On this bright sunny day, with crowds out for the Royal Wedding, my thoughts turned to a simple solution to the Irish border problem. That is the problem faced in the Brexit negotiations on how to maintain a frictionless border with the Irish Republic (Eire) from Northern Ireland.
Surely the simple solution is to make Northern Ireland an independent country while still retaining its connection to the UK by appointing Prince Harry and Meghan Markle as the King and Queen of Ulster. The latter has strong Irish connections in her ancestry so this could appeal to many. Such titles are surely more impressive than the Duke and Duchess of Sussex which they are otherwise going to be endowed with.
As an independent country Ulster could retain all its traditional ties with the UK including use of the Union Jack in some form, and all the existing UK legislation. It could negotiate free trade agreements with the EU and the UK to sidestep the border problem. If there is any border control required, it would solely be on the sea ferry crossings, not on the Irish land border and therefore much easier to manage.
Those sceptics in this world will no doubt think of numerous objections to this plan, but it’s surely worth considering.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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