Tags
Backstop., Brexit v EU - Negotiations., The Irish/ Northern Ireland border., The Northern Irish Border
(Ten-minute read)
This is a sad subject to be writing on but it is becoming more and more obvious as Brexit drags on IT IS OPENING UP THE PAST.
Politicians, public, and press need remedial history lessons before it’s too late.
May has “gone into battle with the white flag fluttering over our leading tank,” complains Johnson as if the Brexit negotiations were a job for a British expeditionary force. While the horrors of war remind the UK’s continental neighbours of the need for co-operation, Britain’s war story feeds an adversarial view of the country’s place in the world.
WHAT BEGUN TO BE TAKEN FOR GRANTED DUBLIN LONDON CO-OPERATION, PUBLIC JESTERS OF GOODWILL THROUGH VISITES OF QUEENS AND PRESIDENTS TO EACH OTHER JURISTRICTIONS.
THOSE THINGS NOW SEEM LIKE THINGS OF THE PAST.
Why?
Because there is and was little or no understanding of Irish History.
(Which is going to show itself once more when the dust settles.)
One can hardly understand why our world become the world we live right now but not the other way around.
PERHAPS THEREFORE THERE IS LITTLE REASON OR REASONS TO TRY AND EXPLAIN THE ROOTS OF BREXIT BECAUSE MOST ARE SOMEWHAT INCOMPENHENSHABLE IN OUR CHANGING WORLD.
SO WHAT CHANCE DID THE ENGLISH HAVE OR HAD OF UNDERSTANDING WHAT THEY ARE DOING WHEN THEY WERE VOTING TO LEAVE THE EUROPEN UNION?
One way or the other England is now well on the way toward been mugged by a combination of the DUP, Nigel Farage and their misplaced understanding of being British in a world driven by social media popularism.
The attitude displayed by the United Kingdom so far is that Ireland has no influence on the historical process of England, therefore we don’t need to learn its history.
I suspect that if you asked someone in school right now in England what they know or learned about Irish history the answer would be, not much, especially considering history is completely optional.
I also strongly suspect the lack of it is contributing greatly to Brexit.
Occasionally Ireland might have been mentioned as a sub-note, such as its neutrality in WW2 and invasions by other English/British rulers.
In fact, in the Grand Scheme of things these days; Knowledge is spoon fed and compartmentalized in such rations. People only think they know what they know. And given a degree to say they are educated.
However here and now is the time for the whole of the British Isles to appreciate what is at stake and why.
May agrees on a £1.5bn deal for DUP’s votes.
As a result, we are witnessing the most unlikely coalition partners for a floundering Conservative party sit on the hard right fringe of British politics.
Why?
Because Theresa May’s new partners in government have strong historical links with Loyalist paramilitary groups.
So what!
The idea of a British government involving the DUP in one of the biggest
upheavals in British politics should worry all of us.
The Good Friday agreement made Northern Ireland and Ireland pause for a moment to note and reject sectarian history.
By entering into a coalition with the DUP it is becoming ever more apparent that Mrs May does not consider Peace or Stability in NI a priority. Instead, she is sacrificing years of work on the Peace process in order to say in power.
The xenophobia, heterophobia and homophobia of Democratic Unionism have now received a form of tacit endorsement from the Conservative Party, a wink-and-a-nod acknowledgement which will give 17th century Protestant fundamentalism a platform to preach its archaic world-view in the 21st century. From opposing civil rights to denying climate change, the creationist-believing Ulster Trumps have been offered a warm welcome in Downing Street.
The DUP is UKIP or the BNP both are parties on European far right, a grouping in the mode of Marine Le Pen’s Front national or Frauke Petry’s Alternative für Deutschland all will take this sacrifice to the nth degree.
The Europhobes of the DUP, with their determination to build a Brexit Border around the UK-administered Six Counties, will seek every advantage over their near-equals in the northern nationalist community.
They will seek, like the Tory extreme, to tear up the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and its human rights’ provisions, while stripping nationalists of their Irish and European Union citizenships.
They will bring the politics of Britain’s legacy colony in the north-east of Ireland closer to a fatal breaking point than they have been at any point in the last twenty years.
For an abundance of historical reasons (not to be dragged up here in any detail) it certainly worries the Irish Government.
What is needed is for responsible politicians to recognise that the DUP bills itself as “right-wing.
For example;
Iris Robinson, a former DUP MP, described homosexuality as “disgusting, loathsome, nauseating, wicked and vile”, as well as an “abomination” that could be “cured”.
Mr Robinson the then DUP leader supported his wife’s remarks, saying: “It wasn’t Iris Robinson who determined that homosexuality was an abomination, it was The Almighty. This is the Scriptures.
It is a strange world indeed where somebody, on the one hand, talks about equality, but won’t allow Christians to have the equality, the right to speak, the right to express their views.”
So where does Theresa May go from here?
She can’t just get rid of her DUP crutch. She signed a deal with the devil and has to live with it now.
I think the technical term is she is fucked and by deduction, the UK is also fucked by the DUP’s disproval of the backstop deal miscolour Northern Ireland as a whole.
Ireland has struggled with British domination for centuries and still does so today.
WHEN THEY ARE UNABLE TO GOVERN NORTHERN IRELAND.
What gives the DUP the right to dictate Brexit?
WHEN THEY ARE UNABLE TO RECOGNISE Irish Gaelic a minority language in Northern Ireland who’s protection stems largely from the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
( THE REASON THAT THEY ARE UNABLE TO RECOGNISE THE IRISH LANGUAGE IS THAT THE DUP ASSOCIATE THE USE OF IRISH AS A FORM OF NATIONALISTS CULTURAL EXPRESSION AND RESISTANCE FROM THE SO-CALLED BRITISH OCCUPATION.)
It has long been a matter associated with an identity. Take the two National anthems.
A Soldier’s Song against God Save the Queen.
Ulster unionists regard the anthem as specific to the Republic of Ireland, not symbolic of the whole island of Ireland, and deprecate its use with United Ireland symbolism as irredentism.
The symbolism of flags in Northern Ireland raises similar issues.
IRELAND CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT WEAKEN IT’S STANCE ON A LEGAL BACKSTOP.
Ireland fought the Vikings, they mated with the Vikings and got colonized by the Vikings.
They fought the English, mated with the English, got colonized by the English.
What is emerging from Brexit is that England does not have any longer a national identity.
It is not the British that does not want to be European its the English. Nationalism is the root cause of war.
By refusing to confront its complex and difficult history, Britain is turning its back on decades of shared progress, to the dismay of its friends. Britannia is adrift on the waves, and only by facing its past can it reclaim its future.
They say that mad dogs and English men come out in the noonday sun.
All human comments appreciated. All abuse and like clicks chucked in the bin.
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