Comments by "Taint ABird" (@taintabird23) on "Bloomberg Television" channel.

  1. 1chish 'Now this may come as a bit of a surprise Soft Lad but the 160,000 Tory members are not the UK population and they are not the Government or Opposition that define UK policy.' They shouldn't be, but they are at the moment. It is they who will decide on which Brexiter gets to rule the UK with out a popular vote: 0.34% of the UK’s population will get to decide who is the country’s next prime minister. Recent research at Queen Mary University of London shows the Tory membership lives predominantly in the south-west, south-east and east of England. It is also overwhelmingly white (99%), male (70%), with 86% categorised as ABC1s with more education and better-paid jobs, and 72% aged over 45. The UKs future is in the hands of gerontocracy that is barely represented in the north of England or Wales, has a minimal presence in Scotland, has almost no working-class base and is insulated from the deprivation that will follow Brexit. These are the people who are prepared to destroy the UK to get the Holy Grail of Brexit. It matters not, what you think or feel. 'Interesting you don't argue with the huge extra support 'England' gives to 'Scotland', 'Wales' and 'NI'.' I have no interest in what Brexiters consider charity to another part of the UK. The next stage in English nationalism will be to withold this money also, and perhaps it will be the English who will finally dissolve the union, grow a pair and finally become a nation.
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  2. I forget exactly where I heard it - a simple majority will not be accepted in the Republic, it needs to be higher with support from some Unionists. Perhaps this is why Varadkar and the government are putting in such an effort in representing the interests of NI.
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  3. They're not using Article 16.
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  4. There is a hard-line minority who absolutely determined to shoot themselves in the face. The UK will continue to blame the EU even after Brexit. The alternative is to face themselves and their shortcomings, and they are not ready to do that yet.
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  5. Your country can't even make its own passports.
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  6. @GH2618 Many NI nationalists were happy in the UK until Brexit, but they can see the perfidy of Brexit and how it will lead to a hard border even though most NI people voted to remain. This will lead to a border poll sooner rather than later. Brexit has polarized the two communities in NI at a time when its at the cusp of a nationalist majority.
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  7. What 'crap'?
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  8. Democracy is dead because Leave won using misinformation and lies to hijack a democratic process...
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  9. On the contrary. The Irish position it to maintain the status quo, Brexit is changing that. If the UK continues on its course, Brexit will break up the UK which is not what Ireland wants.
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  10.  @oldseadog3386  According to the BBC when Ireland got a term loan from the UK that was also a bail out. So which is it? A 'hand out' or loan?
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  11. You're not negotiating with the EU, you are negotiating with yourselves. You cannot agree what you want, and somehow its the EUs fault!
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  12. How has the EU obstructed the UK when the UK Parliament cannot agree what it wants? The UK agreed to May's deal and your Parliament rejected it. You had a vote and you have consistently obstructed yourselves from leaving. Just as well. Your behavior indicates the UK is not currently fit for self-rule. Its March 30th, 2019 and you are still in the EU. You have lost at every stage in this process of self-humiliation.
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  13.  Dale Gribble  Good lad. At least that's constructive.
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  14. No Stephen, it would not be better for Ireland to leave the EU - it would be economically suicidal. And there are no 'million immigrants' on their way to Ireland. Ireland for fought the freedom to choose its own destiny, and chose to pool its sovereignty with other states to increase the prosperity of its people. While the UK made a pigs-ear of its membership, the Irish did not. Free speech in Ireland ensures there is no need to whisper one's dissent.
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  15. Well, Ireland is in the EU and Mairead McGuinness is commissioner for in the EU. Sounds to me like both are on the right side of the fence. Your comment literally makes no sense whatsoever.
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  16.  @whizzo94  Ireland? On the contrary, Brexit is the problem - but for the UK. Brexit is a clusterfuck. For Ireland it is an inconvenience and perhaps for the EU, a boring drama of British incompetence. Brussels dropped a clanger ten days ago, and quickly reversed their error - somebody was clearly asleep at the wheel - and now the UK is pathetically trying to use of it to get out of the mire they put themselves in. For English nationalists, this is power politics. But we know from Brexit just how weakened leaving the EU has been for the UK; Ireland inside the EU is actually more powerful in Brussels (and in Washington, but for different reasons) than the UK is outside the EU, because Ireland has the support of the other members. Brexit means Brexit. Get on with it.
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  17. There is going to be a hard Brexit because the UK took Ireland for granted. It simply assumed that Ireland would leave the EU because it had no choice, and as one Brexiter told me, 'you joined when we did, you will leave with us'. Everybody in Ireland knows that. Little Englanders underestimated how much the Irish value their sovereignty. There was no way the Irish would mimic the craziest contortions of their former rulers by throwing themselves on the pyre of Brexit. Ireland is commemorating its War of Independence from the UK at the present time. Irishmen and women fought to get out of the UK because they were being ruled by people who expected Irish people to sacrifice themselves for the ambitions of Englishmen. We're not going to volunteer to do that again.
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  18. You not able to work from home in the UK?
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  19. @ Johnny English Ireland already exports more to the EU than it does to the UK - this was not the case prior to joining in 1973 when between 80-90% of exports, with little added value, was exported to the UK. The UK has no trade agreements with the 'rest of the world', a 'rest of the world' which seems to place a higher priority on trade deals with the EU. Ireland's population will top out over 5 million in any case due to its higher than average birth rate and lower than average death rate. Immigration from the EU will also be a contributor. Few will come from elsewhere.
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  20. It only feels that way because deep down you know that Brexit is bullshit.
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  21. Agreed. It is truly odd.
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  22. The EU will never be an irrelevance to the UK, your media will constantly measure itself against it because of a deep rooted anxiety about the UKs place in the world.
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  23. How do you 'rape democracy'? Your MPs are living proof of the sovereignty of the UK Parliament. I thought that would be considered a good thing, even if they make decisions we don't like. Will Brexit Britain be rounding up all opponents of Brexit for 're-education' once you are out?
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  24. Oh please. Rupert Murdoch's papers have been peddling nonsense about the EU for decades, preparing your for your democratic exploitation. Facts are checkable, but voters are lazy. The cure for ignorance is knowledge.
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  25. Yes.
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  26. The logic...
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  27. The British will still be welcome in Ireland even after Brexit.
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  28. Too ambitious. There will be no united Ireland unless 80% of the population want it - it will take many decades.
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  29. Sure, but the point I'm trying to make that indications/polls will have to suggest a NI vote of well over 50% in favour of it for southerners to to for it - 80% is the figure I heard. There will also have to be serious negotiations beforehand of course - this will be a negotiated new Ireland after all - and that will see Constitutional changes, and I assume a new flag and anthem. I'm certain most southerners have ever considered that: I'd be open to a new anthem, but not a new flag, for example. Other people will feel different.
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  30. Peter, most Irish people do not suffer from your self-loathing. Get professional help if you can, you will feel better.
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  31.  @jonnydougs  It may be a game to you....
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  32.  @jonnydougs  Well, given the pantomime clowns at the helm in your country, I have to admire your optimism. However, Brexit now smacks of desperation, from a British perspective is has all come down to 'character' now. And breaking international law, or so it seems. If Britain was to return to the Stone Age because of Brexit its supporters would hail the making of stone tools as a victorious return to traditional British manufacturing...
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  33. The banks will not move back to London as they need base in the EU. Agriculture employs 5% of the Irish workforce of 2.4 million. It is not the backbone of the Irish economy. The MERCOSUR deal is considerably less harmful to the Irish economy than Brexit is.
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  34. Again, I think you might have sent this to the wrong person.
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  35.  @James-nw1oj  Famous last words... On what do you base that nugget of insight? Positive thinking?
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  36. Ah look. Its a Brit.
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  37. I think what B-Low is referring to is the massive democratic deficit that exists in the UK, especially at a time of diminishing British Demos over the last few years. 1) The first past the post system is archaic and undemocratic in a multiparty state 2) Your head of state is unelected 3) Your House of Lords is unelected. It has seats for Bishops 4) You have no written constitution. Nobody has ever had the opportunity vote for one. 5) England has no devolved assembly - why not? Your claim that you were voting as a 'united Kingdom' is misleading, as while you you all voted together in one referendum, your kingdom is deeply divided. Therefore in the case of Brexit there is a huge democratic deficit too: there is no constitutional account for the fact that Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain. We know there is a direct correlation between the the English constituencies that voted to leave in 2016, and the areas that identified as English first and British second, or English only in the 2011 census. Furthermore, of the 17.4 million who voted leave, 15.1 million of them were from England - the English voted to leave, and the Scots and Northern Irish must leave also. Meanwhile, Brexiters want to leave the EU because it is undemocratic.
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  38. It does, it operates as one region, I know that. That's my point. The UK does not identify as one region anymore, the UK is constitutionally unfit for purpose. We've known which way the wind was blowing since devolution was introduced in the late 90s. You may not wish to confuse the two, but the English want to leave and the Scots and Northern Irish want to stay. For that there will be a constitutional reckoning.
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  39. Yes, substitute EU for UK please. Surprised I had to spoon feed you that, but such are the times we live in. Do you need me to retype that sentence?
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  40. Yeah, but the won't have a fantastic economy...
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  41. 'Ireland’s days as a tax dodging location are finally coming to an end. Brussels is right to intervene in Ireland’s tax matters and the extra jobs coming to the UK will be well received.' So, you guys are leaving the EU because the you perceive the EU as 'oppressive' and resent it 'telling you what to do'. But you advocate they do just that with Ireland. I am so glad Ireland left your bitter little union a century ago.
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  42. When it comes to Brexit, Ireland has 26 other countries behind it. The UK is divided and on its Jack Jones.
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  43. The UK has contributed very little to the world. All it has done is leave a legacy of its greed, everything it did for hundreds of years of self-serving its upper-classes. I think the jealousy and loathing is on the eastern side of the Irish Sea...
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  44.  Kelly McShane  I'm centre-left. You also seem to be on the left, given your ability to adopt a multi-layered identity.
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  45. British exceptionalism will help. You can always trust the UK to overplay its hand, just like it did with the vaccine.
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  46. How?
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  47. The UK was always in this position. The EU, quite literally, has only to do nothing except set out its conditions and watch the UK capitulate. Just wait for the trade negotiations...you will be left with a deal that is worse than you have already, but better than what the WTO offers, though you will have no influence on anything the EU does. Brexit is idiotic.
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  48. Its doomed to fail because it based on an invented oppression and bolstered by a misinformation about a better future for the UK outside of the EU.
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  49. What. You mean, like the UK?
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  50. The war ended in 1945, Philip. Do keep up, there's a good lad.
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