 All right, let's try to hold it for a while if I need a quarter, formally known as $20,000. This is on the problem of borders from the Brexit of various. We're taking back control of all the laws on money in our border. That's a mantra that Theresa May has been using really since the Brexit referendum. And it's taken a rather disturbing turn at the latest party body conference. There's always been a kind of ambulance about this kind of borders because in some respects the UK government's line has been that we don't need borders. It doesn't need to be a border in Ireland. They often say it's just a fiction, or else they say that it's the European Union that's wanting to impose a hard border in Ireland. They don't want to have a border. What's the point of it? And this is kind of now a quite rather sinister tone because a rhetoric has increasingly been one of annexation and a suggestion that in some way the European Union is trying to break up the United Kingdom by extracting, by taking Northern Ireland away from the rest of the UK by enforcing this backstop. So obviously this is a very delicate issue and it's disturbing that the rhetoric has moved along these lines talking about the EU as a prison camp or comparing it with the Soviet Union saying that Britain is in some way in chains. But borders are obviously sites of conflict and everyone here knows that really too well and Arlene Foster is conveniently reminded us by talking about blood red lines. But we hear today that from sources close to Michel Barnier's office that there is going to be a deal or generate a very close to a divorce deal which we're told as I say this is just today we're told is supposedly based on a kind of hybrid backstop that the backstop would be, there would be assurances that the Irish backstop would continue there would be no hard border in Ireland in exchange for that Britain as a whole would remain in the customs union at least for a period until a trade settlement has been decided and there would be some kind of max fact there would be some kind of technological solution to regulatory and customs checks in the North Sea, in the Irish Sea. So anyway, that will obviously discuss whether that's feasible we have a very learned panel here on the far left Dr Nicolae von Dazer who's the deputy head of the EU research unit the Stiftung Wissenschaft Politik SWP he's also a lecturer in European studies in Berlin universities then we have a second from my left, Paul Gillespie who is formerly foreign policy editor of the Irish Times and now deputy director of the Institute of British and Irish Studies at University College Dublin my immediate left is Dr Katie Hayward who's a reader in sociology at Queen's University Belfast a fellow in the George Mitchell Institute for Global Peace Security and Justice and she's also a member of the Centre for Research into International Borders and on Dr Nicolae's right is Dr Eve Hepburn she's founder, director of the Edinburgh-based Policy Scribe a research consultancy and she was a former senior lecturer in politics at Edinburgh University and has written very extensively on EU affairs I think I'm going to ask Katie Hayward since she is so she's obviously been researching questions of international borders maybe kick us off today if you'd like them to speak for about five minutes or so each and then we'll throw you open to the floor so I'll give you Katie Hayward Thank you very much thank you for the invitation to be here I'm sorry I missed much of the event so far due to teaching this morning and relying on the enterprise train to get down here at speed but it's very good to be here what I'm going to do, I'm not really going to talk about borders actually so much but just have a little reflection on where we are at the moment and there's a lot of speculation about what the UK might or might not propose next week and then just to kind of frame the issues in relation to the border and then I'm sure we'll have interesting discussion afterwards so I'm going to talk about the three key high level problems that perhaps we haven't necessarily thought about or identified for some time the question of what the UK's choices right now at this moment and then what the UK might propose and I'm going to try and do it as succinctly as possible so the first problem that we have that we're all actually really aware of is the fact that the UK and the EU do not agree where we are right now they don't even agree what we're negotiating for the UK it's very much about the future it's all focused on the future relationship for the EU of course it's about the divorce, it's about the withdrawal agreement and I think the UK has not made it clear at all even to members of the UK government the realities of what can be agreed are decided regarding the future relationship that's a critical issue the second key problem is almost ironic so both the UK and the EU agree that they want a backstop that has to be a backstop and they both agree that they don't want to have to use it so far so good but the problem is of course that only the backstop will be legally binding and enforceable the future declaration will not be and there's some sort of tension therefore in that given that the thing that they don't want to have to use is the only thing that we're going to have in legally enforceable text by March 29th hopefully and then the third problem is one that's facing Theresa May most definitely bear in mind both withdrawal agreement and the future declaration will be coming to the House of Commons for a meaningful vote and they're both voted on separately to get this through May will need either Labour Party support or the DUP and the ERG to have their support we can pretty much discount the possibility of having Labour support they're pretty much saying that they won't vote against anything at all because the withdrawal agreement is unlikely to give them the kind of detail and specifics that they need or certainly won't be specific in a way that they would like to see the UK going so then we come to the DUP and ERG and this is a really interesting problem because the DUP and ERG sit at the same table and they can use the same kind of language but that only goes so far they can only do that in so far as they do not address the realities of what the Irish border problem is they can only do that so long as they can dismiss the consequences of leaving the European Union for the Irish border and for Northern Ireland in particular so if they're faced with those realities as May is now we have to look at what the DUP and the ERG want and they want very different things the DUP wants an all UK solution that will have to if you're looking at how to avoid a hard border that would have to include customs union that would have to include single market to some degree or at least if you like following a common rule book whatever that might mean that's what the DUP needs the ERG of course does not want that it wants the UK to be able to do its own deals and to be able to diverge so those are very different things so May is unlikely to present anything that will be equally pleasing to the two of them who is she going to end up pleasing well judging by what we're hearing at the moment she's not lining things up to please the DUP they are their interventions recently seem that they're not preparing the ground for Northern Ireland specific arrangements even though we have known that Northern Ireland specific arrangements are coming because we've seen what's agreed so far in the protocol and we saw that in the joint report and we've seen it in the UK white paper so Northern Ireland specific arrangements are coming the DUP aren't preparing the ground for that they're almost settling into the comfortable last ditch and that comfortable last ditch is voting against whatever she brings to Parliament the second point I want to address is what the UK's choice is now we can imagine that in Downing Street they're facing this decision do they seize the moment now and put forward an all UK backstop all UK proposed in relation to the backstop most specifically on customs union and then allow for some regulatory alignment for Northern Ireland in particular this could be announced next week the shorter the time between announcing it and the EU Council summit the better allowing a special summit in November and coming to Parliament fairly rapidly after that or they can play the long game or they think they can play the long game take it to the wire possibly December or even January in the hope of staring down the DUP and ERG and indeed the EU the problem is of course that to do so the threat behind that would be the threat of a no deal the problem is that neither the EU nor the DUP and ERG really are frightened of a no deal to the same extent as the UK government ought to be so it really is not going is really unlikely to work and even if she did try and set them down put them into a corner that way we could still be pretty sure the DUP would vote against unless they're offered something that's another matter and then finally the UK proposal that might be put forward and there's some speculation about it being put forward and perhaps a note of caution on this we saw yesterday how British media responded to Tusk's tweet about Canada plus plus plus and this idea that all this could all be on the table this could be possible obviously they've been saying that for 18 months or more but we on the other side we can also get a little bit in the realms of speculation by expecting the UK to present something next week what are the evidence that they will and what are the evidence that it will be in all UK I think actually there's very little evidence of that so just a note of caution on that anyway if it wasn't all UK customs union proposal there's a real problem there and that is of course that getting the all UK and all UK arrangement into the withdrawal agreement isn't possible and I stand to be corrected by legal experts in the room but the withdrawal agreement of course is about article 50 the future relationship the future trade agreements that'll be when you can have article 216 in play so there's a problem in getting an all UK issue into the withdrawal agreement the reason why the protocol can deal with Northern Ireland and talk about the future is of course because of Ireland's position and all of these issues are seen to be in relation to Ireland and the consequences of Ireland as a member state of the UK's withdrawal so in all UK arrangement anyway would have to be in the future declaration which as we noted the start isn't legally enforceable is there a way around this conundrum there's always a way one solution could be to make the wording in the future declaration as close as possible to that in the protocol in the backstop so they're almost mirror each other so when they come before the parliament they are seen to be closely entwined and twinned in that way possibly there's a possibility of getting something into the preamble which wouldn't have the same status as the protocol text itself one last point we haven't yet seen anything about the future declaration this really vital document we haven't seen any drafts we don't know how long it might be Manier has told a German newspaper that it may be 15 to 20 pages we don't want it to be too vague because then it will could go in either direction after the date we do expect to draft from the EU next week it's on the College of Commissioners agenda for the 17th of October when we see that text there will be much more enlightened at least about one side's view of what that future relationship might look like thank you thank you again for the opportunity to speak I want to look in the longer term reflecting work that we've done here in the Institute in our work on the UK and Europe and on Brexit and work that I'm doing also in the Institute of British Irish Studies and UCD if you look at the entanglement between the internal and external aspects of the Brexit crisis affecting Britain it's extraordinary that it's now out in the political domain that you have the Prime Minister talking about the potential breakup of the political system in relation directly to Brexit this is something we have analysed in our work in the Institute for quite a long time we foresaw that these issues are linked in what we described as a dual sovereignty crisis I want to just explore some of the ramifications of that as they affect borders and I think this is a really important aspect in the preparation for the immediate outcomes that are so uncertain as we've heard I want to look in the rather longer term and this involves constitutional change and constitutional futures in Britain and Ireland and as they both relate to the future of the European Union the issue has been described by one analyst Jennifer Todd as a potential constitutional moment facing us in Ireland and Britain about these futures and that goes back to the linkage between the crisis externally vis-a-vis the EU and the crisis internally vis-a-vis the relationship between London and its constituent nations and the way that's arranged is a dual sovereignty crisis and it affects Ireland very profoundly and is only recently being properly registered in our political debates the work that we are doing in Ibis and UCD tries to understand what's driving these changes in the UK and this has been described as a dysfunctional political system which also have driven Brexit and of course the outcomes depending on events are going to be some of the following and I'm trying to work on identifying the drivers of these change so that we can get a more rational discussion about how some of the constitutional futures might arise a softer or a harder Brexit outcome is obviously one of the major axes of change and we've heard in our discussion on certain and complex that matter is it relates to absolute or shared sovereignty the whole question of a multi-level system of integration at national and EU and European level revolves around that question of sovereignty and a lot of the Brexit discourse is to do with the resurrection of a very old fashioned sense of absolute sovereignty as distinct from the shared sovereignty that we're used to including in the last agreement. That in turn relates to devolved or centralized political control in the UK system very much an issue for Scotland but also very much an issue in the north of Ireland and that in turn relates to this question of shared or exclusive national or British political identities political scientists trying to understand some of the drivers of change here identify for example an exclusive English identity as being one of the major correlates of voting for Brexit and that also relates at an elite level to imperial or post imperial ideologies of political power there and it relates in turn to the real or perceived political economy effects of a harder or softer Brexit that really is coming home to people much more as they come closer to these decisions and finally you have the wider geopolitical transatlantic and European effects and if one is to try and understand the linkage between these elements one has perhaps a better understanding and a better way of approaching the forthcoming political decisions we're going to have to make on the Ireland of Ireland about the evolution of these events and they seem to me to be four and I just could sketch these very briefly in character. You could first of all have with presumably a softer Brexit, a renewal of existing north south structures of the Belfast Agreement after Brexit requiring renewal to of the institution relations in the east west setting. They're going to have to be reconstructed and reorganize assuming Brexit happens. Secondly will that happen by way of a deeper federalization in the UK which would head off a number of the pressures and how would that come would be with a softer Brexit conceivably could it be with a Labour Party or a Labour coalition type of government. Thirdly you might foresee a differentiated outcome where you have Scotland with particular arrangements, Northern Ireland with particular arrangements and again a bedding down of a more stable political system in the UK or fourthly a very plausible potential outcome would be Irish reunification within the EU which would have to be considered alongside Scottish independence and a new constitutional settlement in England and Wales all of which would relate distinctively to each other and to the EU. Now this last outcome is very plausible, you may say more made more likely by these events but certainly whatever way you identify that it needs a lot more deliberation and argument and discussion and research than it's had so far and I just want to flag that as some of the emergent issues from the Brexit crisis and say that some of us are trying to grapple with this and would very much welcome observations or discussion about how to handle it. It's no longer an issue arising out of traditional irredentist Irish nationalism rather does it arise out of this structural crisis in our big neighbour and how that relates to us and to our common futures vis-a-vis the European Union. Thank you. Thank you, thank you very much for having me here. So as I'm sure you're all aware in the last few days immigration has re-emerged as a key battleground in the Brexit negotiations in the British media although of course it never went away. At the Tory party conference earlier this week Theresa May and her Home Secretary Sajid Javed have finally started to outline what a post-Brexit immigration system might actually look like and their recommendations are very much in line with a report by the Migration Advisory Committee which came out a couple of weeks ago. So in the next five minutes I've been asked to focus on the UK-EU border by focusing on the main headlines of these proposals and then by talking about the wider implications of these immigration plans for the labour markets in the UK, citizenship rights and relations with the EU. So what are the main headlines in these new UK immigration proposals? Here are the big four. First we're going to see the end of freedom of movement so currently any citizen of an EU member state can come and live and work in the UK but post-Brexit EU citizens will be given no preference and they'll have to apply like third country nationals through the UK's visa system. Equally any employer who wants to hire an EU worker will have to go through the bureaucracy of the point space system as well as paying a thousand pound skills charge each year which is quite a lot of money for small and medium size enterprises. Second we're going to see a bias towards high skilled high paid labour. EU workers will only be able to apply through the high skilled tier two route which has recently become known for its high rejection rate. As a concession Javid said he plans to scrap the current cap on tier two migrants which is just over 20,000 a year and he's also expanding the eligible list of medium skilled jobs. But the rub is that applicants will have to meet a minimum salary threshold which currently stands at 30,000 pounds a year so in short any EU worker in the future not making 30,000 pounds a year which is currently about 75% of EU workers in the UK. They'll find it very difficult to come to the UK in the future. Third we're going to see a massive decline in low skilled migrants coming to the UK. Javid and May have said they won't open up tier three which is the unskilled route as they wish to deter low skilled labour. The only exception is agriculture. A few weeks ago the government talked about a seasonal agricultural workers pilot scheme that will come in next year although farmers union say that's not enough. Now this move to reduce low skilled labour is a popular political move rather than an economic one. The Brexit referendum was motivated by anti-immigrant sentiments especially the feeling that low skilled migrant labour was stealing British jobs however it is a potentially catastrophic economic move which I'll speak about in a second. Fourth we're going to see the end of the European citizenship in the UK this is not being talked about enough so Brits will no longer have access to the multiple benefits afforded to them by EU membership to live and work in other EU countries, voting rights, legal protections of EU law, European health insurance card and equally EU nationals will face increased obstacles to obtain rights in the UK because Javid has started talking about creating a more restrictive British values and the fact that all future citizens including EU citizens will have to meet. So what are the main implications of these proposals? I like to talk about eight different issues, I'll go through them as quickly as I can. First we're going to see massive labour shortages in key sectors of the UK economy. Businesses have been up in arms at the proposals to slash low skilled migration which will drastically reduce the number of workers able to do these jobs. Industries that are going to be hard hit will be the social care sector, hospitality construction and health and the effects of these labour shortages are quite difficult to imagine but potentially include a drastic reduction in house building in the future despite existing shortages a reduction of the number of people looking after the elderly leading to massive issues in their health care the closure of a number of hotels in the country due to the lack of staff and increases in food prices and potentially food shortages if farmers are unable to hire farm workers. Second, linked to that it's possible we're going to see a tax rise as the number of EU workers decline in the UK and that's because EU migrant workers on average contribute £2,300 more per head to the UK purse than the average British citizen so that eases the tax burden on other taxpayers so if we see a reduction in EU workers who are making this positive contribution to the UK's public finances the tax burden on others is going to have to rise Third, in the longer term we could see a potential drop in the demographic growth of some regions and nations in the UK that are heavily reliant on EU migrants to maintain their current population rates so I'm thinking here of Northern Ireland so slower population growth will put pressure on the current workforce especially young people who are a shrinking demographic anyway to support people of pensionable age and that's going to have an effect on the economic growth as well Fourth, Javid has also started talking about increasing barriers to naturalisation by toughening up citizenship rules such as the new British values test and tougher English language requirements that future EU applicants will have to pass This continues a trend towards coercive civic integration policies in the UK where migrants are being held responsible for their own integration or lack thereof Fifth and linked to that we're likely to see continuing hostility towards migrants in the UK which has increased since the referendum two years ago these immigration proposals have done very little to create a positive retoric about the contribution of migrants to the UK in fact Mae again was talking this week about the importance of reducing migrants and how she didn't want migrants competing with locals and Javid started talking about creating a safe home by ending freedom of movement Now this type of statement which links immigration with a lack of safety tends to drive public fear and hostility towards migrants Sixth we're going to have an overloaded home office once we add EU migrants to the current tier two system a system that is already painfully strained with massive backlogs notoriously long waiting times and multiple mistakes being made and Windrush is one example of this So adding EU migrants to tier two without massively expanding the capacity of the home office will likely cause delays in applications which may result in firms losing out as EU migrants will possibly move to another country in a single market where they can more easily apply for jobs Seventh we're starting to see a retaliation in kind from the EU who are dismayed by Mae and Javid's proposals to restrict future EU migrant flows to high skilled only so the European Parliament's Brexit negotiator Guy for Hofstadt has warned that UK nationals living in the EU will suffer if the UK introduces a system that discriminates against EU citizens so we may see Brits abroad losing their rights I just want to briefly touch on what discrimination means because we know that prior to 2004 in the large MacNen EU nationals from the older member states tended to fill highly skilled positions but since 2004 we know that EU migrants from the new member states have tended to fill low skilled positions even though they're often vastly over qualified so in essence by cutting routes to low skilled migration this is going to have a disproportionately negative effect on nationals for Central and Eastern Europe who have tended to fill these crucial sectors in low skilled sectors such as care hospitality and agriculture finally 8th we are likely to see an increase in constitutional tensions amongst the constituent nations of the UK the Mac report Javid and may have refused to take into account for instance the Scottish government's extensive research and policy recommendations to introduce a degree of flexibility into the UK's immigration system to account for substrate variation Javid has talked about implementing a single system but research has shown time and time again that migrant flows and needs are very different in different parts of the UK economy and given that Scotland has already voted in favour of remaining within the EU and that a drastic reduction in EU workers to Scotland is going to affect its population growth and economic growth this will likely meet with anger and defiance from the SNP controlled Scottish government potentially fuelling a second independence referendum with a the break up of Britain thank you yes thank you very much thank you also to the organiser for inviting me it's for me also a great pleasure to be here today and I have to start unfortunately with a short excuse I think one of the most used phrases in the Brexit negotiation is time is ticking for me that's actually quite literally true the last plane to Berlin starts at quarter to six so what I like to do is I have to leave immediately after this session but I hope I can still bring you my perspective from Berlin on the border question and where we stand in the negotiations and I think something that at least is always in the British debate and we hear it even from so called pro-Europeans in the UK debate is that eventually there will come the point where Germany and France will throw Ireland so to say under the bus the border questions and I think the first message that I would like to give from Berlin is how ingrained the Northern Irish question has become in the Berlin debate on Brexit and how much important Germany puts on that question and I think this on the one hand is of course a question of solidarity with an EU member state but I think it's also a question of core national interest and the interest of Germany in the Brexit negotiation is safeguarding the cohesion of the EU 27 and the single market and the realization early on and I would say after the immediate shock of the referendum in the UK was that the Brexit negotiations they are not just about the relationship to the United Kingdom they are also about the future of the European Union we heard that earlier and that means for Germany it has to show that the EU member states is protected and that the interest of all EU member states are protected and I think that has been a core strand through the whole negotiation process I remember I think partly due to the Irish diplomacy very early on in the process just shortly after Theresa May sent the letter to Brussels on article 50 that in internal discussion about what are the three German priorities for the Brexit negotiations Northern Ireland was already on there and that was a huge political importance for the German government just to give you one indication when our Foreign Minister Heiko Maas had his first meeting with the now almost already former Foreign Minister Boris Johnson and London the first bilateral Maas shows explicitly to first fly to Dublin and then fly to London via Dublin and show yes we are taking care of the interest of all EU member states and I think this should not be forgotten and it's my personal impression that wherever we stand in the Brexit negotiation and when we come to the end game now may it be in 10 days at the summit may it be in November may it be in December my clear conviction is that Germany but also all the other 26 stand behind the interest of Ireland and it's not just solidarity but the interest of the whole European Union which brings me to my second point what is the specific position of Germany on the question of the Brexit and what I hear in my conversation from the German government I think the first important one is that this is an issue that needs to be solved we've heard before about many fudges we've heard about the EU's tendency to go rather we may call it a compromise or a fudge in difficult negotiations but I think the inherent realization also in Brussels but also in Berlin is that at the point where we are now the only place to legally bind and put a binding solution to the question on what happens to the long-term future of Northern Ireland and the relationship to Ireland is in the withdrawal agreement and therefore the realization that we need a binding backstop in the withdrawal agreement and there can only be a withdrawal agreement and therefore only a transition if there is a legally binding backstop and I think this is very important for the negotiations that there is now the question of Northern Ireland was pushed again and again to the future but I think this is the point where the 27 are saying we cannot fudge this anymore we cannot read British press if ministers like Michael Goff say we can change the political declaration at any point there is a clear realization we have to find a legally binding solution secondly on the border on the backstop how it should look like it's very clear also that this is a border not just of Ireland but also of the whole EU 27 and therefore needs an element for the single market and that's very important from a German point of view if we hear about proposals about the future custom arrangement it's very clear it has to have both elements we cannot just have only the customs element or only the single market element it needs to have both elements at the same time and now thirdly I come to areas that are potential of tensions between Germany and Ireland on this issue where I see at least some point of differences and the first area of possible tension is the question on whether that backstop can only cover Northern Ireland or whether there's a possibility for a hybrid backstop that covers the whole of the United Kingdom and here the German government is pretty clear Northern Ireland is about 2% of the UK economy and it's something very very different to give access to the customs union and partially the single market to 2% of the UK economy or to give it to the UK as a whole without the obligations that are in place for an EU member state and therefore I think the German government and I believe also the other EU member states will insist very strongly that for the single market in particularly there can be no backstop for the whole United Kingdom and for customs union if there is a backstop that includes customs union we need real rules for the customs union which means how do third country arrangements, third free trade arrangements apply to the United Kingdom what are the future how is the UK bound by EU customs rule and what happens to the tariffs that the UK gets from goods that enter the EU market through the United Kingdom and so even if there are some whispers around Brussels of a possible deal inside I would put caution on the table there are many many crucial questions that would still need to be verified but the customs part of the backstop would apply through the whole United Kingdom and then there is a second point of tension that I want to bring on the table which is what happens in case of no deal and for Germany I think the EU is always a community of law and as I said the external border towards Northern Ireland is the external border of the single market and the customs union and there is a huge understanding for particular Irish interests but I think in the case of there being a no deal there will very soon be put the question on the table what kind of border controls do need to be put in place on the border to Northern Ireland I don't think that will need to happen immediately from the point of view on the other 26 but I think the most difficult moment for Irish EU relations will come at the point if there is a no deal and the others will have to insist that there be some kind of controls in the border to the state that now has no formal relationship to the European Union and the Republic of Ireland and therefore the EU as a whole and I hope with these three points I've given you somehow a broad idea where the thinking in Berlin is going particularly on the backstop which in my point of view not only solidarity but core interest in supporting the interest of the EU member states island but I also see a point of tension if we get to the very very difficult situation of no deal go forward from there. Thank you very much. Okay, we have a few minutes for questions if we could indicate and we'll get a microphone to you, if you say who you are if possible and if you could address your question to one specific panel member lady in the back here or to everybody My name is Catherine Wienen I just want to ask two questions both for Paul and on the issue then of immigration if we have a common travel area with Britain and immigration into Britain is severely restricted in the context of a very tight labour supply in the United Kingdom and a potential common labour market within these islands I'm just wondering what you would see as the implications of that Can I divert a Katie on that issue actually who is an expert on immigration islands Did you want to come travel? Well I just say one sentence I mean thinking of what we heard about the German reservations you've got interesting implications there too about potential tension the common travel area gives those freedoms and I was making notes that I was listening about the migration effects what about the Irish effects because how will it affect our labour markets for example the immigration through Ireland to the UK What I would be assuming then in that context is that we would provide kind of replacement and then we would Irish people would go to Britain to get these jobs which would now be much better paid and those jobs here would be taken by Nazis and the Dutch cities Well through the common travel agreement obviously Irish citizens can work and take up these positions and in the UK the other suggestions that the UK government has made for filling up the low-skilled routes are a proposed youth mobility scheme as well which would allow young people across the EU to access these lower-skilled jobs and also through family migration as well which EU citizens would be entitled to bring family members over as well but yes you're absolutely right with the common travel agreement in place that removes some of the concerns and the intersection between the UK and Irish citizens and yes it may very well be the case that they are looking towards Irish citizens to come to the UK to help fill these key industries Thank you Gentleman or friend Thank you Bobby McDonough I'm sorry this question is for Eve as well thanks to all the presenters but your eight points were extraordinarily convincing about the effect of the new migration routes that are planned and my question is can you explain how on earth those points are not better understood and assimilated in British public debate I mean we're used to this country and likewise in Germany and I think in Scotland to rational debate but how is it possible that a case that is so overwhelmingly convincing has so little traction in the British media That's an excellent question there are many sectors within the UK who are arguing these points business sectors are arguing these points unions are arguing these points third sector organisations are arguing these points the Scottish government is arguing these points as well unfortunately I think that a lot of the immigration policy proposals are not based on economic arguments they're not looking at the the key sectors in the economy I think they're based on political arguments and I think they're designed to try and assuage these voters who were concerned about cheap labour coming in and stealing their jobs and that's why they have focused on slashing low skilled migration so I think these are very political calculations I think they're going to be hugely damaging for the British economy but I think it's very much a symptom of what the panel has been discussing so far about Brexit essentially being a political crisis within the UK Conservative Party and that's where the focus has been and unfortunately they are not listening to these masses of sectors and voices within the UK at the moment they're plowing ahead I won't ask another question because you won't allow me to but just to say it's a comment on the British media but these points are not understood Can I take it that Nicolai's last point in effect says that in the event of no deal the backstop is off the table except of course for the common travel area but I understood you to say that if there's no deal there's no backstop either I mean that's a big question as far as I understand it the commitment in the joint report in December was only a political commitment and if there is no deal I cannot imagine the UK government subscribing to a backstop as it is on the table I asked about Berlin if there is a no deal scenario and the UK crashes out with any kind of formal relationship to the EU and the UK as a whole including Northern Ireland has no relationship to the single market no relationship to the customs union and completely falls out of the regulatory area of the European Union then as we've heard from Philip Hammond on WTO rules as we know from EU rules there is a necessity for some kind of border controls and I can imagine that there will be fierce negotiations between the EU partners whether that can be postponed in some shape or form before an agreement is found with the British but what I hear from both Brussels and Berlin is that there is a clear rejection of the so-called managed no deal of where there is no deal but then there is a series of side deal but the expectation is rather if negotiations break down we fall back to unilaterally measures on both sides of the table that can try to keep planes flying but there will surely be a reintroduction of terrorists, a reintroduction of a lot of things that require control at that border and this is why I think it's important to put that point on the table that in case of no deal I'm afraid eventually we will come to the point of negotiations or discussions between Ireland and the rest of the 26 where they will say this is our common external border there need to be some form of control how that discussion will play out I cannot tell you that but the backstop as it is will be off the table if there is no agreement on that, oh sorry just two things in relation to that if there is no withdrawal agreement there is no backstop so there is a hard border and the question then is about enforcement and we could expect ironically in some ways the initial impact of that will be felt in the Irish sea because that is where Dublin will be able to do checks in Dublin port and you may well have thank yous and Holly Hitt if not in Nuri but that's where it will come and it will have to come pretty quickly and another key point in relation to the backstop is if you don't get a deal you don't have the common travel area protected at least not from the EU side not allowing Ireland to be able to continue to maintain the common travel area as it is understood at the moment so the common travel area actually is very closely tied into the backstop and the backstop recognises that and formalises that in relation to the earlier question the common travel area needs to be codified particularly the rights of Irish citizens in the UK there's a lot of concern about that from the Irish and British I know well on that note we have to end because we're right ahead of time so it's coffee now but please put your hand together for our expert panel