If we, as the UK, vote to leave, we’re then in a new, unique situation. The Republic of Ireland remains in the European Union. The UK leaves the European Union. So then what happens to the common travel area?  Now the Leave people say it would just stay, but when you go into the detail, you realise how difficult that is if not impossible because of course, if the UK were to leave the European Union, the border with the Republic becomes the border of the European Union.  So what that would mean by the way, because of course, there were still be the free movement of people within the European Union including the Republic of Ireland with the rest of Europe, if you then retain the common travel area, it means someone from any part of Europe can come to the south and then come to the North and there are no obviously border checks within the UK. So you couldn’t possibly have such a policy because if you did have such a policy it would make a nonsense of their entire argument for leaving which is all to do with the free movement of people within the European Union.  So what you would actually have to do is end up either having border controls and custom checks on the border between North and South, the Republic of Ireland and the UK, and think of those hundreds of miles of border, think of the constant interchange of people, think of the commerce, the goods and services which are freely traded across that line, the problems of doing that are absolutely immense but the only alternative would then be to have, between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK which would plainly be unacceptable as well.
All the day’s campaign news, from Sarah Wollaston’s change of heart to Nicola Sturgeon v Boris Johnson in tonight’s TV debate