Current Affairs Irish Border and Brexit

[arminisgod]

I think it should go ahead now (Brexit). I didn't want it, I think it'll be a disaster, but the result was the result. If there is a second referendum it will be because the country's elite has refused to take their instruction from the people. It'd be a very dangerous move.

It's curious to me how people who voted to remain are the ones who use really extreme terms like 'a disaster' when in reality absolutely nobody know's what will happen good or bad.

 

[Harryflashman]

It's curious to me how people who voted to remain are the ones who use really extreme terms like 'a disaster' when in reality absolutely nobody know's what will happen good or bad.

If we start by invading Ireland I’m not sure it’ll end well if I’m honest .

 

[edge]

Ha Ha. Different times then mate. When Cilla Black had that spat with Ricky Thommo in the Echo about who was more scouse she reminded him of the fact that people like him from Netherfield Road were true blue Tories (and Ricky was in the National Front too, as you know).

The difference between Liverpool and say Belfast was that the slum clearances of Scotty/Vauxhall and Netherfield/St Domingo/Breckfield by the Corpy forced Catholics and Protestants together out in places like Huyton, Croxteth, Speke and later Kirkby, Halewood and Skelm. They were pretty much all in it together on estates that had hardly any social infrastructure and so those places were glued together more by everyone going down the local Labour club or the Conny club - and they didn't give a flying one about religion by then, just looking to get customers in.

Belfast just couldn't do that. It would have been a blood bath and still would.

The hope is that people both sides of the border are rejecting the extremes: Hiberno-Catholic culture versus Ulster-Protestant. The stuff on abortion rights and holding the churches to account for abuse etc are the stuff that will make people see each other as less alien. It'll be a long drawn out process and there'll be those on each side who dont want that to happen and will threaten bringing out the gun again. Irish history is a long and bloody one but a changing one. There will be a turn of the wheel again that sweeps partition away. Sometime in the future it will be inevitable.

I was in the national front to, well if you count going to the NF skinhead /punk disco behind the NEW YORK pub, in the orange club, coppers took your photo on the way out, bet I am on some secret government list as a Nazi.

 

[The binman chronicles]

To be honest it is amazing that this is still rumbling on, it is a fairly simple to get a list of possible solutions and decide if they are acceptable to one side or the other, if one is a deal can be done, if not then it's no deal.

As far as I see it here are the only soloutions:

• Create a hard border between the north and south
• Create a hard border between NI and the rest of the UK
• NI secedes from the UK and becomes either it's own country or becomes a part of a unified Ireland
• The ROI also withdraws from the EU
• The EU give up caring about the situation and just lets goods cross the border in a free manner and hope that imports are paid for correctly and the UK doesn't abuse the ability to get hold of stuff at EU rates through Ireland.
• The UK remains in the common market/EU altogether.

The first is a no for the ROI and the people of NI which also contravenes the GFA.

The second is a no for the UK government and the unionist party (& unionists within NI) that keeps the former in power.

Next one is as above.

Fourth no chance ROI will do that.

Fifth is a big no from Brussels.

The 6th is difficult from May's point of view because the Tories will self destruct, leading to them being kicked out of power.

It shouldn't take 18 months to work out the answer to the above.

 

[The binman chronicles]

That's a second go at the same issue. What then - leavers asking for the best of three?

It's a nonsense and even though I think it'll be a bad move to leave it'd be an even worse move to rip up a referendum result and go again. It is profoundly undemocratic.

May's idea of brexit by following all the rules of the EU is not what people imagined it would be and it will lead to a no deal anyhow which again I doubt anyone wanted. The first referendum set us along this path and a second would be used to say do you wish to proceed with what they have managed to negotiate. There is no profoundly undemocratic part in that, the only people that think that way are the leavers who want out no matter what the cost and are worried that a second might go against them. If the government managed to get a deal a year ago and looked in control of the process I might just say accept it. The truth is the opposite though and everyone whether they voted leave or remain should get the opportunity to say if this is what they want.

 

[davek]

It's curious to me how people who voted to remain are the ones who use really extreme terms like 'a disaster' when in reality absolutely nobody know's what will happen good or bad.

It's common sense: rip up trade deals or have less beneficial terms for them - that has to place an economy under pressure to make up the shortfall elsewhere. Bilateral trade deals aren't as stable.

Basically: step outside a club and you're on your own. EVERYONE understands the dangers of that.

 

[davek]

I was in the national front to, well if you count going to the NF skinhead /punk disco behind the NEW YORK pub, in the orange club, coppers took your photo on the way out, bet I am on some secret government list as a Nazi.

I think when you're young you're seduced by extremes like that. Anyone in the 70s who lived in all white council estates were almost as a matter of course at least casual racists. I know I was (never joined anything like you did - too much of a Catholic background to join in something like that* - but at 16/17 I held some dodgy views about "race"). About a year later I joined the Labour Party!

All part of growing up and making sense of the world around you.


*was stading outside Anfield befor the Derby in 78 or 79 and someone was selling The Bulldog with "hang all Irish Catholics" on the cover....soon swayed me against them!!

 

[davek]

May's idea of brexit by following all the rules of the EU is not what people imagined it would be and it will lead to a no deal anyhow which again I doubt anyone wanted. The first referendum set us along this path and a second would be used to say do you wish to proceed with what they have managed to negotiate. There is no profoundly undemocratic part in that, the only people that think that way are the leavers who want out no matter what the cost and are worried that a second might go against them. If the government managed to get a deal a year ago and looked in control of the process I might just say accept it. The truth is the opposite though and everyone whether they voted leave or remain should get the opportunity to say if this is what they want.

But we all know what the first referendum was about and it wasn't economic matters. It was a decision on sovereignty: govern your own borders and keep incomers down to a minum to avoid squeezed services at local level. Me? I dont buy into the xenophobia of that. Borders should be as fluid as possible. I dont believe in "Britain" or the nation state. I'm a socialist and believe in internationalism.

HOWEVER, the vote was about sovereignty primarily and the result was clear. I'm a democrat and I believe the vote should stand. We leave. For good bad or indifferent outcomes, we leave.

 

[Ruairi77]

But we all know what the first referendum was about and it wasn't economic matters. It was a decision on sovereignty: govern your own borders and keep incomers down to a minum to avoid squeezed services at local level. Me? I dont buy into the xenophobia of that. Borders should be as fluid as possible. I dont believe in "Britain" or the nation state. I'm a socialist and believe in internationalism.

HOWEVER, the vote was about sovereignty primarily and the result was clear. I'm a democrat and I believe the vote should stand. We leave. For good bad or indifferent outcomes, we leave.

just don't smash everything on your way out.

 

[davek]

just don't smash everything on your way out.

Well, as I've tried to explan mate: it wasn't my wish and it still isn't. But like the Irish found on the Lisbon Treaty - legitimate results should be observed and accepted.

 

[Ruairi77]

Well, as I've tried to explan mate: it wasn't my wish and it still isn't. But like the Irish found on the Lisbon Treaty - legitimate results should be observed and accepted.

The Irish voted down the Lisbon treaty due to clauses on taxation and neutrality, these clauses were changed or removed and the revised treaty was put to the people agan, this time it was approved. Seems like healthy democracy to me.

 

[Ruairi77]

Also, if the UK had a modern constitution that required a referendum to make any changes, you might not have gone this far down the EU path and we might not be in this mess.

 

[dublinbluenose]

The Irish voted down the Lisbon treaty due to clauses on taxation and neutrality, these clauses were changed or removed and the revised treaty was put to the people agan, this time it was approved. Seems like healthy democracy to me.

And the reason were able to keep the rate of corporation tax at whatever level the Irish finance minister decides. Staying in the EU and negotiating has a lot going for it.

 

[edge]

I think when you're young you're seduced by extremes like that. Anyone in the 70s who lived in all white council estates were almost as a matter of course at least casual racists. I know I was (never 08 joined anything like you did - too much of a Catholic background to join in something like that* - but at 16/17 I held some dodgy views about "race"). About a year later I joined the Labour Party!

All part of growing up and making sense of the world around you.


*was stading outside Anfield befor the Derby in 78 or 79 and someone was selling The Bulldog with "hang all Irish Catholics" on the cover....soon swayed me against them!!

I wasn't a member, only thing I have been a member of political is a trade union, Davek, just went along with the Everton skins of the time, ray Ali, Jaycee off here and a few others more for the music than anything else, would have went along if it was a anti Nazi thing, in fact a few of the skins there were in the anti Nazi league at the time, just somewhere to go really, some odd people there , and I don't mean the skins /punks either.mad times posted about it on bluekipper years ago
Your right about growing up and getting different views.
I have a brain like a magpie jumping from one think to another, so can't really get behind any viewpoint for any length of time before it bores me and I move onto something else.

 

[davek]

I wasn't a member, only thing I have been a member of political is a trade union, Davek, just went along with the Everton skins of the time, ray Ali, Jaycee off here and a few others more for the music than anything else, would have went along if it was a anti Nazi thing, in fact a few of the skins there were in the anti Nazi league at the time, just somewhere to go really, some odd people there , and I don't mean the skins /punks either.mad times posted about it on bluekipper years ago
Your right about growing up and getting different views.
I have a brain like a magpie jumping from one think to another, so can't really get behind any viewpoint for any length of time before it bores me and I move onto something else.

Have you ever come across a book written by a feller in the National Front about (or included) Liverpool in the 70s? I browsed through it in Central Library years ago (it was in the reference section and you couldn't get it out). Anyway, in it he talks of recruiting around Everton (the district) at the time and making a few converts with blues who were also skinheads. I've googled and cant for the life of me remember the title. Interesting book about the kind of micro-cultures that exist even within a city.