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Comment by chillydawg | Hacker News Reader

One quite important issue is the border. English and Scottish people will almost certainly never tolerate any kind of friction at that border. We've been moving across it seamlessly for centuries, families are mixed, businesses straddle the border, etc. If the Northern Ireland debacle has shown us anything, it's if Scotland were to leave and then join the EU that border would become an absolute political nightmare. The EU has an absolutist position on border integrity, but locals have an absolutist position of border porosity. I don't think there's a compromise that both sides could tolerate.

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Really, what makes you say that?

English is not my first language, but I personally thought the Irish border would've also been important in the Brexit referendum, considering you had a 30 year pseudo-civil war over that same border.

But the British people straight up ignored that little issue and here we are today at the precipice of a trade war and breaking up the Good Friday Agreement.

Compared to terrorism and civil war I would think the inconvenience of a Scottish border is an inconsequential problem.

The border problem in Ireland was originally settled by a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK (until the UK found it didn't like what it agreed to anymore). I'm really not an expert on anything in that field, but a border between Scotland and the EU similar to the Northern Irish one should resolve that problem, making Scotland able to join the EU with an open border to the UK, no?

The movement of people isn't really a big deal due to the Common Travel Area (which you've got to assume an independent Scotland would be in). But movement of goods would be a huge problem, as Northern Ireland is showing right now.

Right but it's not the English and Scottish people who will decide this. It's whoever happens to be at the helm in Scotland and rUK. If it's the Tories in charge down south (spoiler: barring any monumental shift in Labour policy and attitude, it will be) then they've witnessed that the post-brexit chaos and uncertainty has left them relatively unscathed - they can basically do what they like and it would not surprise me in the slightest if they were extremely hard-line and punitive in negotiation over how the country splits.

Maybe not quite as extreme as the Anglo-Irish trade war, but it won't be pretty.

> The EU has an absolutist position on border integrity

And do you have an opinion about UK position on border integrity?

There would be a hard border, which would become relatively efficient over time but cause real disruption. The use of the Euro in Scotland would cause friction for trade. More and more Scottish imports would come from Europe instead. England would continue to import from Scotland as it has no attractive alternative.

Realistically there are only two paths forward for England anyway: either the EU will fail completely, or England will eventually be forced to rejoin. So the border will only be temporary.

well, we can see that trouble around Northern Ireland. Currnetly there is a somewhat border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to keep the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland limited. But that state can't really work for a United Kingdom.

If() an independent Scotland would happen to join the EU there wouldnhave to be somenborder to UK (whatever is remaining) as well.

) I think before anybody (Balkan countries, Turkey, Ukraine, Scotland, ...) can join EU the EU requires some reform and decision on what it actually wants to be, so I don't see the fast path, even though Scotland fulfills most EU standards when starting with current British law, as it was shaped along with EU

Another way to look at the Northern Ireland precedent, is that a compromise was found. People could argue that the same text can be reused.

The text they are currently trying to rip up against the will of the EU? The only viable solution is that the UK rejoins the EU or becomes subservient to it... but neither will happen anytime soon.

You do realise that the UK is trying to break that NI protocol unilaterally? That is a very poor example right now.

A compromise that Johnson is now unilaterally reneging on. Apparently somebody figured out that it is actually the same compromise that was rejected when presented by Teresa May. No workable solution has been found for Northern Ireland.

At least England/Scotland border doesn't have the bagage of the troubles, but it'll still be a mess.

In addition to the other points, the GFA was used to create a democratic starting point for Ireland and Northern Ireland to decide their own future after an antagonistic history with Britain. Even without Brexit, that process hasn't ended. It's not a desirable end-goal.

> The EU has an absolutist position on border integrity

What does that mean?

There's Schengen, but there are also EU countries which aren't in Schengen...

Border policy as it applies to the external EU borders.

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