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In the Balance: Brexit, Business and the Border

Brexit, Business and the Border

09/06/2018 GMT

BBC World Service - In the Balance, Brexit, Business and the Border

What would border guards and smuggling in Northern Ireland mean for peace?

In the Balance comes from Newry in Northern Ireland to hear how people on the border between the UK and the Republic of  Ireland will be affected by Brexit.

The British government is in the middle of a struggle over how the UK will leave the European Union.  At the heart of it is the trading relationship between the two after Brexit - how closely will the UK stick to the rules and regulations of the EU when it's no longer a member?   

The border between Northern Ireland - part of the UK - and the Republic of Ireland, which is and will remain an EU member, has become central to the argument.  Since the Good Friday agreement of 1998, which helped bring years of violence to an end, it's become no more than a line on the map, with people and goods moving freely across it.  After Brexit, it will become the only land border between the EU and the UK.   What will that mean? A return to a 'hard border', rigorously policed by officials at customs checkpoints, or a 'soft border', with all the checking done remotely by technology?  

In the Balance visits the border city of Newry in Northern Ireland to find out. The BBC's Rachel Horne is joined by Tina McKenzie, of the Federation of Small Businesses in Northern Ireland; Dr Katy Hayward, political sociologist from Queen's University, Belfast; Wesley Aston, chief executive of the Ulster Farmers' Union and Paddy Malone from the Dundalk Chamber of Commerce, just over the border in the Republic of Ireland. Rachel is also joined by comedian and writer Colm O'Regan.

And from the audience who came along to the discussion, we hear from local business people and young people whose lives could  be profoundly changed by the decision to leave the EU.

(Picture: Traffic crossing the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in the village of Bridgend, Co Donegal. Credit: Press Association)

Producers: Philippa Goodrich, Audrey Tinline
Researcher: Eimear Devlin

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