On second thought, the Windsor Accord looks lame

On second impression, the Windsor Accords give the political players in the United Kingdom a stark choice: “Brexit in Name Only” or “Union in Name Only.” …

There are “meaningful changes” to the Northern Irish Protocol — simplifications in some customs — but the basics remain in place. It seems to leave the onus on the United Kingdom to stay aligned with the EU regulations “on the way forward” if it wants to continue to have even slightly less cumbersome movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

[Michael is much more immersed in the details of the trade issue than am I, but it doesn’t require a grasp of the minutiae to understand that the basic contradiction between Brexit and the Good Friday Agreement is essentially irreconcilable. The UK insists on having a hard trade border between itself and the EU (as well as a hard immigration border, for that matter). The GFA requires an open border in Ireland, where there had been at the time two EU nations and now one EU nation and one non-EU nation. Either the UK will have to erect a closed trade border in Ireland to satisfy their Brexit commitments, or they have to erect it in the Irish Sea to satisfy their GFA commitments. The Tories have been dancing around this for several years, but it’s not going to magically disappear. — Ed]