claim: There are approximately 100 lorries per day crossing the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and cross-border trade represents 0.5% of UK-EU trade.
evidence: This claim is inaccurate. There are 5,900 lorry (heavy goods vehicle) crossings daily. Cross-border trade represents 0.97% of UK-EU trade; alternative figures may be due to different measurement practices between countries. On 30 January 2019, UKIP leader Gerard Batten made three related claims in a tweet regarding the Ireland-Northern Ireland border. (The tweet — screenshot image below — was promptly deleted.) Firstly, he claimed that 100 lorries cross the border daily. Secondly, that trade between Ireland and Northern Ireland accounts for 0.5% of the total UK trade with EU countries. And lastly, Batten claimed that Guinness accounts for half of the total trade ("trips") across the border. [...] The tweet made three inter-related claims about Northern Ireland-Ireland trade. TheJournal.ie showed that the claim that there were 100 daily lorry crossings was a large underestimation in comparison with published data (5,900 lorries), while Diageo declared an estimated 35 daily crossings for its beer products (including Guinness).