Northern Ireland should be given special status after Brexit with an open land border with the Irish Republic and devolved control over EU immigration, a House of Lords committee has said.

“We need early agreement on all sides that the UK and Ireland should be allowed to reach a draft bilateral agreement, one that protects the unique nature of UK-Irish relations, of Northern Ireland, and of North-South relations on the island of Ireland.”

He added that the agreement should “guarantee open land borders and sea boundaries, support cross-border trade and preserve EU funding for cross-border projects”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a7468351.html

The Guardian reports implies that the CTA isn't set in stone, nor are the residency rights on the 800,000 irish people living here:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...rish-relations

The rights of the Irish people in Britain and the British in Ireland is another issue. Britain could overnight assure the estimated 800,000 Irish in Britain that their rights to reside and remain in Britain were protected, but Ireland would not be able to automatically reciprocate because that would constitute a bilateral agreement.

Not a great lot of commitment to the CTA in this statement

“The government is working to secure a deal that works for the whole of the United Kingdom. Ministers are acutely aware of the deep links between the UK and the Republic of Ireland. There is already a common travel area between the two countries, created many years before either was a member of the European Union.

Obviously none of this is the UK's fault, but those evil EU mandarins who er, somethning something superstate

Thats whats been said by HMG , and agreed with the Irish for months, There already is a bilateral agreement. The question is how you get it to fit into a, post brexit, wider EU context.

But remember there is no longer an agreed border between north and south - those agreements were made before the border disputed re-ignited. Unless there is a side deal of some kind, that could become a big issue. (Or it could get ignored, but seeing as it involves fishing rights ...)

What would be problematic would be a new bilateral deal between the Republic and the UK, which would technically be illegal under EU rules, as no EU state is allowed to enter into an individual deal with an outside country. On the other hand, the EU could take the view that the Irish border issue is an exceptional circumstance and unlike any other external EU land border.

Freedom of movement and freedom to travel are of course not the same thing at all - if they were Brits could work, reside permanently and claim welfare in 150 plus nations where we have visa free travel rights.

And our historic arrangements with Ireland date back decades before we joined the EU.

Of course we always have our key bargaining chip - hand over NI to the Republic and bankrupt it!

The Lords report is referring specifically to freedom of movement for EU citizens in Northern Ireland and that Stormont should be allowed special powers on this issue. Without it, they would be forced to have strict border controls to check whether anyone crossing into NI was not from Ireland or Britain. This would be entirely self defeating as it would mean a hard border essentially for anyone attempting to move from south to north.

And as I said freedom of movement is not the same as freedom to travel.

EU citizens will remain able to work, claim benefits and reside permanently in the Republic - they may or may not do so in NI or the UK.

Cos we really aren't going to start requiring Germans or Czechs to apply for visas to come here - no more than we do to other developed nations outside the EU now.

Brits have visa free travel rights to 175 nations in the world - only 27 are in the EU and give us freedom of movement rights re working, residency and welfare.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa...itish_citizens

The Lords committee are recommending that Stormont should have full jurisdiction over freedom of movement for EU citizens in Northern Ireland. Anything that would lead to different laws and arrangements in NI compared to the Republic would immediately be creating obstacles to travel from south to north.

They seem to be of the opinion that the only way you can have a truly open border is to have virtually identical laws and arrangements in the province for any people want to cross the border northwards, (just as long as those people are legally entitled to reside and work in the Republic as EU citizens).

In essence, this would be good news for any (non British or Irish) EU citizen who wants to live or work in Northern Ireland.

BIB - in the A50 debate politicians like Andy Burnham brought up the inequality of treatment of migrants from EU and no-EU countries.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Common...C-0FDD21831040

I want to set out two principal reasons why there is a legitimate left-wing case for reform. First, in an era of increasing globalisation, free movement has arguably been providing greater benefit to large companies than it has to the most deprived communities. There is nothing socialist about a system of open borders that allows multinationals to treat people as commodities and to move them around Europe to drive down labour costs and create a race to the bottom.


Secondly, there is a strong case for saying that the immigration system that has developed over time in this country is inherently discriminatory—it does not treat all migrants equally. Instead, it accords a preferential status to migrants from our nearest neighbours in the context of a policy that seeks to cap numbers. That, therefore, discriminates against those non-EU migrants who seek to come here and who have families here.


My call to this side of the House is to put forward a plan that treats all people equally and that applies progressive principles to migration. We need to make the argument for an immigration system that allows for greater control and that reduces the numbers coming here, but that does so in a fair way. This would be a system that treats all migrants equally, that does not allow people’s wages to be undercut, as my hon. Friend said, and, crucially, that continues to welcome people from Europe and around the world to work here


So either it will be made easier for non EU migrants to come in, or harder for EU27 migrants to do the same. Unless EU citizens will be able to come and go as we please but not be able to work here. Unless we were here already. And meet the criteria for permanent residency (I won't despite being here for over twenty years, if Irish citizens will be treated the same as other EU migrants)

We should have a system where only citizens of Ireland are allowed in. Otherwise our plans to have control over EU movement would be worthless.

There's now uncertainty over what FoM even means. Would irish people be allowed to work? How will we prove we are irish to an employer? Will a record need to be kept?

That's not a bargaining chip at all.

As for the rights of the 800,000 Irish citizens living in Britain, they are already protected by the Ireland Act of 1949, nothing to do with EU law.

The Guardian article I linked to above seems to think it is not that cut and dried.

The Guardian article appears to have been written by someone who has never heard of the Ireland Act.

Why should there be an exception for them?

The Ireland act is not is not enforcable in the EU. We can guarantee the rights of Irish citizens in the UK, but they can't for UK citizens.

Once Brexit occurs, the Irish would be forced to put up borders between NI and ROI.

I know. I was purely talking about the rights of Irish citizens in the UK.

Don't know how this will work out as it could potentially give some UK citizens more rights than others which surely cant stand long term.
One thing for sure I bet Gibraltar will be watching carefully as they surely need some sort of border agreement more than NI

What about all of the people in NI who consider themselves British and don't want to be part of the Republic. Are you happy to sell them down the river? Same goes for the people of Gibraltar. Brexiteers seem very keen to hand over British people and territory to a foreign government.

Devolved control over immigration doesn't strike me as a workable solution. The solution lies in the EU accepting the UK/Ireland is a special case and arrangements should be made to maintain the current CTA.

I think you miss the point. NI and Scotland are part of the UK and they should have no more rights to special treatment or to have their own Immigration polices than Cornwall or Anglesey. If they can't accept that they should leave the UK - but they clearly don't want to and the Republic couldn't afford NI anyway which is the most highly funded part of the U.K by a long way.

I really don't see a major problem here at all - freedom of movement applies in the Republic for EU nationals but not in NI. This remains under our pre EU treaties for Irish and UK citizens. VISA free travel remains for EU citizens and as we have as now broadly common polices for travel for non EU citizens depending on where they come from.

Yes indeed. In the 80's we spent a lot of money and, more importantly, 255 British military personnel, and three Islanders died in the Falklands dispute.

Would be very hypocritical if we did that to defend a small area thousands of miles away, yet simply let the Spanish walk into Gibraltar - where far more Brits live and is (arguably) of much greater strategic importance, and sell out the Brits in Northern Ireland.

Also, retaining the CTA would prevent the Republic from joining Schengen unless the UK kept the FoM as it is today. Reason, we can walk into the Republic without any checks, and if RoI was in Schengen we could then travel abroad without checks, and vice-versa. So Brexit is tying down Ireland's hands unless the CTA is abolished.

As Brexit has huge implications for the Republic, because of the CTA, shouldn't they, like Gibraltar, have had a say in the referendum?

It's not correct to say British citizens can walk into Ireland with no checks - immigration at Irish airports requires passports to be provided before you can enter the Republic and that has been the case for years now. This even applies at airports like Kerry where the only daily flights from outside Ireland are from the UK so it's not a pure airport infrastructure issue.

If I'm in the North I can catch a bus to the Republic without a single check. Done it several times, Marty. Manchester to Belfast is domestic, and the passoprt was simply used for ID to get on the plane. No check whatsoever @ Belfast Geroge Best, and anyone with a foreign passport wasn't checked either. That's because it's a domestic trip, and then pop on the bus and you're in Dublin unchecked.