bild

epa07418929 (29/66) Mervyn Johnston, a garage worker in his garage in Pettigo, on the border on the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in Britain, 01 March 2019. Johnston, who voted remain but has since changed his mind, said: 'People will use it to stir up trouble - it won't go back to what it was but there will be a rise of smugglers - people want to trade freely they don't want the extra cost.' Pettigo is in both County Donegal, Republic of Ireland and County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland as the border runs through he village along the Termon River. Neither the UK nor the EU wants a hard border, and the Irish backstop is the mechanism that negotiators agreed upon to prevent that from happening. The open border, a now-invisible, 499-kilometer (310-mile) line running through countryside, farmland and bisecting main roads, is enshrined in an international peace deal that in 1998 helped to extinguish decades of sectarian and political violence in Northern Ireland; a period known as the Troubles. Over 3,000 people died during the Troubles, which saw unionist paramilitaries from largely Protestant areas, who identify as British, and republican militias from largely Catholic areas, who sought a re-unified Ireland, trade terror. Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on 29 March 2019, two years after Prime Minister Theresa May invoked Article 50, the mechanism to notify the EU of her country's intention to abandon the member's club after the tightly-contested 2016 referendum. The results of that referendum exposed a divided nation. Leave won, claiming 52 percent of the overall vote. Voters in England and Wales came out in favor of leave, while Scotland and Northern Ireland plumped for remain. EPA/NEIL HALL ATTENTION: For the full PHOTO ESSAY text please see Advisory Notice epa07418899 , epa07418900