The solution to all Brexit border problems? Draw it between England and Scotland

[muriel_volestrangler]

A bit tongue in cheek ...

Because since Northern Ireland and Scotland both voted to stay in the EU – Scotland by a particularly large margin – then any deal which effectively kept NI in Europe would be a huge benefit that Scottish people and businesses would want too.
...
That’s because NI would no longer be shut off from the rest of the UK, the situation that’s so intolerable to the DUP – instead it would be England and Wales that were effectively quarantined. The need for a hard land border on the island of Ireland could be avoided, replaced with one between Scotland and England which would have no implications for the Good Friday Agreement.

(Also, at just 96 miles the Scotland-England border is a lot shorter than the NI-Ireland one at 310 miles, and has many fewer crossings, so it’d be far easier to manage.)

Now, to say that such an arrangement would be controversial is like saying relations between Israel and Palestine are “a little tricky”. But remarkably, it appears to be the LEAST problematic of the solutions currently open to the UK government.

https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-divided-kingdom/

Northern Ireland does have historic links with Scotland, after all.

[DonCoquixote]

1. I love this

Imagine all the banks moving from London to Scotland. >

[Denzil_DC]

2. Heh.

You'll have gathered from past posts of mine that Wings is a force to be reckoned with in Scots social media.

Yes, it's typically tongue-in-cheek, as you say, but Stuart Campbell regularly uses some of the massive crowdfunding he regularly and easily musters to commission opinion polls, so his posts are often less without foundation than much of the punditry in the MSM. This post of his is an example:

Scottish opinion:



Breakdown by party:



Other polling he's sponsored recently has indicated that if the price of Brexit was independence for Scotland (and the unification of Ireland), a majority of UK voters would accept it!

A poll of England-only voters:

[zipplewrath]

3. Not all that outrageous

It has been suggested before that both Scotland and NI might prefer to leave the UK and stay with the EU. Some have suggested that Scotland have its devolution vote again. Just rebuild Hadrian's Wall and be done. NI might do better just reunifying with Ireland. The queen would have a cow, but England and Wales could finally be the separate entity they desire. The only real issue is now the Welsh and English would have to get along. At that point Gibraltar might wanna figure out what it wants to do.