On Chris Grayling and borders

Last night on Question Time, Chris Grayling said that without doubt, there would be no hard border at Dover. So there was nothing to worry about. Mr Grayling is infamous for being the worse Lord Chancellor of all time, a man so incompetent that all Michael Gove had to do as his successor was to reverse all of Graylings policies.

So, anything Grayling says we should treat as being very dodgy.

And a reminder that if Britain is not in or a member of either the or a CU or SM, then a border will have to exist due to WTO and EU rules, this gets worse if Britain signs some kind of deal with the USA, then more checks like rules of origin checks will need to be carried out. At any rate, checks on compliance with with EU will have to take place. There is no doubt this is going to happen if Britain just has a FTA with the EU. Current document checks take 2 minutes, a simple doubling of that time will result in permanent 30 mile queues in Kent. You don't need to be a genius to work out that if checks take longer, then the queues will be longer still.

Today, a Commons committee which contained 3 DUP MPs reported on global orders and which solution(s) could be applied to the Irish border. Their conclusion is there is no border anywhere in the world, whose method of operation could be applied to the Irish border to avoid it being hard. They said "“was unable to identify any border solution currently in operation across the globe that would enable physical infrastructure to be avoided” given the Govt decision to leave the Customs Union & Single Mkt". And adding The @CommonsNIAC said the Govt “will not have the time to implement a new non-visible customs regime before withdrawal day” on the Irish border... Given the @CommonsNIAC report it is clear there is no alternative to staying in the Customs Union and Single Market when it comes to avoiding a hard border in Ireland if Brexit happens. There can be no other conclusion.

So there you have it.

Also, international arrest warrants will not work if issued in the UK, unless there is a new agreement, these will not be legal in the EU, however,EU issued ones would be legal in the UK. But it means that criminals could not be extradited to UK f found in the EU.

The Government has been conducting consultations with freight companies and organisations over how cross border trade might operate in a post Brexit Europe, and are enforcing those companies and organisations to sign comprehensive NDAs, so not to leak what is being planned. This is pretty unpresented stuff, only this morning some of the plans were leaked, and the great fallback position, in the event of a no deal, is for there to be no border controls at all.

Yes, you read that right. No controls. At all.

At least on the UK side. The EU would enforce all ther and WTO rules as stated above. Things is, under WTO rules, unless there is a most favoured nation agreement with the EU, then what UK did to EU trade would have to do to all other WTO members, no checks on incoming goods. Think about that.

And how dies that "plan" tie in with the Brexit mantra of taking back control? Taking back control by having no control? Everything is sacrificed on the altar of Brexit.