Comments by "Taint ABird" (@taintabird23) on "Brexit explained: What is the problem with the Irish border?" video.

  1. There is overwhelming evidence that the English people who voted for Brexit do not, on the whole, care about the United Kingdom and in particular do not care about that part of it called Northern Ireland. Asked in the recent Future of England survey whether “the unravelling of the peace process in Northern Ireland” was a “price worth paying” for Brexit that allows them to “take back control”, fully 83% of leave voters and 73% of Conservative voters in England agreed that it was. Three-quarters of English leave voters said they did not want their taxes to be used to subsidise public services in Northern Ireland. In a recent Channel 4 survey, asked how they would feel if “Brexit leads to Northern Ireland leaving the UK and joining the Republic of Ireland”, 61% of leave voters said they would be “not very concerned” or “not at all concerned”.
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  2. England carried the vote. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain; while Wales voted to leave, Welsh speaking Wales voted overwhelmingly to remain (87%). Given that there is really no UK Demos anymore, it would be accurate to say that it was the English outside London who voted to Leave, and everyone else has to leave too. Brexit has little to do with the UK and everything to do with insecurities among the English.
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  3. 'The problem in the second world war was Ireland would have let the Germans in and that would have been a disaster.' Wrong. The Germans knew that Ireland would fight any invasion and would invite the British in if they attacked. 'The number of people who left the republic of Ireland to live in the UK is staggering.' Works both ways: the British are the second largest immigrant group in the Republic, representing a larger proportion of the Irish population than the Irish do in Britain. 'European countries have no appreciation to what the UK did in the second world war, none at all . Still a lot of bad blood .' Rubbish. The bad blood is only on the British side - the UK has never gotten over the Second World War.
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  4. You will have to explain that one to me...
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  5. Not as much as it says about your knowledge of the EU and how it operates.
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  6. @ Protestant Jean McConville was a Protestant, married to a Catholic. It wasn't her who helped the wounded soldier but a neighbour, though it is one of the stories that emerged to explain her disappearance later. It appears she was killed for sectarian reasons. There seems little doubt that Adams ordered it.
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  7. Immigrants are welcome in Ireland. We have an immigration policy that we enforce, unlike the UK.
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  8. Its not - its about people and goods. There is no majority in Ireland for Brexit, but the aspirations of Brexit means there will be one, leaving Ireland dealing with the fallout. The illegal practices currently taking place are miniscule because both countries are in the same customs union.
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  9. Remainers stayed at home and didn't bother to vote; Leavers on the other hand were more motivated to vote.
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  10. Ah yes, the Daily Mail. Must be true then. Ireland and the UK immigration already share a database to prevent this kind of activity, and Ireland is already outside of Schengen. Neither government sees a problem here.
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  11. No, its the Daily Mail, I'm not gullible enough for it. In any case the shared database that has prevented this stuff from happening is being maintained by both countries post-Brexit. You are being groomed.
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  12. I don't trust the source. Sorry you felt the need to descend into the Ad hominem, I suspect it is the influence of your tabloid media. Communism is the politics of failure.
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  13. Brexiters don't believe in opinion polls unless it suits them.
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  14. There will be no annexation of Northern Ireland, the Good Friday Agreement guarantees that.
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  15. Can you explain to me how there will be a an annexation of NI because of the Good Friday Agreement? An annexation is forced. The GFA says there can be no change in the status of NI without consent - the opposite of annexation.
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  16. A lot of Brexiters think the that what you say about the WTO is a myth. They're in complete denial.
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  17. The UK is not very democratic, lets not exaggerate. The UK voted 17.4 million voted to leave of which 15.1 million were English. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain but have to leave anyway. Some democracy.
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  18. 'that is a democracy. Not perfect.' Apparently that excuse does not apply to the EU though... The UK is surprisingly undemocratic. Leaving aside the lack of any constitutional account for the fact that Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain, you have no written constitution, an archaic first past the post electoral system, no devolved assembly for England, an unelected House of Lords (which has seats for Bishops) and an unelected Head of State... 'You live in a democracy', indeed.
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  19. 'I'd like to see a independent Scotland.' I'd like to see an independent England. But first the English will need to grow a pair and admit they are a nation
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  20. You get called 'little Englander' and 'racist' because you nationalism is ethnic, and not civic; its exclusive and not inclusive. SNP voters voting to leave was strategic. If the UK leaves the EU it will make Scottish independence more likely.
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  21. Nope. London can't do that. The Good Friday Agreement prevents England dumping Northern Ireland into the Republic - it can only be done through the consent of the people of Northern Ireland. At present there is not a majority in favour of unity, but there may well be in the coming years because of Brexit. These are not the circumstances under which Dublin is seeking unity. I agree that the break up of the UK is inevitable now, its just not certain how long its got left.
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  22. @ Richard Stead 'The republic had nothing to fight the Germans with , no war ships , planes or soldiers .Disorganized to say the least.' The Irish had a small standing Army and 250,000 local defence force volunteers - some experienced in guerrilla. However, the lack of air cover and naval power is exactly why the Irish and the British hatched a plan for British intervention in the event of an invasion by Germany. 'Disorganized to say the least.' But of course, there was also the threat of invasion by the British. In 1937 the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the UK returned three naval bases in Eire to Irish control. In 1938 the Admiralty reported to the UK Government that seizing the three treaty ports in the event of the Irish refusing to hand them over in wartime would be impractical. Each port would require an army division to defend each of the three ports from attack by the Irish trying to recapture them. 'Disorganised', indeed. The constant references to WW2 by Brexit voters in the UK media (and social media), and the resentment towards Germany indicates that the UK is still obsessed with it. You are in denial if you think otherwise. Read this: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11113954/Germans-are-bewildered-by-British-obsession-with-the-Second-World-War-director-of-British-Museum-says.html
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  23. 'Tell us what the EU has ever done for the UK?' It has provided your country with markets through trade deals you could never have obtained for yourselves. 'Since joining, debt has gone up by astronomical levels.' This is because your domestic policies, vassalage to the US State Department and its militarism and the Anglo-Saxon obsession with property ownership. 'We've become a haven for dirty money driving up our house prices and this is the first time since war that we 'born after 1985' have worse standard of life than our parents.' Again, the UKs fault 'There's a lot of our money being stolen and this needs to be addressed as we see that the back-room Brussels deals all these corrupt politicians made has left us in a seriously precarious situation.' Huh?
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  24. There are several ports on the east coast of Ireland: Greenore, Dundalk, Drogheda, Dublin, Dun Laoighaire, Rosslare...
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  25.  @jsbrown119 If that was the solution, NI hauliers would not be using Dublin port to access the UK and the EU, surely.
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  26.  @jsbrown119  I'm not sure I follow.
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  27. 'Southern Ireland', ffs.
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  28. By democracy, Ireland should have never been partitioned.
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  29. @Protestant Why?
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  30. First of all, I do not believe in the forcible reunification of Ireland, I have no idea why you assume I do. The Republic of Ireland is a now a secular state and more socially liberal than Northern Ireland: you can Irish and any religion you want, or none. What I said is that Ireland should never have been partitioned. I stand over that, and I am entitled to my opinion. The partition of India is a poor comparison as population exchanges between the countries mean that there is no large minority of Hindus in Pakistan seeking unity with India. That did not happen in Ireland - a large minority of nationalists were stranded in NI, and a small minority of Ulster Scots remains in the south. While the Hindus and Muslims negotiated their partition, or attempted to, the partition of Ireland was carried out between unionists and the British government, to the exclusion of the nationalist majority. Check out Kashmir, it might be a better example.
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  31. It is not a precise comparison for the reasons I explained. It is the reason why you don't have the grounds for further discussion.
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  32. Support for Irish membership of the EU currently stands at 92%. Ireland will not be leaving the EU.
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  33. It was absolutely appalling. I know the beach where she was found, I had spent time there. I clearly remember being at Shelling Beach one Sunday while listening to a discussion on radio about Jean McConville and the disappeared in the late 90s...she was buried only meters from where I was parked. Her poor children were abandoned for weeks in their flat and were eventually put into care. Some of them suffered terribly in that system.
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  34. But you are in Ireland, Katherine. Why do Northerners think we don't want them back? There's never even been a civilised discussion about it.
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