A Tangled Web

El Paso



Auntie Beeb has an interesting story on the extent of the counterfeit goods market here in the United Kingdom. Judging by figures released from the Patent Office the black market is now worth somewhere in the region of £9 billion. What most interested me was the statement issued Bryan Lewin of the Trading Standards Institute when he said the smuggling and counterfeit trade in Northern Ireland was greater than the rest of the UK combined.



One does not require a first class degree in economics to ascertain why this should be the case. For years, paramilitaries (on both sides) have made a lucrative living from the smuggling empires which they have created. One only has to pay a visit to the market in the South Armagh village of Jonesborough (as I did in 2001) to realise the massive amounts of fraud being perpetrated and perpetuated.



South Armagh in an interesting place. Most outsiders would think of it as an area where the 'poor oppressed republicans' live in tiny clapboard houses under constant surveillance from the Army. On the contrary, the area has some of the biggest houses I have ever seen in this country: houses built and financed by the black market operations engineered by the filthy scum who dwell therein. It is not enough for these 'people' to enjoy the murder and the mutilation that comes with the average terrorist's job-spec. They have to earn a living by fraud and illegal economics as well.



Northern Ireland's border is an internationally recognised frontier - and should be treated as such. It needs to have border installations, customs facilities and guards like so many other state borders have. By allowing the UK's only land boundary to become little more than a line on the map, HM Government has created Britain's own 'El Paso'. The sooner this is rectified, the better!