Brexit.

[yellowcard]

The little Englanders now blaming Ireland for halting the Brexit train is predictable. Inward looking imperialism and an air of supremacy still lurks under the surface with many UK nationalists. Darn those pesky little Paddys for trying to protect its own people.   

[T Fearon]

Nah more likely they don't give a damn,similar to the Freestate as regards the North for nearly a hundred years.

[tiempo]

Seafoid,the South is only concerned with it's economic well being hence its (belated) interest in the Border.While in Dublin last Tuesday I heard Vincent Browne on radio quite rightly say that for decades neither the government or people in the South gave a damn about the plight of Northern Nationalists.

The fact remains the Dublin govt enthusiastically urged the southern electorate to abandon Articles 2 and 3 thus effectively agreeing that the North is British.It cannot now complain about anything the British do in the North,as they agreed that the British should govern it.

It is not only interested in itself. The passport is very clear. It applies to the whole island. People in NI are just as Irish as people in Limerick.

I think the war clouded things.  Nationalists were tagged with identities that did not reflect the reality. NI is a contested space. It was never as British as England.

As Britain is the union between Scotland England and Wales then by extension no part of Ireland has ever been British. Fancy that.

It is one of the British Isles.

British Isles as in the Isles of Scotland England and Wales. Still no mention of Ireland being part of Britain. Fancy that.

[JPGJOHNNYG]

Kate hoey reckons the Irish will have to pay for border controls. Like what the f**k is that bigoted prat doing in the labour party she would make big Jim and the TUV blush with her regular garbage on NI.

[seafoid]

Brexit may never happen. Minimum 10 years and neoliberalism will die in the meantime


https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/25/phil-hogan-ireland-eu-commissioner-brexit-chaos

The Irish government wants a written guarantee that there will be no hard border with Northern Ireland, something Dublin believes can only be achieved, in effect, by keeping the region within the single market and customs union. However, the Democratic Unionist party, whose support is propping up May's government, warned on Saturday it would never accept a post-Brexit deal that would effectively see a customs border pushed back to the Irish Sea. May has repeatedly made clear Britain will leave the single market and customs union.

The Irish crisis came as Britain's former EU ambassador, Sir Ivan Rogers, warned May's Brexit strategy was "an accident waiting to happen". Speaking after a speech at Hertford College, Oxford, he said completing the Brexit process was "guaranteed" to take a decade. He said that the prime minister's unrealistic hopes of securing a bespoke trade deal meant a car crash in the next few months was "quite likely

". The internal market is an extraordinarily complex international law construct that simply doesn't work in a way that permits the type of options that the current government is pushing for," he said. "So there is an accident waiting to happen ... and it is going to happen because the other side is going to put on a table a deal which looks broadly like a Canada or a Korea deal.

The only safe way to leave without enormous turbulence and trouble over a lengthy transitional period is to have a reasonable slope ... take your time and try and go for as smooth a glide path as possible from here to the mid-2020s. I can guarantee you that this is going to take a decade to do. We will not have reached a new equilibrium in British economics and politics until 2030."

Hogan warned Britain may struggle to keep the 59 trade deals it now has through the EU on the same terms. "The UK would be running to stand still," he said. "When it comes to trying to negotiate new FTAs with the rest of the world, Britain will be pushed around the way the EU – with currently more than eight times the UK population – will never be.

"The US have already started their attack on standards, so chlorine chicken and hormone beef for the British Sunday

[Applesisapples]

Foster has some neck on her stating that NI does not want to remain in the customs union. Did she miss the bit where 56% voted remain? She claims to speak for NI and Unionism not bad for a party with a minority share of the vote. Claiming at the conference on Saturday that NI was exclusively British must have delighted Gerry Adams.

[AQMP]

Kate hoey reckons the Irish will have to pay for border controls. Like what the f**k is that bigoted prat doing in the labour party she would make big Jim and the TUV blush with her regular garbage on NI.

Pound shop Ukipper.  Represents a London constituency too!

[T Fearon]

Once again,Nationalist Ireland by willingly conceding the North to the UK in 1998 is primarily to blame for this fiasco.Did they think Blair would be PM forever? Eurosceptism is not an overnight phenomenon in Britain,it has been gaining momentum for at least three decades.

I can actually see where the DUP is coming from on this,apart from keeping the North in the Customs Union compromising their Britishness,it would also mean tariffs would be levied on Northern Goods to the UK which is were most of them go.

[yellowcard]

Foster has some neck on her stating that NI does not want to remain in the customs union. Did she miss the bit where 56% voted remain? She claims to speak for NI and Unionism not bad for a party with a minority share of the vote. Claiming at the conference on Saturday that NI was exclusively British must have delighted Gerry Adams.

She is the best propaganda tool that nationalists could wish for. A very arrogant woman who definitely did not attend charm school.

[Farrandeelin]

Are you a member of the DUP Tony?

[T Fearon]

No.But I can put myself in their shoes and understand,if not agree where they're coming from.For instance,unionists define themselves as British.Do any of us understand that much less respect it? Is our attitude to their sense of Britishness not a mirror image of theirs towards our sense of Irishness?

Each tribe demands respect for itself but shows none for the other side

[seafoid]

Foster has some neck on her stating that NI does not want to remain in the customs union. Did she miss the bit where 56% voted remain? She claims to speak for NI and Unionism not bad for a party with a minority share of the vote. Claiming at the conference on Saturday that NI was exclusively British must have delighted Gerry Adams.

She is the best propaganda tool that nationalists could wish for. A very arrogant woman who definitely did not attend charm school.

She would be mediocre if things were stable but now she is useless. Unionism needs a visionary leader to survive.
Dropping the customs union will destroy Unionist businesses.
It will be very hard to attract jobs to NI .

[seafoid]

Once again,Nationalist Ireland by willingly conceding the North to the UK in 1998 is primarily to blame for this fiasco.Did they think Blair would be PM forever? Eurosceptism is not an overnight phenomenon in Britain,it has been gaining momentum for at least three decades.

I can actually see where the DUP is coming from on this,apart from keeping the North in the Customs Union compromising their Britishness,it would also mean tariffs would be levied on Northern Goods to the UK which is were most of them go.

How much would unionists pay for "Britishness" ? 3k per annum? They have not been shown the costs.

https://www.ft.com/content/d76a5602-c854-11e7-aa33-c63fdc9b8c6c

Britain is drifting towards disaster on Brexit — without a viable diplomatic, economic or political strategy to make a success of the venture. The central problem is that the British government is stuck between an implacable EU and an unrealistic Conservative party. The EU will not offer anything like the deal that Britain's Brexiters still dream of. But Theresa May's Conservative colleagues are still unprepared to accept this unpleasant reality. In this paralysing situation, it seems increasingly likely the UK government will simply be politically and technically incapable of delivering a negotiated Brexit. As a result, the likeliest outcome is that, late in the day — perhaps in January 2019 — the EU will present Britain with a "take it or leave it" deal.

The DUP leadership is clueless. Donaldson and Campbell and  Co ate great at dissing Taigs but when it comes to big decisions they do not have the balls.

[armaghniac]

No.But I can put myself in their shoes and understand,if not agree where they're coming from.For instance,unionists define themselves as British.Do any of us understand that much less respect it? Is our attitude to their sense of Britishness not a mirror image of theirs towards our sense of Irishness?

There is no symmetry here, we live in Ireland and so are Irish,  they are keeping a 17th century colonisation project going.

[Applesisapples]

Once again,Nationalist Ireland by willingly conceding the North to the UK in 1998 is primarily to blame for this fiasco.Did they think Blair would be PM forever? Eurosceptism is not an overnight phenomenon in Britain,it has been gaining momentum for at least three decades.

I can actually see where the DUP is coming from on this,apart from keeping the North in the Customs Union compromising their Britishness,it would also mean tariffs would be levied on Northern Goods to the UK which is were most of them go.

First Tony, Articles 2 and 3 were an irrelevence and unenforceable. They meant very little to nationalists other than reflecting an aspiration. Tom Kelly in yesterdays Irish News made the very valid point that the GFA is regarded by Unionists as a settlement, which it is not as Unity by consent is a major element of that agreement and in my view worth more than articles 2 and 3. Tom goes on to make the point which I have made that the middle ground in nationalism which would have voted no to unity has been pushed to yes by Brexit and the ongoing arrogance of the DUP and unionism.

Secondly staying in the customs union does not make any more difference to their Britishness than their position on LGBT rights or abortion which are at odds with the rest of the UK. It would not mean tariffs as NI would still be part of the UK common market. In fact on their Britishness a number of the "Mainland Reporters" commenting on their conference commented on how unlike a proper British Political party the DUP is.