Northern Ireland Could Be Brexit's Biggest Casualty

If the ever-stalling Brexit negotiations range in character from bewildering to boring, there was at least something familiar about them this week. To wit, the idea that a border wall could be coming, and that someone else was going to pay for it.

It wasn’t President Trump offering his take on the U.K.’s impending exit from the EU. Rather, it was British lawmaker Kate Hoey, stating her own vision for what should happen if a hard border returned between Ireland (part of the EU) and Northern Ireland (part of the U.K.). A vocal Brexit supporter, the Labour party lawmaker argued Monday that anything resembling a physical barrier on what will become the only land border between the U.K. and the EU was unnecessary, and that if the EU wanted one, it would have to put it up alone. “We’re BBC Radio 4. “If this ends up with a no deal, we won’t be putting up the border—they’ll have to pay for it because it doesn’t need to happen.”