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In an invaluable new paper Sam Lowe looks in detail at the kind of alternative arrangements that would be needed to keep the Border free of physical infrastructure and associated checks after Brexit.

He points out that, even if efficient systems of online predeclaration of goods, trusted trader schemes and tracking technology are developed, some checks will still be necessary away from the Border. And any system would require an intensification in anti-smuggling measures near the Border, either through intelligence-led policing or electronic surveillance.

Any such system would require the consent of the people most directly affected, the businesses and communities close to the Border. But as Lowe observes, the people of Northern Ireland are effectively excluded from a discussion about the Border that is conducted almost entirely within Westminster.

“Whereas the backstop, or a close, highly integrated economic relationship between the EU and UK, removes the need for physical infrastructure or associated checks by ensuring no new regulatory or customs border is created, technical solutions are premised on the acceptance of a new border, combined with efforts to ensure it is as unintrusive as possible,” he says. 

“Any solution that assumes that a border community that is predominantly Irish nationalist, and against leaving the EU, will readily accept the existence of a new customs and regulatory divide faces an uphill struggle.”