These things have to be resolved based on parity. I don’t think it is right that there should be a difference in the nature of the border regardless of where that border actually is. The common travel area issue cannot be resolved unless you have border controls on the border because otherwise it’s perfectly possible for people, once they arrive in Ireland from wherever they are in the world, simply to cross into the UK. There are issues there, potentially, involving people trafficking if we’re not careful, because that border—if you have an EU passport, you can get into Ireland and get into the UK without any checks at all. If you get into Ireland, then effectively you’re into the UK. These are issues that weren’t properly considered at the time of the Brexit referendum. They haven’t been properly considered now. No-one wants to see a hard border. I don’t think anyone’s advocating that, but no-one has yet come up with any idea of how that hard border can be avoided. A hard border there carries consequences that are considerable and which no-one would want to see.

I don’t believe that we can be optimistic about the land bridge if there are two sets of customs checks in place. If you are an Irish freight operator and you’re offered the choice between going into Holyhead with customs checks, and going to Dover and queuing, with the border agency plus customs checks, then that becomes unattractive compared to the ferry journey, for example, between Rosslare and Cherbourg. Now, these things have to be looked at carefully in terms of the economics, but in terms of the potential delay that would be in place, well, what would your choice be? To be able to move seamlessly from Ireland to France, or to move via two sets of customs controls to France via the UK? These are issues that have not yet been resolved. To my mind, there is a great deal of misplaced optimism about what happens in Ireland. Because everybody agrees that something should happen, that doesn’t mean that it will happen. We have to make sure that people understand that there will be no control over the UK border. It’s just not going to happen. It is cloud-cuckoo-land, because control of the border implies border controls at the border. That’s not going to happen. If people are willing to accept that, the UK has to accept that it will have an open border with the EU in Ireland, then there are more possibilities in terms of what might be possible in terms of trade. But what is absolutely clear is you cannot keep on using the line, ‘We will control our borders’ when you know that isn’t true. I don’t mean the Member particularly, and I’ll make it clearer: nobody can say that we can control our borders if the border’s going to be open. It’s just not possible to do it, and the sooner we move away from that pretence, the better it will be for the negotiations.