The UK press is reporting right now that Leo Varadkar and Theresa May are working on plans to make the Irish border frictionless. Once that is solved, they will move on to perpetual energy machines. I made up that last bit.
I've remarked before that not even a crack team of fintech content marketing experts could make the Irish border frictionless, but here we are again. In fairness, Leo did concede that making the border frictionless was going to be the 'tricky bit'. This is a colossal understatement, but the Taoiseach does have problems getting a grip on the reality of The Irish Border. Back in December last year, the EU and the UK agreed that the Irish border solution was so complicated and vexed that the best solution to the Irish border problem, as far as December 2018 was concerned, was to kick it down the road a bit - actually, right as far as the transition talks, so preferably no earlier than 2019, or even better when both of them have left office and no longer need to deal with it. Leo Varadkar described this massive fudge as a "cast iron guarantee" and "bulletproof" (WTF?).
Despite all the political noise, the UK has voted for and clearly stated that it is leaving the Customs Union, and no matter how many times Michel Barnier asks the UK to clarify if they want to leave the customs union or not, this is not going to change. I don't have a complete understanding of international trade, customs or tariffs, but I do understand that once the UK leaves the EU, there is going to be some kind of border between the "no-longer-in-the-EU" country that is the UK and the EU itself. And that is going to require, well, some friction-y stuff, like police. And customs officers. Some form-filling. In time, this may be described as frictionless.
In better news, The Irish Border now has its own Twitter account, and Thank God it signed up before a malevolent bot got to the address first.
