The Problem: The Irish Border

The current linguistic troubles are being generated by the logjam over the border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and Ireland, which will remain in the European Union. Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain is under pressure to guarantee that, after Brexit, there will be no border checks between the two. This is harder than it sounds.

Currently, as both sides are members of the European Union, trade flows over the border unimpeded, thanks to their membership in the single market and customs union. But after Brexit, this presumably will no longer hold, since Britain has pledged to leave the single market and customs union, and set up its own rules and standards. But no one wants the “hard border” that existed until it was dismantled as part of the peace process that ended the sectarian fighting in the late 1990s.

So the question becomes how to thread the needle. How can trade keep flowing freely — which requires that the European Union and United Kingdom have pretty much the same rules and standards — after Brexit, when the point of leaving is for the United Kingdom to establish rules and standards independently of the European Union?