I dont understand why brexxit should change anything for NI.
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Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, which means they left the European Union. However Ireland is an independent republic which is still in the European Union. The boarders between Ireland and Northern Ireland does not follow any natural barriers like rivers or mountain ranges. And it is generally quite complex. So there are lots of places where the boarder cuts between neighborhoods and even driveways. It is therefore very hard to enforce the boarder as you need an extreme amount of boarder guards and interfere with lots of peoples every day lives. That makes it practically impossible to enforce a boarder between the UK and EU.
In addition to this there was a peace treaty of sorts signed between the UK and Ireland in 1997 ending the troubles. Part of this peace treaty was that the boarder should be opened. At the time this was not a big deal as this was the same time that the EU enforced the open boarders policy. But it does mean that putting up boarder checkpoints would violate this treaty and possibly start the troubles again.
The temporary solution they have come up with is to have the boarder checkpoints on the ferries between Northern Ireland and mainland UK. This means that Northern Ireland while technically not in the EU is within the enforced boarders of the EU. This have created some complex rules for tariffs and such.
The problem with this solution and why everyone agree that it is only temporary is that it can cause Northern Ireland to become isolated from the UK. Especially as the customs and boarder policies in the UK starts diverging more and more from the EU policies. Northern Ireland will follow the EU economy more closely then the UK economy. And it might be easier for the North Irish to travel to mainland Europe then mainland UK. This might trigger a movement for North Irish independence from the UK.
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