The post Brexit border should be between Northern Ireland/Scotland and England

Should a proposed withdrawal be agreed with Northern Ireland still part of the United Kingdom but remaining within, not the EU but remaining on selected aspects within the single market and customs union of the EU, then why also not Scotland on the same selected aspects?

It is a question that Nicola Sturgeon can rightly ask and expect to come about, as she is asking but it is not a focus of the BBC’s opinion promoters. If one part of the UK can be treated differently in relation to the EU whilst remaining within the UK then so can Scotland.

The EU border (the significance is lost by calling it the “Irish border”) would then not cut through the North Channel but cross over the Irish Sea to the English and Scottish border with Northern Ireland and Scotland, outside the EU — but for the purpose of trade remaining, unlike England and Wales, under certain aspect of the single market and customs union rules.

This foot in and foot out, for an indefinite time period, until either the EU reforms itself, perhaps through a greater political integration of the Euro-Zone, whether or not along the lines proposed by the Greek economist, Yannis Varouflakis, or else it implodes in its present contradictions.

Contradictions that allows Greek businesses under the single market to be taxed in neighbouring Bulgaria with its lower corporation tax whilst the Greek population meets the cost. That, too, might be something that, in addition to the EU border, Simon Coveney might be saying that “we and our European partners have agreed to” in selling whatever he has to sell at the moment.

Wm A Miller,

Belfast BT13