Comments by "Taint ABird" (@taintabird23) on "DW News"
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@ Abominable Snowman: Brexit is a game changer. The UK is a odd political entity, but there has been no demos there in recent years - devolution has shown us the way the wind is blowing.
The Scots have a well formed sense of national identity and have none of the issues the English have with the EU. The final deal with the EU will set the tone of the Scottish response. It seems to me that when the time is right the Scots will leave the UK and join the EU, as the idea that the Scots cannot have what they want because there are more English voters will prove to be untenable in the long term. Scotland is a nation.
Northern Ireland is unlike the rest of the UK and its nationalist population is now close to be being a majority. 56% of people in NI voted to remain because they understand the social, economic and political consequences on the island of Ireland as a whole - not because they want a united Ireland. While Brexit is incredibly divisive in NI, once the subsidies stop rolling in and the full economic impact becomes obvious it is likely that unity will become attractive.
Wales should be naturally pro-EU, but its sense of nationalism is less developed that in Scotland. With a large number of English retirees living in Wales, one has to wonder how solid the Welsh vote to leave is. Interestingly, the Welsh speakers tended to vote to remain - they seem to feel their culture is secure in the EU. Again, once the subsidies to the Hill farmers, and the passing trade of Irish trucks cease, we will see how much commitment there is to following the English in the long term.
And who is to say the English will not be the first to seek independence from the UK?
The break up of the UK is inevitable, its just a matter of time.
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@markaxworthy2508 It is covered by the GFA, it is the whole point of one of the strands of the relationships outlined in it. One of the roles of Dublin is to use its position to represent the best interests of Irish nationalists with London. Unionists would not trust Dublin to represent their interests with London, and why would they? They view the Irish as the cause of all their problems through existing. See the strand that deals with Dublin -London relationships (east-west I think it is called in the agreement). I think it is strand 3.
It is difficult to see how how Dublin and Brussels could have saved the DUP from themselves when they explicitly sought the hardest of hard Brexits, a view that was not in keeping with the majority - NI voted to remain after all. Remember, the DUP did not support the backstop, which would have avoided all of this nonsense. They never supported the GFA either, but its the agreement that is saving them from being abandoned by London.
I guarantee you Dublin did not 'forget' the unionists. We watched them, awestruck, as they continued to dig a deeper hole for themselves and increased their hostility towards Dublin for having the cheek to defend the open border in Ireland. They provided confidence and supply to the May government and enjoyed their influence, thumbing their nose at civic nationalists. Their strategy was to get that border hardened at a time when nationalists were at the cusp of becoming a majority, it didn't cost them a thought. It was a major strategic error and now the DUP is on its last legs, by the look of it, because it all backfired when Boris lied to them.
There is nothing wrong with the Protocol in terms of the Act of Union, the British courts have told us that. The problem is Brexit and the decision to leave the Single Market and Customs Union. It means in NI there has to be a loser and that makes it incompatible the constructive ambiguity of the GFA. Tories are too thick to know about stuff like that, but the DUP knew. Some moderate unionist voted to remain because of it.
One of the characteristics of Brexit, or at least its supporters, is that the problems it throws up are always for somebody else to solve. The problem with it is that others who had nothing to do with it are required to sacrifice their best interests in order for it to work smoothly. Either the EU sacrifices its Single Market or Ireland leaves it. Nobody in Ireland or the EU voted for that. It won't happen.
'The newly introduced fly in the ointment was the EU's requirement to protect its internal market, which required border checks regardless of the Agreement.'
You cannot have access to the Single Market and have regulatory divergence at the same time. World trade is more about aligning regulations than removing tariffs these days. On of the fundamentals of world trade is the requirement of checks with third countries. This was not 'newly' introduced, Brexiters in their pompous arrogance believed they could have their cake and eat it. They engage in whinging victimhood when they discover they can't have their cake and eat it.
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'you have to understand most nationalist dont want to be part of a banana republic like the irish republic :)'
I don't agree that Ireland is a banana republic, but I was assuming that was a given that any United Ireland would be a new, agreed one: new flag, anthem, perhaps new institutions, new constitutional arrangements and a new way of doing things. Equally, people in NI would have to learn to work increasingly in the private sector - especially as Brexit England will in all likelihood seek ways of reducing its taxpayers money going to the periphery of the UK. They will have to learn the practice of 'normal politics' which exists in the Republic, with none of the sectarian bullshit. Southerners would have to get used to the possibility of Unionists frequently holding the balance of power. Who knows...
However, your argument is based on the premise that there are not external factors that will change things - in other words, everything will stay the same. I contend that there are external factors which will begin to become apparent only after Brexit that will sooner or later result in a United Ireland: I suspect these changes will be economic, political and/or constitutional.
We'll see, I suppose.
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