Amazing outcome in the early hours of today. Still getting my head around it. Northern Ireland citizens who have Irish passports will retain all their rights as EU citizens. The British gov have made guarantees ruling out any kind of hard Irish Border. They have signed up to no border infrastructure, and in regulatory terms its as-you-were guaranteed across this island. And they have explained how that's going to happen - its because the same regulatory rules will apply on both sides of the border. "(...in the absence of agreed solutions) the UK will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement". Now or in the future! Looks like not just NI alignment with the rules of both these bodies, but overall UK alignment, in perpetuity, has been made the safety net, the fallback position. Talk about tying your hands! I have read the full document three times now, and I am still in dry mouthed shock. What did the DUP achieve by holding it up?
Is this agent May spiking the Brexit guns while posturing on the deck? These guarantees are unilateral, it's like, this is what the UK will do, and nothing about what Ireland will do or what the EU will do. Anyhow a 'hard' Brexit now seems to be written out of the script, not matter what the outcome of negotiations. 'No deal' also seems to be written out of the script. They move on to Phase Two in what seems a fairly weak position having effectively caved in on all fronts to the EU. The DUP have been shafted and Nigel PUKIP is livid. At the end of this process what will be left of Brexit? Or is there some other interpretation possible?
