The UK was happy to honour the Good Friday agreement by not having border checks at its new land border with the EU, it was entirely the EU which had a problem with it.

This is a total lie. The EU would not allow a hard border on the island of Ireland, as it contravenes the GFA. The only options that were ever on the table were the U.K. being in a customs union or customs border between Britain and NI.

If the U.K. wants to diverge the its regulatory regime then there must be customs checks where they differ, otherwise smuggling will thrive. Case in point, HMRC did a spot check at Dover (where customs checks are not currently applied) and found most lorries had illegal produce in them.

I'm not sure how anything beyond your opening accusation is supposed to contradict what I've said. The party that was unable to reconcile its position with respect to the new border and the Good Friday agreement was the EU, not the UK.

> The UK was happy to honour the Good Friday agreement by not having border checks at its new land border with the EU, it was entirely the EU which had a problem with it.

This entire sentence is a lie. The UK wanted a "magic invisible border" on the island of Ireland. The EU explicitly wanted no border at all on the island of Ireland.

If you're not sure how that contradicts what you said, then I'm sorry that your English comprehension education failed you.

> If the U.K. wants to diverge the its regulatory regime then there must be customs checks where they differ, otherwise smuggling will thrive

Sounds like there are three options (I'm going to talk as if from the UK point of view):

- (1) Same customs laws + No custom checks = My sovereignty is getting violated because I can't change my laws without your permission

- (2) Different customs laws + Customs checks = We both have sovereignty and our regulations are enforced, but violent people who hate the border will attack it and kill people; that seems bad.

- (3) Different customs laws + No border = I make my own laws, and I choose to find violators at weigh stations, when pulling over people for traffic offenses, or by inspectors at the final destination (British equivalent of USDA?) I don't care enough about enforcement to check everyone, so I'm not going to make a border. If you care so much about checking everyone, you're free to make a border on your own side. Your people can be the ones who do the dying when the violent border haters attack. We both know a border here will cost lives, I don't think it's worth it, you do, I do what I think is right on my side, you do what you think is right on your side. That's how the concept of having different countries works.

Option (3) seems pretty reasonable to me.

> Option (3) seems pretty reasonable to me.

Only if you live in a fantasy world. The EU outright did not want this as a "solution" so they rejected it. The UK is actually doing something like this at this very moment. The result? We're currently allowing dangerous food into the country.

Your descriptions of options 1 and 2 are total nonsense from the moment you use the word "sovereignty." Nobody's sovereignty is violated by making an agreement, any more than your freedom is violated when you abide by the terms of a contract you freely agreed.

> We're currently allowing dangerous food into the country.

I would personally eat food that passes UK regulations (but not EU regulations), or EU regulations (but not UK regulations).

Are there reports of increased food poisoning attributed to Brexit? (I'm thinking along the lines of either an individual incident report saying "if only this meat had been inspected, it would have been pulled, and these people wouldn't have gotten sick," or a statistical study based on e.g. ER visits per capita for food poisoning symptoms.)

If there's no evidence of people actually getting sick, calling such food "dangerous" seems like fearmongering.

> I would personally eat food that passes UK regulations (but not EU regulations), or EU regulations (but not UK regulations).

The food has not passed either UK or EU standards checks. EU health and customs bodies do not check food destined for the UK market. And neither do the UK equivalents.

Here is the newspaper report where the spot check was carried out: https://www.kentonline.co.uk/dover/news/uk-risks-food-safety...

So yes, there is evidence that the food is dangerous.

Yeah, strange, that a party that wants all the benefits but also to be allowed to ignore the obligations of a customs union (like following the food safety regulations of that union) couldn't get its way... /s

Is it, though? Are you ignoring the entire issue of now needing an economic border either between the Irelands, or between Northern Ireland and Great Britain?

Bitterness aside, the island being split in two makes no sense from an outsider.

Does Singapore make more sense? Papua New Guinea? Alaska, for that matter? All borders seem pretty arbitrary when you get down to it, but it's hardly alone in being a weird bit at the end of a bigger bit where one or other is part of a detached bit.

I don't know about Singapore or Papua New Guinea. We could get philosophical about Alaska, but the geo/demo-graphic situations are completely different from Ireland.

This is an island smaller than Ohio with five million people on it - people with a shared history going back many hundreds of years and seeming to not want to be separated.

Brexit threw a wrench in the idea of a seamless border between the Republic of Ireland and the UK. You either have a customs border between the islands of Ireland and GB, or you have a customs border between the Republic and the North. I don't see how it feasibly goes any other way, and neither of those make all parties happy.

> people with a shared history going back many hundreds of years and seeming to not want to be separated

Many people in Northern Ireland—a narrow majority at the moment—consider themselves to be British and do not want to be separated from the UK. That's why it's such a tricky problem.

This almost sounds like a parody of American meddling and ignorance, complete with the US state population comparison.

Not saying you don't have a point (I have no skin in the game) but I read thousands of similar western comments about various countries "smaller than $state!" and they're never helpful.

If it makes it any better, I wasn't trying to be helpful, I was trying to understand Ireland and someone else started whatabouting with other countries and states.

You see, people sometimes use familiar locations or factual references to draw comparisons to other items or places.