Theresa May and the Unionist politicians of Northern Ireland are somewhat disingenuous when it comes to their argument that there should be no border down the Irish Sea. They have similarly selective memory when it comes to arguments about tax alignment with the Republic. What they forget is that for much of the last decade they have been arguing for that tax alignment. And they were well aware that this would create a border down the Irish Sea. And so successful were they in pursuing their argument that law to achieve these goals was passed in 2015. As a House of Commons Library paper noted this year:
In March 2015 Parliament passed the Corporation Tax (Northern Ireland) Act 2015 which, subject to commencement regulations, will devolve corporation tax rate setting powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Government has committed to commencing the regime if the NI Executive demonstrates its finances are on a sustainable footing. This note discusses the development of the Government's policy and the wider debate over corporate tax competition.
Note the last point: Northern Ireland wanted a divide from the rest of the UK. That is what tax competition implies.
I long opposed this move. As I noted in 2010 in one of many blogs on this issue on which I broadcast often in Northern Ireland at the time:
The simple fact is that the Republic does not just compete on tax rate — it does in effect offer many companies a zero tax base so they pay nothing at all in the Republic. Which is a major reason for their current economic malaise. And unless Northern Ireland want to go the same way they'd be most unwise to follow.
Those promoting the alternative idea — that the rate be cut — include the Taxpayer's Alliance, KPMG and local big business - are of course either indifferent to government itself or are acting out of self interest for a particular section of society — the owners of capital. But this factional view is an inappropriate basis for determining tax policy — which has to be based on the interest of the community as a whole. And as experience in the Republic has convincingly proved, when the state recedes — as it would have to if this proposal were adopted — the private sector does not rush in to fill the void. It flees in the face of falling demand. As a result you might get smakller government — the Taxpayer's Alliance's sole interest — but you also get an impoverished society.
Northern Ireland wanted division, in other words. And they got it in 2015.
The reality is that the absence of a government in Northern Ireland has delayed implementation of this measure. That does not stop it being law. Nor does it stop the fact that the precedent of Northern Ireland being in tax alignment with the Republic has been set. And, as I outlined in some detail in 2010, the consequence was a requirement for an effective border in the Irish Sea.
May knows this.
I know May is playing games.
And we're all paying the price for that.
Borders that can exist when it suits Unionism and not when they don't do not need respecting.
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Has there ever been a time when a territory was given independence even though they didn’t want it. With children it seems so natural to want to move on when you’re in your late teens, but if they’re of sound mind and body and won’t break the dependency then we discretely work on chucking them out.
I think this is what May is doing on NI.
Jang Sung Taek says:
“…….we discretely work on chucking them out.
I think this is what May is doing on NI…..”
What and give away her most ardent (some might say ‘rabid’) political allies and her majority in the House ? Seriously ? And a piece of Empire territory. ?
You might be right, but I don’t see it.
I also doubt Mrs May’s ability to form any kind of strategic policy aim which is other than pragmatically reactive. It’s not her style.
There is a net fiscal transfer in excess of £10 billion a year to Northern Ireland. It’s time for a green coach to go around the country with the message “We give £200 million every week to NI; half of the people there don’t really want to be in the UK; the other half hold views that hark back to the 1600s; let’s give the money to the NHS instead.”
Governing politicians, senior policy-makers, opinion formers and academics with public standing in Ireland are starting to get very twitchy about the economic ramifications of unity. Maintaining a similar fiscal transfer would put a huge squeeze on the enormous economic rents being captured by the powerful and influential special interest groups in the south.
I think I sense a touch of irony in there
I hope so
Indeed, there is some irony. Even the Secretary of State had no idea how odd the shibboleths held sacred by both tribes there were before she was appointed or how much they contrast with the normal pursuit of politics on this Island (except, perhaps, for parts of Scotland) and the rest of Ireland. They are actually best left to themselves to sort things out, but they keep throwing their toys out of the pram when the grown-ups are distracted by other things.
In addition, the commitment of the EU’s institutions to maintain the cross-border arrangements (that go beyond anything elsewhere in the Union) should not be underestimated.
However, the fear of the economic and security implications of Irish unity gripping Official Ireland is very real.
Taxes are one thing, but more generally Northern Ireland has a completely distinct set of laws within the UK, just like Scotland (and I would argue now Wales). As I understand it, statue law in Northern Ireland is largely based on pre-1925 UK legislation (much like it was in the Republic after independence, although they have been updating and relegislating more there). There is a separate High Court and Court of Appeal. Have you heard of the form of property tenure known as the “fee farm grant”? And then there is the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of political opinion.
With devolution, the differences are growing. Just like Scotland, there is already a separate Welsh Land Transaction Tax instead of SDLT, and Landfill Disposals Tax instead of landfill tax, and from next year Wales could vary the rate of income tax much like Scotland. There is a separate Welsh Revenue Authority. https://beta.gov.wales/welsh-revenue-authority
No doubt Northern Ireland could do all of that that if they wished too (and if they had a functioning devolved government). But you don’t hear many people complaining about the imposition of a tax border between England and Scotland or England and Wales.
Once again we have an issue because the majority of voters and politicians don’t understand money, not only how it can be created, but how it can be manipulated on the tax reclamation side to create economic imbalance between countries. This in turn affects the stability of currencies.
“Borders that can exist when it suits Unionism and not when they don’t do not need respecting.”
The RofI government is not blameless in this area either:
They erected an extremely hard border for the 2001 foot & mouth crisis which somehow, magically didn’t contravene the GFA.
Their border can exist when it suits them and the charade that now it’s impossible to have a border does not need respecting either.
Checks happen all the time on a random & intelligence led level. For VAT, excise duty & immigration inc joint PSNI / An Garda Siochana checkpoints.
To pretend they don’t as Varadkar has convinced some more gullible press types is a nonsense.
Oh come on….foot and mouth was a crisis
Get real
We had movement restriction in the Uk too
And rightly so
That is an absurd argument
Malaise in the Republic? Not really. It’s the fastest growing economy in the EU (4 years running) and has seen more jobs created in the last 18 months than in the previous 70 years. I could go on at length. Suffice it to say that the income gap between South and North is greater than that between West and East Germany before reunification, and growing.
However, your point about unionist cakeist hypocrisy is right. Brexit was about one thing for them: erecting the hardest possible virtual border to sabotage any chance of a united Ireland. Any and all cheating was fine (see Jolyon Maugham’s latest on their dark money and “diligence” about its sources). After Brexit the British taxpayer will be even more on the hook, and that’s if there’s no conflict.
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I am writing on the topic of a border in the Irish Sea. Another example is the exclusion order . These were made against certain suspected terrorists in order to prevent them accessing mainland Britain . This surely was a border in the Irish Sea .
I make this point without commenting on the merits or otherwise of the orders , simply to illustrate that the red
line of not having a border on the Irish Sea is entirely optional.
By making this an emotional matter , as Mrs May did in her comment that she would “not djvide my country” is a needless escalation of the emotional temperature.
You are right