mechanism for that.

Literally not enforcing the Irish border and relying on everyone having their paperwork in order when they deliver truckloads of goods or apply for jobs or whatever isn't a completely insane idea. There's a moderate risk of UK tariffs and trade barriers being circumvented by people smuggling Czech stereo systems across the Irish border in an unmarked van and selling them on the streets of Liverpool, but maybe that's okay.

The penalties for failing to enforce border checks (in the absence of a trade deal) would be severe.

On the end both sides want control over what's entering their country.

If the EU started allowing shady companies to export whatever tainted foodstuff they happen to have into the UK, we'd see English soldiers at the border real quick.

I was the OP - my thinking is that things are trending poorly.

The west and what it stands for is threatened both directly (Russian involvement in attacking elections both in the US, in the UK with brexit, and elsewhere) and indirectly (rise of authoritarian power/censorship in China). This is ignoring smaller, but still violent direct threats like ISIS.

With the remaining powerful moderates in Europe struggling (Merkel, Macron) and extremists waiting at the sidelines to be elected, increased nationalism and division from brexit could lead to more instability creating a situation where a large scale conflict is more likely or a west that isn't as united and can't respond as well to aggression from Russia.

It'll be 'war' within individual nations, leading to increased chaos within the entire EU system. Which is what is taking place in France right now in limited form. Take a look at GDP per capita growth since 2007:

https://i.imgur.com/PwGHIWH.png

Countries with negative or near-negative per capita growth since 2007 (as of the end of 2018) in nominal terms:

Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, France, UK, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Austria, Finland, Belgium, Greece

The sole positive result? Germany, a mere 6-7% GDP per capita growth over a decade. In non-inflation adjusted terms, since 2007. Inflation adjusted those other nations have seen that much larger of a contraction.

That's a recipe for disaster in Europe.

How long can most of Western Europe continue to contract economically while social demands increase with aging demographics? It's fundamentally why France is rioting for these past two months, they're being smashed between high taxes, negative growth, and negative quality of life progress.

The UK's GDP per capita has contracted by 20% since 2007 just in nominal terms. Throw a tiny bit of inflation onto that, and you're looking at the UK losing 1/3 of its economy in dollar terms over ~11 years or so. Continue that process for another decade and the result is predictable: people will freak out in increasingly dramatic ways.

But war will not cause any economic expansion, nor would breaking of the EU, quite the opposite. If you can show how lack of EU would lead to better results, do provide a good and credible analysis, maybe something can be used and salvaged.

Each and every country would face the same problem, separately and with interesting various plans bbut no negotiation position compared to China or Russia or US. Even Germany or France alone would have serious problems negotiating with these economic powers.

Positive action like promoting internal market, good trade deals, subsidizing and making it easier to run manufacturing again, rebalancing from pure services. Pooling resources. It is what EU all offers much better than any individual country could... even then it it's just not enough.

You cannot outmaneuver 3/4 of the planetary manpower ever without a serious technological gap, and that is closing or already has closed. Even with Russian force and resources they will ultimately fail to dominate. US with their remaining tech lead is already failing...

What exactly does "the West" stand for, in your view? Your hyperbolic framing of Russia's "involvement" in 2016 aside (you make it sound like it was large scale cyberwar, which it wasn't), Russia would now start a global war in Europe that would very likely go nuclear because ... the West isn't "standing up to it"?

>a large scale conflict is more likely or a west that isn't as united and can't respond as well to aggression from Russia.

The default foreign policy consensus appears to be that anything Russia does is "bad" and should be opposed, perhaps militarily. This is nonsense, and really is a "Cold War mindset" that is not applicable in a post-9/11 environment.

> What exactly does "the West" stand for, in your view?

Freedom of expression/speech, free press, representative democracy, independent court system, individual (women/minority) rights. There are other things like not being a religious theocracy, but I think the first few cover the most general important pieces.

> you make it sound like it was large scale cyberwar, which it wasn't

Evidence suggests it was large scale and directed by Putin through the Russian IRA [1], though it was likely more effective than even they expected (and more of a disinformation campaign than a cyber war).

"But it quickly became clear that the Russians had used a different model for their influence campaign: posting inflammatory messages and relying on free, viral spread. Even by the vertiginous standards of social media, the reach of their effort was impressive: 2,700 fake Facebook accounts, 80,000 posts, many of them elaborate images with catchy slogans, and an eventual audience of 126 million Americans on Facebook alone. That was not far short of the 137 million people who would vote in the 2016 presidential election."

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/20/us/politics/r...

> Russia would now start a global war in Europe that would very likely go nuclear because ... the West isn't "standing up to it"?

I'm not suggesting they'd start a global war, but they're targeting NATO allied countries by influencing elections towards instability. Maybe it's just to free up access to their funds by trying to get rid of the Magnitsky Act [2], but if they wanted to more aggressively take over Ukraine or do something else hostile increased global instability might lead to something larger.

Obviously these things are hard to predict, but only a couple years prior to WWI people said the connected world economy made large scale conflict impossible. [3]

"A 1910 best-selling book, The Great Illusion, used economic arguments to demonstrate that territorial conquest had become unprofitable, and therefore global capitalism had removed the risk of major wars. This view, broadly analogous to the modern factoid that there has never been a war between two countries with a MacDonald’s outlet, became so well established that, less than a year before the Great War broke out, the Economist reassured its readers with an editorial titled “War Becomes Impossible in Civilized World.”"

> This is nonsense, and really is a "Cold War mindset"

It's not that anything they do is bad, but if you read about the people in power there from those that have interacted with them like Bill Browder, Gary Kasparov, and others - (in addition to the Russian government's current behavior) it suggests that they're not a government interested in rule of law.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnitsky_Act

[3] http://blogs.reuters.com/anatole-kaletsky/2014/06/27/world-w...

>"A 1910 best-selling book, The Great Illusion, used economic arguments to demonstrate that territorial conquest had become unprofitable, and therefore global capitalism had removed the risk of major wars. This view, broadly analogous to the modern factoid that there has never been a war between two countries with a MacDonald’s outlet, became so well established that, less than a year before the Great War broke out, the Economist reassured its readers with an editorial titled “War Becomes Impossible in Civilized World.”"

It's worth noting that both Serbia and Ukraine had McDonalds. Hell, even Panama had a few when the USA invaded them.

But I'm not sure what it has to do with Brexit.

Quite a bit. The UK is a nuclear power of sorts, has always been seen as a major player in NATO and is one of the more powerful countries in the EU from a military point of view.

They didn't quit NATO though. However if they're reticent to involve themselves as they usually were historically... not that useful of an ally.