Deaglan de Breadun . Irish News (Belfast).Monday, August 1, 2016

LEAVE aside Amhrán na bhFiann and forget God Save the Queen, because the real anthem these days on the British-Irish scene should be Paul Brady’s Nobody Knows.

Meanwhile, keep a grain of salt handy in case anyone close to you or in the media starts predicting the future of our post-Brexit world.

Take the border, for example, where the transition between north and south is almost imperceptible at present. Will it now become a “hard” frontier and what exactly does that mean? Dissident republicans must be praying for the return of customs posts. What a handy target they would make: isolated, vulnerable and surrounded by the type of countryside where one can easily disappear.

Surely the powers-that-be in Brussels, London, Dublin and Belfast couldn’t let that happen? A vision arises of some distracted bureaucrat, who thinks Crossmaglen is a Scottish board-game, digging out an obscure regulation that requires the reinstatement of border posts. Maybe it would be called the “Sitting Duck Directive”.

Finding themselves barred from entry to mainland Britain, will eager job-seekers from eastern  Europe seek entry to the UK by what used to be called “unapproved roads” on the Irish border? It’s hard to imagine but nobody seems to know.

The prime minister wasn’t very forthcoming on any of these issues during her tightly-controlled visit to Belfast. Most people will be praying for a Canadian solution whereby, we are told, vehicle registrations are subject to electronic screening as they cross the border with the US.

Hopefully Donald Trump will have nothing to do with our border problem since he is already proposing a wall between the US and Mexico. Even under the current Irish regime, I have encountered plain clothes police inspecting ID documents on a bus between north and south in recent years. Presumably that kind of activity will be intensified.

The nightmare scenario is lengthy queues of cars and trucks, similar to the hellish traffic jam endured recently by British tourists as they waited to be screened by French security personnel based in England, before boarding the ferry at Dover. British trade minister Liam Fox has indicated the UK may leave the European customs union as part of Brexit. It doesn’t sound like a recipe for a “soft” border here.

The negotiations between London and Brussels could drag on for a long time. We are told that the British will be looking for the maximum level of access to the European market along with minimum access, if any, for EU migrants seeking entry to the UK. There is talk of a seven-year brake on EU migration as an “emergency” measure but the hardline Brexiteers won’t be satisfied with that.

Not only will Britain be seeking to maximise its trade access to the EU but various member states will be very keen to retain their current access to the British market. The slightly puzzling aspect of all this is why more serious consideration wasn’t given to these issues before the referendum.

It’s easy to be wise after the event but surely the Eurocrats could have given David Cameron a deal that would have allowed him a modest win on Brexit? The EU has always been praised for its ability to find a middle ground between competing demands. Sadly, that reputation has taken a tumble in the last six weeks.

We are being told that Dublin is going to rely on the peace process to alleviate the negative effects of Brexit. The word is that Brussels will take that much more seriously than the other arguments which might be put forward.

Nobody in their right mind would want to facilitate a return to the violence and misery of the Troubles but it is hard not to detect a slight element of cynicism in Dublin’s approach. By and large, the southern establishment and indeed its British counterpart has lost very little sleep over the north in recent years.

It is curious how the referendum result appears to have made it respectable once more to talk about a united Ireland. It’s no longer just a Sinn Féin tune: Enda Kenny, Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar have all mentioned the prospect of a 32-county state coming about at some stage in the future.

The 56 per cent vote against Brexit in the north provides a rather thin basis for speculation about an all-Ireland republic, but it was still an interesting development. Maybe there is a soft underbelly of “small u’’ unionism that could be encouraged to think outside the six-county box at some stage.

But that’s all for another day. The priority must be to ensure that the border remains fluid and permeable to the greatest extent.

It’s quite a challenge for our politicians and civil servants to discern how events will unfold because, at this stage, nobody knows.

@ddebreadun