What do we want? Don’t know. When do we want it? Not sure!

WHEN he visited Northern Ireland, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union David Davis made it very clear that he could not envisage a situation whereby there would be a return to a ‘hard border’ between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

In other words, he doesn’t want to see a return to check points and border control once Britain leaves the European Union but that doesn’t seem to be feasible according to a former commissioner and indeed the Irish Prime Minister.

Firstly Peter Sutherland a former politician and businessman who was a commissioner with the EU and is now associated with the United Nations, responded to Mr Davis’ comments which he called nonsense by saying “I am absolutely mystified, not for the first time in this debate, about what is coming out of London.”

His argument being that if Britain withdraws from the Union then goods moving between Britain and a member state will have to be inspected, unless and until some formal agreement to the contrary is entered into.

Then on Monday September 12, Irish premier Enda Kenny made it clear that he and his EU colleagues did not believe that Britain would be able to dictate the terms of its exit and if there was no agreement for freedom of movement for EU citizens, then there will be no trade deal and indeed a ‘hard border’ would regrettably exist between the Eire and Ulster.

He indicated that he believed that the British government didn’t really know what it wanted from Brexit.

As Northern Ireland voted ‘en masse’ to remain within the Union it shouldn’t be too long before Republicans start demanding a united Ireland within the framework of the European Union.