I happened to catch a bit of a BBC news bulletin yesterday - a report of a speech or statement by the new DUP leader blaming the EU for imposing the Northern Ireland Protocol - and that was it. No mention of the fact that the NIP was in fact an agreement between the UK government, Ireland and the EU, no mention that it (or May’s ‘backstop’) were the only UK suggestions to allow the imposition of brexit on Northern Ireland (without creating a land border).
So that’s it, I thought - the BBC has accepted uncritically the Tory version of reality - as most of the media always have - and probably soon most of the people in the UK will too.
I though that Mark Drakeford was a bit humourless but this guy Poot of DUP makes Drakeford seem positively charismatic!
Interviewed by Andrew Marr shows DUP and NI are still living in 1980s!
Astonishing statistic in latest Dublin port report: there are now 44 direct ferry routes between Ireland, France and the Benelux countries, up from 7 before Brexit!
Harish Patel, the national officer for steel at Unite, a trade union representing many British steelworkers, said the government needed to explain why the EU had a deal but the UK did not, amid reports that the US was holding back over the UK’s threats to unilaterally change post-Brexit trading rules governing Northern Ireland.
So back in the news again. Why on earth do they bother, other than to try to give the appearance of doing something useful?
The situation is impossible to solve without one of 2 things taking place.
The complete repeal and rejection of Brexit
The resurrection of a hard border between NI and the Republic.
Neither of these 2 things are likely or even possible, so why bother to blather on about it? Whatever comes of these talks somebody is going to be unhappy, and maybe even violent.
Unfortunately Sunak is not the master of his own game - he has to satisfy the swivelled eyed loons in the ERG as well as the DUP and, since he is a very poor politician, he is struggling mightily whilst trying to play political games and match the might of the EU who have right on their side. The UK signed willingly in to an international treaty and, like it or lump it, the UK has to be held to it.
He’s playing to the gallery trying to convince people that he has “negotiated” a changed deal - nothing of the sort. Whilst the EU may well be willing to play along with his little “game” suggesting that he has in the spirit of mature politics, the reality is, as TM once famously said “nothing has changed” nor will it unless the Island of Ireland is re-unified.
True, and TM also, imo even more famously, said ‘no British Prime Minister would ever agree to a border in the Irish Sea’… We all knew what a shit Johnson was and have done for years, but who could imagine he would be such a big one as to sign up to that lunatic idea?
Also, you hit a nail I missed.
No. 3. Irish re-unification.
