Current Affairs EU In or Out
- Thread starter micknick
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Pete......please follow your own diktat and take your comments on Ireland to the appropriate thread.
You know the one.....it’s the one where you are constantly made to look foolish by more informed posters.
Thank you
Carl O'Ancelotti
Player Valuation: £20m
lolPete......please follow your own diktat and take your comments on Ireland to the appropriate thread.
You know the one.....it’s the one where you are constantly made to look foolish by more informed posters.
Thank you
Good point.
I was at a family wedding in Bellingham Castle, Co. Louth recently and I noticed a big change in attitude from several of my relatives from Belfast, among them some SDLP types from Malone Road.
Heretofore the UK link wasn’t bothering them at all......they are Irish, travel on Irish passports, freely move across the border at will and whilst a United Ireland was a fond hope and aspiration, they weren’t that bothered because to all intents and purposes the Border had been removed from the narrative and the whole island was benefitting from the shared EU identity which was, albeit slowly, diluting ancient emnities in the North.
But now they are firmly of the opinion that Brexit was bad enough for them economically to begin with but is now becoming an issue of national identity as well thanks to the DUP and their Empirical allies in the Tory party shoving this “precious union” down their throats at every opportunity and throwing Mr. Barnier’s generous offer back in his face.
The DUP behaviour over Brexit has driven a wedge between the NI communities such as we have not seen in decades.
Fintan O'Toole in the Irish Times
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/...h-the-enemies-of-the-union-1.3664341?mode=amp
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/...h-the-enemies-of-the-union-1.3664341?mode=amp
TraffordBlue
Player Valuation: £30m
Not sure why you are claiming he's just had this realisation? The Irish have acknowledged throughout that they will suffer from a hard Brexit.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/varadkar-eu-must-stay-united-on-brexit-472997.html
That is from July: "Speaking as Britain’s new foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt and senior EU negotiators indicated the prospect of a hard Brexit is becoming increasingly likely, Mr Varadkar insisted the situation would be the worst possible outcome for Ireland. "
The problem is, "if the UK plays hardball" we screw ourselves. You understand that surely?
Any chance you could copy and paste that, please?
It us available only to premium subscribers accirding to my screen
Hello, Mrs Mouth, may I introduce you to Mr Money? When we cut to the chase, Arlene Foster’s bluster comes down to a brutal and basic question: will the Little Englanders put their money where the DUP’s mouth is? And there is a brutal and basic answer: not bloody likely.
We are, finally, at the point when Arlene Foster’s “blood red line” must be crossed if a Brexit deal is to be done. The DUP has gambled the union on the belief that the Brexiteers are above all unionists and will never concede to any post-Brexit arrangements that differentiate between Northern Ireland and Britain. In this they are deluded to the point of insanity.
To understand why, forget the mouthy platitudes and just listen to Mr Money. What Mr Money is saying very clearly to the DUP is: sayonara, baby.
The 'unravelling of the peace process in Northern Ireland' is a 'price worth paying' for Brexit
Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom has a price. It costs English taxpayers roughly £10 billion (€11.38 billion) a year. An average of £14,020 (€15,955) per head was spent on public services in Northern Ireland in 2016, compared, for example, with £10,580 (€11,446) in the southeast of England. This (rather than the DUP’s flagship Renewable Heat Incentive) is what keeps the home fires of Ulster burning.
It is also what makes a United Ireland currently impossible: the taxpayers of Ballydehob are not going to subsidise better public services in Ballymena than they get themselves. Northern Ireland’s place in the union depends entirely on the willingness of English taxpayers to pony up.
And, after Brexit, to pony up even more: it is they who must, for example, replace the 60 per cent of farm incomes in the North that comes in subsidies from Brussels.
Leavers say no
So, if we strip away all rhetorical decor, this is what the union means: the voter in Gloucestershire loves the union enough to share her money with Arlene and Michelle. And here is the really big news: if she’s a Brexiteer, she damn well doesn’t. In the latest Future of England survey, there is a buried landmine.
It has received some attention for the breathtaking revelation that fully 83 per cent of Leave voters and 73 per cent of Conservative voters agree that “the unravelling of the peace process in Northern Ireland” is a “price worth paying” for Brexit that allows them to “take back control”.
The DUP is aggressively biting the only hands still willing to feed it: screw you and your money!
But there is actually an even more explosive finding, less immediately lurid but of far greater consequence for the DUP. The proposition put to these English voters is this: “Revenue raised from taxpayers in England should also be distributed to Northern Ireland to help Northern Irish public services.” Just 25 per cent of Leave voters, and 29 per cent of people who said they voted Conservative in 2017, agree.
What is even more striking is that antipathy to sharing English tax revenues actually rises if Northern Ireland is explicitly included in the question. In the abstract, 38 per cent of Leave voters agree that revenue raised from taxpayers in England should be spread across the whole of the UK. That falls to 25 per cent when Northern Ireland is explicitly mentioned.
Tories and Brexiteers in England are literally not buying the union any more. On the only real test that matters – the willingness to share their money with their kith and kin in Ulster – three-quarters of English Leave voters have their hands firmly in their pockets. The message could not be clearer: Kith? My arse!
English shinners
And here’s the true idiocy of the DUP’s alliance with the Brexit ultras: the only people in England who are still willing to subsidise Northern Ireland are Remainers. The DUP has taken sides with the enemies of the union against its friends. While just 25 per cent of Leave voters are okay with it, 52 per cent of Remain voters in England agree that their taxes should pay for Northern Ireland’s public services.
On every similar question, it is Remainers who still believe in UK solidarity and British identity – the Leavers have tilted decisively towards an English version of Ourselves Alone. The DUP may not be able to stay in bed with Sinn Féin in Belfast, but it has entangled its destiny with that of the English Shinners.
While any unionist with a stim of wit would understand that Northern Ireland’s future in the union depends on the Remainers, the DUP is aggressively biting the only hands still willing to feed it: screw you and your money!
The DUP’s delusion is that it can emotionally blackmail the English by screaming “hit me know with the precious union in my arms!” It thinks it can mobilise the self-pitying drama of Rudyard Kipling’s Ulster 1912, in which England is shamed into standing or falling with the fate of Ulster Unionists:
“We are the sacrifice.” To which the mass of Brexit supporters in England will say: “Right you are then. Ta-rah!”
We are, finally, at the point when Arlene Foster’s “blood red line” must be crossed if a Brexit deal is to be done. The DUP has gambled the union on the belief that the Brexiteers are above all unionists and will never concede to any post-Brexit arrangements that differentiate between Northern Ireland and Britain. In this they are deluded to the point of insanity.
To understand why, forget the mouthy platitudes and just listen to Mr Money. What Mr Money is saying very clearly to the DUP is: sayonara, baby.
The 'unravelling of the peace process in Northern Ireland' is a 'price worth paying' for Brexit
Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom has a price. It costs English taxpayers roughly £10 billion (€11.38 billion) a year. An average of £14,020 (€15,955) per head was spent on public services in Northern Ireland in 2016, compared, for example, with £10,580 (€11,446) in the southeast of England. This (rather than the DUP’s flagship Renewable Heat Incentive) is what keeps the home fires of Ulster burning.
It is also what makes a United Ireland currently impossible: the taxpayers of Ballydehob are not going to subsidise better public services in Ballymena than they get themselves. Northern Ireland’s place in the union depends entirely on the willingness of English taxpayers to pony up.
And, after Brexit, to pony up even more: it is they who must, for example, replace the 60 per cent of farm incomes in the North that comes in subsidies from Brussels.
Leavers say no
So, if we strip away all rhetorical decor, this is what the union means: the voter in Gloucestershire loves the union enough to share her money with Arlene and Michelle. And here is the really big news: if she’s a Brexiteer, she damn well doesn’t. In the latest Future of England survey, there is a buried landmine.
It has received some attention for the breathtaking revelation that fully 83 per cent of Leave voters and 73 per cent of Conservative voters agree that “the unravelling of the peace process in Northern Ireland” is a “price worth paying” for Brexit that allows them to “take back control”.
The DUP is aggressively biting the only hands still willing to feed it: screw you and your money!
But there is actually an even more explosive finding, less immediately lurid but of far greater consequence for the DUP. The proposition put to these English voters is this: “Revenue raised from taxpayers in England should also be distributed to Northern Ireland to help Northern Irish public services.” Just 25 per cent of Leave voters, and 29 per cent of people who said they voted Conservative in 2017, agree.
What is even more striking is that antipathy to sharing English tax revenues actually rises if Northern Ireland is explicitly included in the question. In the abstract, 38 per cent of Leave voters agree that revenue raised from taxpayers in England should be spread across the whole of the UK. That falls to 25 per cent when Northern Ireland is explicitly mentioned.
Tories and Brexiteers in England are literally not buying the union any more. On the only real test that matters – the willingness to share their money with their kith and kin in Ulster – three-quarters of English Leave voters have their hands firmly in their pockets. The message could not be clearer: Kith? My arse!
English shinners
And here’s the true idiocy of the DUP’s alliance with the Brexit ultras: the only people in England who are still willing to subsidise Northern Ireland are Remainers. The DUP has taken sides with the enemies of the union against its friends. While just 25 per cent of Leave voters are okay with it, 52 per cent of Remain voters in England agree that their taxes should pay for Northern Ireland’s public services.
On every similar question, it is Remainers who still believe in UK solidarity and British identity – the Leavers have tilted decisively towards an English version of Ourselves Alone. The DUP may not be able to stay in bed with Sinn Féin in Belfast, but it has entangled its destiny with that of the English Shinners.
While any unionist with a stim of wit would understand that Northern Ireland’s future in the union depends on the Remainers, the DUP is aggressively biting the only hands still willing to feed it: screw you and your money!
The DUP’s delusion is that it can emotionally blackmail the English by screaming “hit me know with the precious union in my arms!” It thinks it can mobilise the self-pitying drama of Rudyard Kipling’s Ulster 1912, in which England is shamed into standing or falling with the fate of Ulster Unionists:
“We are the sacrifice.” To which the mass of Brexit supporters in England will say: “Right you are then. Ta-rah!”
Not at all. The 2016 referendum determined that Britain should set about negotiating the country’s departure from the EU and we have to respect that democratic decision.
However, the terms on which we leave, and Britain’s future relationship with the EU, were never formulated or put to the public in 2016 and much more information and new facts have come to light about Brexit since then that could never have been known at the time.
We now know that promises made about Brexit, like more £350m a week extra for our NHS and getting a deal with the ‘exact same benefits’, won’t be kept. In fact, if we leave we will have to pay a £40 billion divorce bill in return for a much worse relationship.
The Brexit process is a mess and the negotiations are going badly, which makes it more likely that we will either get a bad deal or worse case no deal.
Given all this, it doesn’t seem right to tell people, as the Government is doing, that the public should just accept without question whatever version of Brexit they come back with.
All of us have a right to say no - this isn't right. If the deal isn't right for the people of the UK, then the people of the UK should have the final say.
The truth is the cart was put before the horse.
The terms of any deal, or indeed no deal, should have been ironed out first and then voted upon.
To argue otherwise is sheer foolishness.
And again the finger of blame for this fiasco points squarely at one man.....Mr. David Cameron.
TraffordBlue
Player Valuation: £30m
A lot of that seems accurate but again it ignores that another member of the UK, Wales, had a majority to leave the EU so Brexit is not just the "Little Englander" idea as it is being made out to be.
Carl O'Ancelotti
Player Valuation: £20m
It's just another excuse for him to be condescending towards us. Government ministers have been pointing out the potential consequences of Brexit for Ireland since the referendum result.
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
That was down to immigrants, specifically the English who moved to areas where the Meibion were not active and who have entirely without irony voted UKIP ever since.
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