There hasn't been a word from the UK government about how this could be achieved. There seems to be no realistic way to retain an open border with the Republic of Ireland while not having an open border with the rest of the EU. The mythical Romanian could just fly to Dublin, drive to NI and catch a ferry. The only solution that I can see is to move the border to the North Sea. An open border with the Republic, but border controls between NI and GB. I imagine that will go down like a cup of cold sick with a good proportion of the population of NI.
Of course, the implicit assumption there is that anyone going to NI is doing so to get to Britain. What about the mythical Romanian who just moves to Belfast and sets up a life there? Is that a failure of UK immigration policy? (Maybe it's not - I'm genuinely curious what people think). I'm not from NI, but it doesn't seem terribly polite of British politicians to suggest that people would go to NI just to get to the "real" UK (aka Britain), as though NI isn't a worthwhile destination on its own.
The options I've seen floated range from deputizing ROI immigration officers to enforce UK immigration policy, to imposing a hard land border between ROI and NI (I really, really, really hope we don't end up with that), to imposing document checks for travelers between Britain and NI, which seems to be suggesting that nobody from the EU would want to go to NI just to live in NI.
In my view, at least, all of these options are a bit shit.
(I use the term "Britain" here to refer to the island occupied by England, Wales, and Scotland, distinct from the UK, which is England, Wales, Scotland, and NI)
Indeed. I can't see Stormont agreeing to border posts (and Stormont is anyway in a mess over RHI corruption!), but if the British government starts unilaterally building them against the will of Stormont they've broken the GFA and the IRA may start blowing them up.
Internal quasi-border is a bit more likely - there are already some ID checks there - but will accelerate the decline of Unionism further.
