Loyalists opposed to new restrictions on flying the union flag at Belfast city hall have been holding protests across Northern Ireland all week after the city council voted to fly the flag on about 20 designated days.

Nationalists at Belfast City Council had wanted the union flag taken down altogether, but in the end voted on a compromise from the Alliance party that it would fly on designated days. [...] The protest at Belfast City Hall was peaceful, but an Irish tricolour was set on fire.

Notions of a high-tech unseen border are a pipe dream or smokescreen, Brexiteer promises of a soft border almost worthless. [...] So the real or hard border will actually be the sea around the island of Britain and the ports and airports connecting with the island of Ireland. […]

Any attempt to re-impose a hard border would be highly disruptive and extremely unpopular, not only in local border communities but across the island. There would inevitably be widespread popular resistance and civil disobedience. More ominously, it would undermine the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and a peace process built on cross-border institutions and minimising the border.