View question on Parliament TV Lord Hain (Lab) My Lords, why was anybody surprised by yesterday’s negotiating car crash in Brussels? Unionists were quite legitimately always going to insist that they could not be put in a status distinct from the rest of the UK. At the same time, to maintain the Irish border as open as it has been alignment would be needed on trade, customs and regulation. Surely the answer is to apply that alignment across the UK, then the problem is solved.