There are lies, damn lies and there’s Brexit. It’s gone from Brexiters lying to the public over money to be repatriated for the NHS, through lying to Ireland and the EU over an agreement to even lying to themselves about borders and rules alignment.

The old fairy tale of the naked emperor being lauded for his sartorial elegance sprang to mind as cabinet minister after cabinet minister denied a border and proclaimed rules alignment, while still declaring that Brexit was being delivered.

Yet, as they were speaking it was all unravelling, repudiated by Dublin and undermined by the interpretations of colleagues; all highly unedifying and showing Theresa May’s government to be not just duplicitous but also incompetent. All the bluster of Canada plus-plus cannot hide the fact that the free trade nirvana is proving to be invisible and unreachable.

But, what did they expect? Not just delivering but rationalising a hard border with the retention of integration across the border between Northern Ireland and the republic was always going to be fraught, if not impossible.

It has ever been thus. Some myths were allowed to develop and some risks were taken. This was, though, done for the right reasons of preserving peace and boosting the economies of not just the island of Ireland but also the entire United Kingdom.

Brexit either blows them asunder or accepts them with an even bigger lie being told.

As justice secretary I recall requiring to live with the constraints imposed. Then as now the back door and easy route into the UK was to fly to Dublin, cross an absent border into Northern Ireland and then take a late ferry to Scotland.

Other than the checks imposed on landing by Irish customs, there would be little impediment thereafter. Checks at both the Irish border and the northern ports were constrained not just by policy but also by the possibility of attacks upon officials, viewed by some warped individuals as forces of the Crown.

Dumfries and Galloway Police struggled to cope with the challenges. The UK Border Agency, whose task it is to protect Britain’s borders, was reluctant to either provide the service or fund the police to do so.

I recall flippantly suggesting that, as the ships were met by eight buses and only one was going north, perhaps the solution was to concentrate on it and simply advise Cumbria Constabulary when the vehicles were heading down the M74 to the M6.

Organised crime and people traffickers knew the route as well. Accordingly, discussions took place between my counterparts in both the north and the republic and me. To be fair to the republic, it saw the problem as two ways. After all what came in also went out and there were risks for it as Dermot Ahearn, its justice secretary, rather light-heartedly enlightened me about.

But, what was to be the solution? Our Northern Irish counterpart, David Ford, was a decent and able man who was caught between a rock and a hard place. He was from the Alliance Party but Nationalists wouldn’t accept border checks with the Republic and Unionists rejected them when entering mainland Britain.

However, anxious to assist as the nexus in criminality across that narrow north channel was extensive, there was no simple answer.

Steps were taken to improve Special Branch capacity and other tinkering took place. But, in reality, the issue lay unresolved. It was simply accepted as the price of preserving peace on the island of Ireland.

Other little white lies also came into being, such as Ireland having an entirely independent immigration policy when clearly it didn’t. Forsaking Schengen and signing up for the UK and Ireland Common Travel area allowed for free movement across the border but imposed constraints on Ireland’s sovereignty

And then there came the Brexiters with no more of a clue about this than any other aspect of their crazed thinking. The idea that there could no hard border but regulatory alignment in all of Ireland, yet no restrictions on entering the UK from Northern Ireland while exiting the EU was patently absurd.

Was it being suggested that exports would be tariff free if traded seamlessly across the north channel from Cairnryan into Larne on through the Republic and then into the EU? Yet, if exported directly from Dover or Tilbury, they would be subject to customs rules?

There are few variables in drawing a border between or amidst the islands of Britain and Ireland with the European continent. You can return to the old hard border between north and south, have a border between Britain and Ireland or special arrangements for both with the EU.

Yet, again Brexit is exposed as deluded nonsense. As in the past, it’s possible to turn a blind eye to some things but a complete charade there cannot be.