Why Johnson’s Brexit Path Can’t Avoid Irish Border: QuickTake

It was the boundary between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland that sank former U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s efforts to engineer an orderly exit from the European Union. Now her successor, Boris Johnson, is bumping up against the same challenge -- how to manage a historically fraught border when it becomes the dividing line between the U.K. and the EU. Johnson has made clear his willingness to do what May balked at: crash out of the EU without any divorce deal at all. What that would mean for the Irish border is far from clear.

When the U.K. leaves the European Union, the border between Ireland’s north (which is part of the U.K.) and the Irish Republic to the south (which will stay in the EU) will be the only land crossing between the two jurisdictions. The EU has insisted that there be some way to make sure that no goods enter the EU that don’t meet its rigorous customs and regulatory standards once the U.K. is no longer adhering to them. But at the same time, both sides agree that the frontier should remain open, so that people and goods are free to cross back and forth.