Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre
Well that's they're going to have to work out. I'm sure there is an answer if they think hard enough.
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Sure but that does seem quite hard. Do we know of any open borders across zones that do not have a customs union? At least for economies the size of ours?
It seems at the very least it's difficult which is what the backstop is about. Until we solve that the backstop remains which is why a time limited version seems to destroy the point of it.
But changing the question why is the backstop so horrible anyway? If it is this easy then the deal will be sorted in the transition period. Thus making the backstop redundant. If it is difficult then we'll be a customs union for goods with our closet and biggest trading partner who also happen to be one of the biggest, soon to be the biggest, trading block in the world. Because of the distance and the size of the economies it's unlikely we'll ever have a trading destination that exceeds the EU in our lifetimes. At least not for physical goods.
In all the things that people wanted from Brexit May's agreement delivers nearly all of it and the one part it doesn't could be sorted later. It's there ready to go having been agreed with the EU and the backstop for the
whole of the UK was a concession to us.