"Ireland can correct their mistake and join the Union." Or NI should choose to reunite w its neighbour.

Seems with the rise of nationalism old conflicts resurface and done over looking for a different result. See the White Supremacist of the Trumpistas ... Civil Rights and the Great Civil War and legacy of president Abraham Lincoln.

Key words | brothers | battle | bloodshed | society | revolution | blowblack | gdansk |

'Sapere aude'

Unlike other red lines from the UK governments, the Good Friday Agreement is also an international treaty between the governments of United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, two sovereign countries. The treaty included many interesting things, like the removal of any territorial claims from the UK to the totality of Ireland and from the Republic to NI, the disarming of paramilitaries: essentially, the goal was to bring an end to the only remaining civil war within the EU.

The main effect of the GFA has been to remove pretty much all checks at the Irish border. A no-deal Brexit could change that however, but the Brexiters don't seem to have considered any effect on Ireland, North and South.

In reality, Leo Varadker, and the minority Fine Gael government he leads is the least nationalistic major party and government possible in Ireland. Fine Gael is descended from the faction which supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1922 and accepted the partition of Ireland and the creation of the border as a price they had no option but to pay as the cost of obtaining freedom for the south from the British Empire.

There has always been a lingering sense that the N. Ireland nationalist community were betrayed as the price for independence for the south. Leo Varadker can't afford to be seen as betraying them all over again, failing in his duty to act as joint guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement, and indeed failing to give expression and support to the fact that a majority in N. Ireland voted against Brexit and voted to remain citizens of the EU.

Keeping the border open is therefore an existential issue for the government. Why should the DUP, which received only 28% of the vote in the last Assembly elections be allowed to hold the rest of the country to ransom? Supporting Brexit may have been a legitimate political choice before the referendum. Supporting it after it was decisively rejected by a majority in N. Ireland is a wanton act of political sectarianism calculated to undermine all the improvements in cross-community relations which have occurred since the GFA was ratified by referenda by majorities of 71% in the North and 94% in the south 1998.

Index of Frank's Diaries

The UK populace, and its political class, need to learn that decisions have consequences. That they might be unintended consequences doesn't get them off the hook. If they want to be able to strike new trade agreements -- a stupid idea, but that's their decision, it would seem - they need to do it in a manner that keeps the border open.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}