A Loyalist protest turns violent at the Belfast peace line (Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)
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It’s flying through the air again. Masonry, metal rods, petrol bombs, the detritus of rage, the kind that the poet Ciaran Carson once dubbed “Belfast confetti”. The riots in loyalist areas of Northern Ireland started with the Easter Weekend and have carried on ever since, injuring 74 police officers. Scores of young Protestants, some only 13 and masked for all the wrong reasons, have been flinging missiles at police vans, petrol-bombing and hijacking a city bus, and fighting with Catholic youths through a smashed gap in the West Belfast “peace wall”.
What’s it all about? As ever when Northern Ireland catches fire, the match does not fully explain the kindling, although the two are closely related. The match, in this case, was the decision by the Public Prosecution Service not to charge any Sinn Féin politicians with breaking Covid restrictions during the funeral last June of Bobby Storey, a former IRA intelligence director.
Sinn Féin has never been a party to play down a funeral, apart from those the IRA brought about, and Storey’s was a notable event. Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, headed the procession along with Mary Lou McDonald, the party leader, and Gerry Adams, the former party leader. More than 2,000 people lined the route and followed the cortege, and a snap showed O’Neill with a fellow-mourner’s arm around her, displaying a cavalier disregard for social distancing.
After a public and political outcry, an independent investigation by the Cumbria Constabulary drew up a file relating to 24 Sinn Féin representatives. But the public prosecutor recently refused to take it further, on the basis that the Police Service of Northern Ireland had been substantially involved in agreeing the Storey funeral arrangements in the first place. The perception among Unionists, and some Nationalists, was that Sinn Féin politicians were blithely operating outside the rules, and that the PSNI leadership was helping them do it. Arlene Foster, the DUP leader and first minister, called for the resignation of Simon Byrne, the PSNI chief constable. So did every other Unionist party. He has thus far refused to resign. Against this extraordinary backdrop of authority in chaos, ordinary police officers are now going up nightly against crowds of youths wielding Molotov cocktails.
The scenes on the streets are depressing ones, reminiscent of the dark days of the Troubles. The young rioters themselves are, of course, directly responsible for their violent actions. But behind them, particularly in South East Antrim, one can sense the steering hand of older loyalist paramilitaries. It is no coincidence, perhaps, that the Loyalist Communities Council — an “umbrella group” for the UDA, UVF and Red Hand Commando — announced its withdrawal of support in early March for the 1998 Good Friday agreement. The reason was its anger at the post-Brexit Northern Ireland Protocol, which creates a sea border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom by keeping the former a part of the EU’s single market for goods.
Both loyalists and the wider Unionist population feel strongly that the Protocol fundamentally undermines Northern Ireland’s position in the UK, an analysis which most outside observers would surely find hard to counter. The question now is what anyone is going to do about it. Although the LCC was careful to say that opposition to the Protocol should remain “peaceful and democratic” the declaration sounded — and was fully intended to sound — an ominous note. And this Good Friday, in terms of peace, was a bad one.
I have reported on riots in Northern Ireland, and the unfortunate truth is that for the youths involved they are often wildly exciting occasions. The tacit permission conferred by “political anger” allows young people out on the streets, drinking lager and setting fire to things in a kind of carnival of rage: whoops and laughter are inevitably mixed in with the guttural yells.
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SubscribeViolence such as this is never justified, but this is the sad but inevitable outcome of a complete disregard and betrayal of unionist interests in Northern Ireland by the US and EU, Ireland and yes, ultimately, the UK.
Never mind the shameful NI Protocol, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement was no longer fit for purpose the moment the Principle of Consent enshrined within it was wholesale expediently jettisoned and talks of the impossibility of any sort of land border on the island of Ireland were touted about as being a fundamental breach of it.
A claim that was entirely false incidentally.
Even if it were true, which it isn’t, a sea border between NI and GB is no more acceptable or in line with the GFA without the consent of NI unionists than a hard land border would be on the island of Ireland without the consent of Irish Republicans.
Irish politicians long knew that a failure to reach agreement would result in Ireland having to put up a land border in order to protect the EU’s single market – frankly, it’s primary concern, despite the preserving peace rhetoric – and this is the fallout we’re left with.
Little wonder that EU chief negotiator Monsieur Barnier, as shown in the BBC’s Brexit Behind Closed Doors documentary, was heard back in 2018 freely and disturbingly admitting that he fully intended to use the fragile peace in Northern Ireland to serve the EU’s own political ends and preserve its precious single market at ALL and ANY costs.
Well said – the border in NI was always going to be the biggest stumbling block to a successful Brexit, and it was obvious from very early on in the process that the EU were going to exploit it.
As far as I see it this violence is entirely the fault of the EU (there was no way of negotiating a better Brexit that didn’t cause this same issue) – but as the article alludes to, Sinn Féin is also a problem.
There will never be peace in NI until the republicans fully distance themselves from the violence and accept that reunification of Ireland has to come about via democratic processes – and due to the long shadow of the violence this will take generations.
I rather thought Republicans were waiting until they had the numbers to win a referendum on unification.Only problem is if this happens there would be a large unionist contingent for Eire to deal with and the southern Irish could no longer use Britain for its freebies-social security , NHS etc as well as coming to Britain for work under the 1930 (?) agreement, because they would become a new country.
Actually social security rates for the unemployed and state pensioners in Éire are a lot higher than in the UK. Happily more than 100,000 Britons have chosen to move to Éire over the last few decades, so the traffic is now two-way. Éire also happens to import far more from the UK than she exports, although that may shift rapidly post Brexit.
Yes. The people of Northern Ireland did not consent to Brexit, explicitly opposed it, and a hard Brexit inevitably meant a border somewhere.
This was as clear in 2016 as it is in 2021 but was ignored by those who wanted the votes in England and Wales that they thought bringing about a hard Brexit would give them. A reliance on partisan Nationalism to gain power in England was always going to have consequences in a multi-national Union.
Is there any incentive for the current government to do something to sort this out? Not soon, there are no votes in it. The only way of doing so would be to appear to be conciliatory to the EU (and Ireland) and they are too far gone down the road of flag waving ‘sovereignty’ for the time being. A softening of approach would potentially cost votes – or more importantly headlines. They have already given up on votes from Scotland or Northern Ireland. Their former DUP allies will be very careful of trusting them again.
People can blame it on the EU (or, bizarrely, the US) all they like. This is a mess of the Conservative’s making.
How can you justify absolving the EU? They were ruthless in exploiting the border issue during the negotiations, but worse still, they have used the protocol over-zealously – they must (or should) have known the serious risk of it causing exactly the troubles that have occurred.
UK Government knew same as EU. The difference is the UK Government is responsible for NI. Since we left it the EU has no responsibility. That was the point of leaving. Govt could have gone with Norway type option but went ‘hard’. People in NI pay the price.
No. Our soil was OK a few months ago and our regulations haven’t changed, same with other stuff. The EU is playing hard ball instead of giving time for a smooth transition when it’s clearly needed to avoid sectarian trouble.
This undermines the GFA, which the EU pretended to care so much about. It has a responsibility not to put citizens’ lives in jeopardy, even those of neighbours like us, by deliberate provocation. The EU is quite capable of flexing its rules, as we very often see. Please don’t make excuses for this so-called ‘project for peace’. You may wish we had stayed but that’s not a good reason to overlook such shocking behaviour.
And their people were OK to come and live and work here a few months ago. Nothing about their people changed. We changed, not the EU, not Ireland.
Nobody in the UK has ever voted for ever closer union and never would. The only thing that changed in the UK was that the attempt by politicians to slip ever close union past the electorate failed.
Since you bring it up, closer union would always have depended on a new treaty to give the EU the new powers needed. All EU members have a veto over that process. We would have too.
But let’s not refight the whole sorry Brexit debate here. We’re supposed to be talking about the rioting in Northern Ireland.
The PM promising repeatedly that there would be no friction, and then ministers denying it when it happened, will not have built any trust in the Loyalist community.
We need more flexibility in the implementation of the NI protocol (particularly around mixed loads, personal shipments, and goods not for further export beyond NI) – but the UK and NI government for their part need to make good faith efforts to prepare for and implement the NI Protocol’s provisions, if we expect flexibility in return.
Halting work on the checkpoints (as an NI minister did recently) may not be the best way to do this. Unilateral suspension of obligations (as Boris did on successive days just as the agreement was about to be ratified in Europe) probably won’t help. And worst of all for businesses and citizens alike are government failures to deliver the promised help to businesses in NI and GB who are affected by the new arrangements.
The people of Northern Ireland – and the rest of the UK – deserve better.
The constituent parts of the UK, NI, Scotland, Wales and England, are not sovereign, the UK is.
Defining or, more accurately, redefining the UK-wide vote according to one constituent country, one county, one region, one class, one ethnic group, one socioeconomic group, one political persuasion etc has become a popular political pastime amongst remainers and nationalists alike, and it’s not exactly difficult to see why is it?
If you’re of the opinion that there shouldn’t ever be any further specific democratic reference to the seemingly inexorable trajectory of the European Project and, presumably, there shouldn’t ever have been any in the first place, then feel free to state that position plainly now, as you certainly seem to be inferring it.
Whilst you’re at it, presumably you’d also like to see Ireland’s effectively unique veto on European treaties removed,?
All in the spirit of democracy of course
Perhaps it might also serve to refresh your memory, given the sensitivities of this subject apparently felt by the EU, that it was not that long ago that the European Union was on the brink of unilaterally revoking the Protocol and imposing the very border it previously claimed it was seeking to prevent at all costs on the island of Ireland for reasons which can only be described as politically motivated and vindictive.
Don’t understand paragraph 3. Yes, announcing revocation of protocol was daft and clumsy and withdrawn within a few hours.
Actually it is a “mess of the” Liberal Party and in particular of the late Herbert Asquith.
Had Asquith not been salivating over the voluptuous body of Venetia Stanley in the summer of 1914, the Irish Home Rule Bill would have been fully enacted and the problem solved.
Was she really voluptuous?
If so you can not really blame Asquith.
“Is there any incentive for the current government to do something to sort this out? Not soon, there are no votes in it. The only way of doing so would be to appear to be conciliatory to the EU (and Ireland) and they are too far gone down the road of flag waving ‘sovereignty’ for the time being.”
What is this “only way”? And if it “would… appear to be conciliatory to the EU (and Ireland)”, how and why would it persuade young Unionists to lay down their Molotov cocktails and half bricks?
It wouldn’t necessarily persuade the kids but it would remove the political backing from the Unionists.
‘Only way’ – time will tell. Membership of single market in some compromised form, I guess.
Remember, NI didn’t vote for a border or Brexit.
“[I]t would remove the political backing from the Unionists.”
What political backing do the Unionists have in the first place?
“Remember, NI didn’t vote for a border or Brexit.”
But the Unionist elements there accept that the UK did, as a whole, vote to leave, and as they wish to remain part of the UK, they’d rather leave the EU as part of the UK that remain in the Single Market neither one thing not the other, or, worse still, as part of the Republic.
But your “something to sort this out” will not sort “this” out when “this” is Loyalist youths hurling petrol bombs and stones. You admit that yourself: “It wouldn’t necessarily persuade the kids…”
If the rioters have no political or electoral backing, in the short term they are a policing problem. In the longer term we need to address the issue of why so many kids have so little investment in society.
Theresa May’s Brexit deal would have avoided this situation. As was pointed out before the referendum, you can have a hard Brexit with the potential for regulatory divergence, or you can have regulatory alignment and frictionless borders. You can’t have both.
Once her deal was rejected a border was going somewhere. The 300 mile land border runs through people’s kitchens. It was used historically by the IRA for epic levels of smuggling. It would be a nightmare to police, let alone the political risks of reintroducing physical checkpoints between areas that are overwhelmingly nationalist on both sides of the border (i.e. almost all of it).
A sea border at a handful of ports that already had checks on live animals was pragmatic and less physically visible, but you’re right to say that it places restrictions within the United Kingdom which impact on parity of esteem within Northern Ireland. The EU and the UK both need to be flexible and realistic, but trust is low.
The UK initially refused offers to extend grace periods while the bureaucracy was being sorted out, only to extend them unilaterally when they realised that the technocrats were right about the level of paperwork that could be involved e.g. in buying booze via Amazon.
Theresa May’s deal might have avoided this situation, but it in no way constituted the UK leaving the EU and its jurisdiction.
The people who voted for Brexit knew that full well, so little wonder there was an almighty, bitter protracted parliamentary battle in the UK to ensure that her ‘deal’ ultimately didn’t fly.
Don’t get me wrong, I think that the UK government has handled this appallingly and I agree that there needs to be far greater flexibility on both sides, but the way things are it’s hardly a surprise that many unionists feel betrayed and we’re now seeing what we’re seeing.
In terms of the border going ‘somewhere’ there seems little doubt that placing it in the Irish Sea is no less controversial than placing it on the island of Ireland, the only difference being which group are you going to choose to alienate and, more to the point, why.
Now I appreciate this might be playing politics, but both Ireland and the UK have long pledged not to erect a hard border and thus it is essentially the EU, co-guarantor of the blessed GFA, who is insisting upon one in order to protect its single market, NOT to protect peace in NI.
On a broader point, what this reinforces is the belief held by many that the EU is the proverbial Hotel California that you can check into, with or without specific electoral consent incidentally, but you can never, ever leave, and as more and more people wake up to this both the EU and member governments had better hope that ‘its citizens’ are fully on board with this technocratic, hegemonic ‘grand projet’, or what’s happening in NI at the moment is going to look like little more than a playground tiff.
During the campaign we were told that we could leave the EU and stay in the single market, and that claims to the contrary were “project fear”. The Norway Model was praised by Farage among others (Norway is in the single market and not in the EU).
After the referendum, Mrs May’s deal, which would have avoided the Irish Sea border was opposed by hard Brexiteers (not hard enough) and by the DUP (treating NI differently).
As things stand, Mrs May’s deal fell. NI is being treated much more differently than the rest of the UK, and it is still in the single market. The DUP are, in a surprise only to themselves, outraged. And English Brexiteers have by and large forgotten about NI.
If the government could apply itself seriously to streamlining the NI protocol, and mitigating the consequences, there might be less anger in NI (Apart from the DUP who are professionally angry, presumably with one eye on the next NI Assembly elections).
Violence is sometimes justified.
“War is the father of all things”
The problem is the Eu appears unwilling to rewrite the NI protocol because it was reported that Barnier stated that the Eu wanted to force NI out of the UK as the price of BRexit. All the actions since we left the Eu appear to back that up, some examples:
The simple truth is this is going to get a lot worse before it starts to get better. The only answer is the Eu accepting that their professed position as guardian of the GFA requires them to be flexible. If they don’t this will run for many years and will see the end of the GFA, mass unemployment and I suspect a return to what was called the “troubles”.
“..it was reported” – who did the reporting?
Boris promised not to put a border on the Irish sea to Ulster….and he did that. Boris lied and he has lied all his life. Nothing new there.
‘Boris promised not to put a border on the Irish sea to Ulster’
True.
I remember watching his speech in Parliament at the time.
If you so obviously change your mind you owe it to the people most affected by that volte face to explain why.
NI direct, the NI government website said the protocol was intended to
“facilitate unfettered access for NI goods to the GB market, and the inclusion of NI goods in free trade agreements between the UK and third countries“
Anyone can see that operation of the protocol is failing in that objective.
The most telling phrase in this excellent piece is the idea of seeking “parity of menace”.
All my family are from Ulster, although I was brought up in England. Sitting comfortably over here, It is easy to imagine that the Troubles were consigned to history by the GFA but the air of menace still blights the lives of these communities and pushes young men towards violence.
To achieve peace too much was given to one side and the resentment that fostered has not gone away.
I have no idea how one resolves the situation- as with everything to do with Northern Ireland’s troubled past and present, one is forced to copy the old joke of the Irishman offering directions, “Well, I wouldn’t start from here”
“There will never be peace in NI until the republicans fully distance themselves from the violence and accept that reunification of Ireland has to come about via democratic processes – and due to the long shadow of the violence this will take generations”.
No. There will never be any peace in Ireland until the partition which was and is the result of a complete and utter disregard for the overwhelming and democratically expressed will of an entire people is ended once and for all. A century on , the people of the north of Ireland are still paying the price for London kicking the loyalist can down the road.
1) England simply doesn’t care about NI. If it could give it away to Ireland it would happily do so. Ireland does care. That is the difference.
2) Demography is destiny. If my understand is correctly (feel free to correct me) Catholics are almost a majority. And as time passes by they will become the majority. Protestants know that.
3) USA (if it matters) will always back the Catholic part of Ireland and so will EU. And assuming that the rest of the world cares (and it doesn’t) it will support Ireland.
Spot on!
Which makes the DUP’s wish to politicise the Irish border all the more perplexing. So long as nobody cared much about it, the Union with GB was secure. As soon as it became an issue, the Union looked a lot less secure.
But then the DUP have often been criticised as being brilliant at tactics, and hopeless at strategy.
As someone living in England this article highlights more about the tensions in NI than the conspiracy of misinformation that is peddled by Westminster and the mealy mouthed media that would prefer us to believe that all is well in NI. Not much talk of the ongoing tensions until they erupt, to be buried as soon as they subside. Just as, I suppose, that the use of the term ‘peace wall’ (News)speaks volumes about the real experience of life in Belfast and the cynicism with which ‘peace’ can be as debased as ‘truth’. As an observer of events in Ireland over decades I have no idea as to a solution acceptable to both sides of the divide but it is equally the case that no one else seems to either. And therein lies the tragedy.
part of this confusion is how the republic can be as woke as it claims now, yet support the IRA kneecappers and drug dealers
Not to mention NORAID & the Kennedy clan.
‘Buy a bullet, kill a Brit’ as the charming refrain used to go as they shook their collecting tins in the jolly ol’ Irish bars of Boston and elsewhere.
We only ever managed to extradite one IRA killer from the USA, from the hundreds who fled there over thirty years.
Some “Special Relationship “.
All politics is local. The Irish vote, no one in USA cares about NI Protestants.
Yes, although a substantial number of Irish immigrants to the US were NI Protestants.
I gather it is where the the term ‘Hillbillies’ comes from. (King William’s men?).
However today all seem to associate with a Gaelic identity for some odd reason.
The hillbillies (Appalachia) don’t care about NI.
It is what it is.
Always made me laugh when Protestant Irish Americans supported the IRA.
Doublethink is no problem for most people.
Your evidence for the Republic’s current support for kneecappers and drug dealers?
Jenny, but was it not the case that Johnson inherited the Protocol from May and could only make slight adjustments? He was under pressure to agree something in case trade talks collapsed. I’m not sure he would have negotiated it in its present form had he been PM instead of May. Admittedly his assertion that there would be no sea border was unconvincing when he made it.
Actually this is on Boris, the ERG and the Democratic Unionist Party. Theresa May’s original proposal would have avoided the need for checks at borders entirely, but went down to the heaviest parliamentary defeat in British history. Retaining regulatory alignment while having total control over immigration was an impressive negotiating feat, but remaining aligned with the Common Market was seen as BRexit In Name Only (BRINO).
As was pointed out BEFORE the referendum, not least by the then Irish Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, you can have a hard Brexit or frictionless borders, but you can’t have both. Once Theresa May’s deal was rejected, you have to decide whether to have a porous 300 mile land border that facilitates epic levels of smuggling by paramilitaries, or checks at a handful of ports, that already carried out phytosanitary checks on live animals following the Foot and Mouth crisis.
I can entirely understand the ERG reaction to May’s deal, but why the Democratic Unionist Party rejected May’s deal when they propped up the government I will never understand. Some have speculated that they welcomed the prospect of a harder border on the island, but they must have known the odds were pointing towards checks in the Irish Sea.
‘I can entirely understand the ERG reaction to May’s deal, but why the Democratic Unionist Party rejected May’s deal when they propped up the government I will never understand.’
Pure speculation on my part, and perhaps I’m being too kind, but maybe it’s because the very essence of her deal in its ‘special’ interpretation of ‘Brexit’ actually transcended the relative parochialism of Northern Irish politics on this occasion and the DUP saw it in broader terms of what it meant for a UK that they wished to maintain the integrity of and remain part of and that had actually voted as a sovereign whole to leave the EU in 2016?
I would genuinely like to believe that.
I suspect that Mrs May’s deal wasn’t a hard enough Brexit for the DUP, but that they found it tactically better to frame their opposition in terms of damage to NI’s status. At the time their objection made little sense to me on its own terms. In retrospect, it makes even less sense.
The problem is that they had a visceral dislike of the EU (some for political reasons, some because they saw it as the “beast” from the Bible’s book of Revelation). They privately welcomed a hard border with Ireland as strengthening NI’s separation from the Republic – forgetting that this would make the border a live political issue, and undermine the very consent on which Northern Ireland’s status in the UK depends.
As I said elsewhere – the DUP are good tactically, but have no strategic vision – and no empathy. It’s all “No Surrender!”
” Admittedly his assertion that there would be no sea border was unconvincing when he made it.”
He lied – is very simple! And he has lied all his life. His own children think he is a selfish lying……
The EU had a choice of where to place the border it required. Ireland, their member state, could not tolerate a land border, so the NI protocol / sea border is the way the EU jumped. Simple. But, as has been said, this subverts the rights of NI Unionists exactly as a land border would have those of NI Nationalists. The EU doesn’t care about NI Unionists. It’s hard to think of anyone who cares about NI unionists. The recent insurrection is largely thuggery by youth, but there is a degree of orchestration and the degree to which NI Unionism has been betrayed – albeit, to an extent by their own politicians – should not be underestimated. I agree that there’s more mayhem to come.
A united Ireland is looking more and more likely in the decades to come as the UK government grows weary of dealing with this endless problem. Let Dublin inherit this mess.
I moved to Northern Ireland to take up a job with the Health and Social Services board in 1979. As an English Protestant I was discriminated against from day one by managers and colleagues and finally driven out by threats and actual physical violence.. I can find nothing to recommend the experience other than weekend drives through the beautiful Antrim countryside.
A really succinct piece of writing. Thank you.
The EU have stoked the tensions. The loyalists should target their fury at Paris, Berlin and Brussels, and EU officials working in Northern Ireland. Then maybe they’ll learn the lesson, it is foolish to intentionally stoke the tensions in Northern Ireland.
Boris signed the deal after promising the exact opposite.
Yes Theresa May and Boris should have been on my list.
Are you suggesting that EU officials should be intimidated or attacked? Were 30 years of the troubles not enough for you?
The media may have turned away, but the conflict never went away.
A very well written and incisive article.
As with many things Boris Johnson walks away whistling and saying ” nothing to do with me guv “
The likelihood is that NI will be reunited with the rest of Ireland within the foreseeable future – say a decade if the process is peaceful, less if it turns violent – and McCartney is right to ask what what will be the place of the protestant working class in an all-island Ireland.
The blame in this situation is not just Johnson’s. Varadkar, the EU and the US tied his hands. It’s as if they did not know that in Ireland violence pays. The 1970s want their policies back, as Obama might say. Protestant working class desperation is a word that McCartney does not use but it must be a factor. These people see themselves at bay, know the future is coming for them and that it will not be kind.
The situation in NI is similar to that in Scotland where the working class descendants of the mid-19th century Irish catholic immigration are a key part of the SNP’s base. Catholics in both NI and Scotland are agin English protestant dominated Britain.
NI protestants feel they are regarded with contempt by England as do working class Scots. No union can survive a lack of mutual respect between the parties. Moreover, In NI, London’s thumb always seem to be on the republican side of the scales.
Shinners must be happy to see Protestants fighting with the police and wondering whether it is more in their interest to be onlookers or play an agent provocateur role. We’ll find out soon enough.
It’s the job of England as the colonial power in Ireland for hundreds of years to solve the mess it left behind. But it is to be hoped that in some corner of the Berleymont, at least someone realises that the EU has fouled up again.
My suggestion is we offer those who do not wish to live in a united ireland a home in Britain. Scotland would be the ideal place as it is a place with links with the protestant community.As we are talking about 1 million people at most that shouldn’t be too expensive and what price can be put on peace?
Yes, or maybe in the Falkland Islands. Give each family who don’t want to stay £1m to start a new life. Must be cheaper and preferable to the alternatives
This is really outstanding writing.
At this point they will probably just have to resettle the Ulster Scots back in Scotland somewhere and be done with the whole thing. Chalk it up to another of Cromwell’s failed experiments.
It wasn’t so much Cromwell that did so much to cause this unholy mess ironically as much as England’s first Scottish King, James I.
Oliver Cromwell had little to do with it.
The ‘Plantation System’ started a century before under (Catholic) Mary, continued under (Protestant) Elizabeth and reached a crescendo under Scotch (Protestant) James I, as mentioned by G Harris above/below.
Does Scotland want them? I get the feeling no one wants them. Certainly not England.
Perhaps the four core counties could dumped on the Scotch?
As you so correctly say, England doesn’t want them, as now they are an anachronism and an embarrassment.
Unfortunately violence and bad behavior were routine in Northern Ireland for many, many years. The region does not have any other power category to communicate with. Sadly, this is muscle memory now. Its ingrained.
The EU and Ireland rejected the necessary collaboration to make a hi-tech frictionless land border work.
Similarly, the Tories offered the Irish government a grant to help them develop a hi-tech frictionless land border on their side.
This too was rejected.
I wonder why!
Because they knew the threat of Irish Unity would result in the rejection of the GFA.
The result, troubles in NI!
The solution. Erect a hi-tech frictionless border between Ireland and NI.
Oops, that needs EU and Irish collaboration.
The EU provides the conditions, the Progressive Alliance provides the narratives.
hi-tech frictionless land border is a fiction of your imagination (actually the “journalists” that comment on the pages of DT/DM/Sun/Express/Spectator).
Logically a high tech frictionless border could go anywhere, including the Irish Sea. Hopefully with flexibility from the EU and the UK, Northern Ireland can have the “best of both worlds” it was promised in terms of trading access.
Seems obvious to me. Ditch the protocol and let EU worry about a border on the island of Ireland. That never was a problem any way borders nowadays are all dealt with by technology, not customs posts.
Mind you, BJ and his government have no b*lls to deal with anything. Except imposing dictatorship on the mainland.
“…by technology, not customs post”. Utterly absurd but I am not surprised.
I don’t know about you but I have flown to Geneva (multiple times), rented a car and drove to France. There is a border/custom posts. There are (depending on the day) tens or hundreds of trucks waiting to cross the border.
Once (going back to SW) our van (full of skiers) was pulled over because meat (Yes, meat!) contraband is a big issue in SW.
Now, it could be that SW (member of EFTA), a highly sophisticated nation, can not manage the border technologically or it could be that you (and others like you!) are utterly utterly clueless! What do you think is the most likely choice?
He did say “let the EU worry” about the border.
I reckon that‘s an alternative to the present situation, and considerably cheaper.
I’m also from Northern Ireland and would also like to thank the author for this nail-on-the-head social and political analysis of what now seems to be becoming an increasingly intractable problem.
‘Perhaps they should have predicted what Johnson would actually do, and not listened to what he said’
It turns out we should all have done that.
Oh and did I add the US the EU and the republic using the same arguments as Hitler over the Sudetens
So who will invade UK to take over NI? USA Or EU? Or both?
An excellent article which educated me in a concise and clear way the reason why we are where we are in NI. Sadly in this, and the many comments, there was a resignation that there is no solution now or seemingly ever will be.
You can also bet your life that the propagandists of China and Russia will be seeking to exploit the division and create greater discord.
Sigh.
A balanced article. Many thanks. So, it would seem that ‘project fear’ is v. swiftly becoming project reality on both sides of the Irish Sea. Who’dve thunk it?
Last edited my first, hardly controversial post at head of this excellent article over 10 hours ago, and it’s still marked as ‘awaiting for approval’ which is rather a shame.
Bobby Storey a former IRA TERRORIST please from an organisation responsible for the murder of many innocent children. The prods are always more venal because they are more frightened. But yes rioting is fun. I don’t know what the police are doing that make 74 injured officers a thing, but PSNI needs to get a grip. In Belfast you have to dominate the streets, you are not pussyfooting around in Clapham.
Jenny McCartney’s article is indeed excellent, illustrating just how seriously the Good Friday Agreement has been undermined by Brexit.
But there is a further, very important point to be made. The bland assumption that a politically united Ireland is the natural and inevitable solution of the ‘Northern Irish problem’, along with the idea that the Ulster ‘loyalists’ would simply roll over and meekly accept this, are themselves major factors compelling Ulster inexorably towards a new round of violence. Proponents of this view seem to disregard the fact that the inevitable exultation shown by Sinn Fein at the achievement of their most cherished dream is exactly what fuels the loyalists’ determination to oppose it.
Northern Ireland is a unique and exceptional place, which needs a unique solution to its problems. Such a solution MUST take into account the interests of both of its communities (now more or less equally balanced numerically. It needs to pay attention to the traditionally unionist as well as the traditionally nationalist sections of the population. The unionist element will not simply fade away.
The Good Friday Agreement almost achieved this, but it has been thrown wildly off course – not just by Boris’s deal – but by Brexit itself.
It is now up to responsible elements on all sides to find a new way of balancing the interests and aspirations of the two communities in N Ireland, based on what is most important for ALL its people – the possibility of living together in peace.
Starmer is personally to blame for this. His game of using Brexit to gain power for Corbyn made a no deal stance where is was the EU whom had to erect a border impossible. It is the EU that has sacrificed peace in NI for the BS of “preserving their single market”. All borders are porous as the drugs trade and illegal immigration illustrate. Starmer, Barnier and Biden have blood on their hands.
Imagine actually believing this