The "any tweak to the existing cross border trading arrangements will destroy the peace process and bring back the IRA" is entirely bogus.
Probably best to dial down the hyperbole. No-one has said the IRA was coming back. But it doesn't take a genius to recognize that any border infrastructure or installations would not be subject to targeting, and anybody operating them, at some point in the future.
Every PSNI security assessment of the last few years has stated the threat from militant republicans is at its highest.
This is somewhat borne out in recent attempts to murder PSNI officers and of course, the tragic murder of Lyra McKee.
The point about the border is, why offer another target, why do something that is symbolically provocative? When there is absolutely no need to do so?
Not just me saying so. Dan O'Brien and Eoghan Harris of the Sindo have been beating this drum for some time now.
Dan is looking to the economic impact, which is fair enough. But he is shallow when it comes to the political impact. As for Harris, I respect that he is considered somewhat an intellectual, but his bitterness toward anything SF support is his Achilles heel. Since his own IRA/Communist days floundered, he has been prepared to sell out every principle he ever had if he considered it to do damage to the Provos.
I remember the civil rights movement in NI. The banners shouted One Man One Vote.
The burning issues were discrimination in housing, in public sector appointments, protestant domination of the main industries, a sectarian police force.
Yes, so what?
I may not be old enough to remember the civil rights movement, but im conscious of the impact the border has had on the psyche of this country.
Im aware of how British law was usurped through the threat of violence from UVF and to the behest of a Unionist minority to create the border in the first place. The concept of exclusively peaceful and democratic means were discarded by the British.
WWI was the lamentable excuse for suspending the Home Rule parliament, a parliament to be led by John Redmond who advocated for and encouraged the lives of Irish nationalists to join the war effort with Britain as an act of loyalty to the British crown.
That betrayal resonated profoundly paving the way for the Rising and subsequent war for independence.
Im aware of the nasty Civil war that followed the introduction of partition that would divide a generation of Irish people, families and communities against one another.
Im aware of the futile, but fatal IRA 'border' campaign in the late 1950's pre-dating the Civil rights movement.
Im aware of the Troubles and the sectarian murder campaign carried out by the IRA along the border against Protestants.
Im aware of resistance of local communities to border crossings being closed, blocked off or destroyed by British Army inflicting undue hardship on the economies of rural communities.
Nobody was in the least bit exercised by the long queues at the border,
Must have been a phenomenon. Nobody put out by long queues! The were probably just happy to get there stash of smuggled goods across!