Irish Brexit issue cannot be solved by tech alone

Former UK govt official says planning for no-deal is like preparing for crisis

LONDON: No technology solution exists or can alone solve the issue of preventing a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic after Britain leaves the EU, the British official who was in charge of Brexit border preparations said on Wednesday.

Karen Wheeler, who left her role as Director General of Britain’s Cross Government Border Delivery Group last week, also said planning for a no-deal Brexit had felt like preparing for a crisis and even if the government was ready, it could not ensure the same for the industry and businesses.

“When government says it’s as ready as it can be, it is mostly saying we’ve done everything that we can,” she said. “What it doesn’t mean is everything will be fine.”

Three years after Britons voted narrowly in a referendum to leave the European Union, Britain is still wrangling over how and when to leave.

Prime Minister Theresa May will leave her job later this month having failed three times to secure parliamentary backing for her EU withdrawal treaty. The main sticking point was concern over the Irish “backstop”, an insurance policy to prevent having border controls on the island of Ireland by tying the UK to EU rules until a new trade deal was agreed.

Eliminating a hard border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, and Ireland and providing frictionless trade was a crucial part of a 1998 peace deal that ended three decades of sectarian violence.

More than technology

Wheeler said the issue would require more than technology. “A lot is talked about technology at the border and technology solutions. I think alternative arrangements are intended to try to find technology solutions,” she said.

“Technology alone is not going to solve that border problem, it needs to be around other arrangements as well.”

Britain was originally due to leave the EU on March 29 but the exit date was extended to October 31 to allow more time for British lawmakers to agree a withdrawal agreement.

Intensive no-deal preparations were scaled down after the March deadline passed and when asked how long a new prime minister would have to step them up, Wheeler said: “Not long. Our view was that we needed to start getting preparations ready to go in July in order to be ready for October 31.”

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4^th, 2019.

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