Comments by "Taint ABird" (@taintabird23) on "Is Brexit threatening peace in Northern Ireland? | DW News" video.

  1.  @mickeypye2593  It doesn't. It was obviously a poor choice of words.
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  2. The UK government is in on it too. It was the British government who suggested, negotiated, signed, pushed through parliament without proper scrutiny and then tried to break, the NIP. Now it is telling NI that it has the best of both worlds by being in the UK and the EU for trade at the same time, while telling the rest of the UK that it is better off outside the EU. But to you it is all the EUs fault. Truly incredible.
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  3. Why should the Irish suffer a border between France and Ireland because of a vote in Britain? Where is the democracy in that nonsense?? They say Brexit is about sovereignty Do you accept that Ireland is also a sovereign nation with its own national interests. I'm sorry you expected Brussels to shaft Ireland for the UK because of a perceived self-importance of the UK. Big mistake. Huge.
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  4. You can add plantation to the list of things you know nothing about.
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  5. Nobody is forcing anything, not even those calling for Irish unification.
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  6. They did it through ignorance. Most voters have no idea what the Belfast Agreement is and know nothing about NI.
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  7. Ireland did not want a war with anyone!
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  8. ​ @xavariusquest4603 Brexit is the cause of all of the problems since 2016 in Northern Ireland. Brexit is binary, there is no compromise or grey area with it. The GFA is built on compromise and it has its ambiguities. It allowed both sides to believe they had won something. Does Brexit do that? No. The DUP found themselves in a position of power in 2016 and decided they would shaft the nationalists but not supporting Teresa May's deal, even though the people of Northern Ireland did not want Brexit at all. The DUP never supported the GFA, as they never miss a chance to be out of step. May's deal would have kept the UK inside the Single Market. In the end they have found themselves with a border in the Irish Sea instead. Now they feel cut off, the way they wanted nationalists to feel. The problem is Brexit.
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  9. It is definitely Brexit. Anybody with a brain cell can see that. How can you vote to leave the EU without a plan and blame the consequences on the EU? The EU and US accept what passes for democracy in your country. They also understand that the Irish needed to protect their national interests from the consequences of your vote. A democratic vote on the other island carries no legal obligations in the Irish republic. Understand that and everything becomes clear.
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  10. Its Ireland and Northern Ireland.
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  11.  @noodlyappendage6729  The NIP will not be scrapped until the UK returns to the Single Market, making it redundant. You can repeat that the problem in NI is the NIP all you like, but the fact is it is a consequence of Brexit. Brexit is the problem.
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  12. The problem is Brexit. Unlike the GFA, Brexit is binary which means there must be a winner or a loser in NI. The Loser is Unionism. The EU and Irish government did their best to ensure that Nationalism was not the loser on the grounds that there was no majority for Brexit in NI, but Unionists - some of them at least - shafted themselves. The fact that there is a border in the Irish Sea is entirely down to the miscalculation of the DUP in not supporting Teresa May's deal. Brexiters could not compromise on the dream, regardless of the collateral damage. That is not the EU's fault. That's your fault. Own it.
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  13. The EU created no problems. There is a border in the Irish Sea because you did not support May's deal! You shafted her instead. That was a strategic brainfart by the DUP and now you are threatening terrorism as usual.
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  14. Who did the Irish 'betray'?
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  15. Northern Ireland is a special case, That said, there is huge sympathy for Scotland, but you need to get out of the UK before the EU can do anything for you.
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  16. What happens if the UK rejoins the EU?
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  17.  @basic_level  Ireland leaving the EU will result in the collapse of the Irish economy, high emigration and social and political instability.
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  18.  @basic_level  ??
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  19.  @MartinMartinm  Actually, you are. Ireland has pooled its sovereignty with the other members of the EU in order to amplify it. You experienced this during the Brexit negotiations when Ireland got the EU to do its bidding and the UK failed to steam roll over Irish interests as it intended to. As a sovereign nation, Ireland could also vote to leave the EU like the UK has done. If it was not sovereign it simply could not do that. So Brexit proves that member states of the EU are in fact sovereign and that you are in fact out of touch with reality.
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  20.  @gary637  'How would everyday Irish people be affected by a customs post in France?' 1) Because the Irish understand that it would mean they would have to leave the Single Market. This is not good for the Irish economy. Why should the Irish pay the price for Brexit? It was not an Irish idea. When the Irish government put this to the other EU member states and to the US State Department, the White House and not to mention the Irish Caucus on Capitol Hill, they fully understood. 2) This would bring the Republic of Ireland back inside the UK sphere,. Ireland has always suffered economically and politically in that unequal relationship. 'The fact is that, Ireland is signed up to the peace agreement. If they want to maintain the fundamental principle of consent for both sides of the agreement and respect the wishes of the people of NI to remain in the UK, then, they too will have to make small sacrifrices.' Here is another fact - consent works both ways. There is no majority in the Republic or Northern Ireland in support for Brexit. The DUP tried to put a hard border on the island of Ireland, assuming along with the ERG that the EU would throw Ireland under the bus and 'make the Irish put a border in Ireland'. It backfired. Why should the Irish people pay a price of any kind because of vote on the other island? It is a fact also that Ireland signed up for a peace agreement, but it is the English voter that is changing the status quo, without a plan and with absolutely no mention of NI in what passed for pre-referendum debate in your country. Of the 17.4 million votes for Brexit, 15.1 million of them were cast in England. Northern Ireland remains in the UK despite Brexit. The idea that NI has left the UK or is in any way diminished in its membership of the UK is a ridiculous notion that exists only in the imaginations of unionists. 'The people of NI' has traditionally been a term used by Unionists to refer to themselves. It is about time people remembered there is another community in NI also which never gave its consent to Brexit, but for which there is no democratic account in the archaic democracy that is allowed to pertain in the UK. Ireland has broken no agreement, nor has is it responsible for any change in the status quo in NI agreed in 1998. That's all on people like you. Ireland will make no sacrifices Brexit.
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  21. Give it a chance!
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  22.  @MartinMartinm  You mean you don't understand why Brexit is a problem for Northern Ireland. This is why you don't ask the right question. It is actually very simple, much more simple that your realise. 1) Under the Good Friday Agreement, both sides in NI felt like winners: an open border for nationalists while the NI remains in the UK. This was possible because both sides were in the Single Market. Brexit took NI out of the Single Market. 2) People in NI could identify as Irish, British, or both. Whatever identity they chose, they would share a common identity as EU citizens with all the same rights across 27 countries. Brexit disrupted that. 3) After the GFA, all future decisions on NI had to have the consent of the people of NI. Brexit took ZERO account of that. Security services on both sides of the border understood that any infrastructure on the British border in Ireland would result over time to violence. This is because the ordinary people living along both sides of the border would not stand for it. And that would include unionists living on the border also, as they understood the consequences of a closed border for them. Do you understand now??
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  23.  @MartinMartinm  Yes, I read what you posted and ignored it. It doesn't help the conversation. Republicans and Loyalists need a political rationale to maintain a campaign. There isn't one, so they can't. The fact that they don't care for economic trade or treaty is the reason they will fail - that and the heat from the security forces and international pressure will interfere with their drug business. They like their drug business. You could say that the paramilitaries never accepted the the GFA, but that would be wrong. You could say it though. The hint as to why it would be wrong comes from the use of the word 'dissidents'. If the paramilitaries did not accept the GFA you wouldn't have dissidents. There was no hard border because both Ireland and the UK were in the Single Market. The departure of the UK means there needs to be a border somewhere and the Security Forces - not some bloke down the pub or on YouTube - the Security Forces on both sides of the border were emphatic that there would be conflict on the border if there was any change to it. There is no majority for Brexit in NI and no majority for a border with the EU. The point is - the trouble will come from those who DID accept the GFA, and that will be exploited by those who don't. Boy, you haven't a clue. You have the vote, do you??
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  24. You have a lot of issues to work through here. The fact is, the Irish government and its diplomatic section wiped the floor with its British counterparts. The UK underestimated both the EU on the one hand and Irish diplomatic nous on the other. Varadkar stood up for Irish interests - its his job - and that made life difficult for a UK that had no plan for leaving, only threats and bellicose claims about its own importance. The UK changed the status quo and threw the unionists under a bus. If there is violence, its on you Brexiters, not Dublin, Brussels or Washington.
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  25. Don't need to. The Unionist would just disagree with him. We already know that.
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  26.  @kamachi  No, not everywhere. This is particular to Northern Ireland.
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  27.  @kamachi  I'm not justifying it, just explaining it.
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  28. What has France got to do with the failure of Brexit?
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  29. Rubbish. If Unionists had supported Teresa May's deal there would be no border anywhere! There is no technology that is sufficient to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland. The EU keeps telling you that, but you are too thick to listen. Democratic decisions in the UK do not trump sovereign interests in the republic of Ireland - it has no leverage south of the border. You must live the consequence of your democratic decision like everybody else.
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  30.  @Knight6831  Why would the British have to intervene again?
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  31.  @Knight6831  What civil war?
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  32.  @BreakerBreakerYeo  Never say never....
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  33.  @jdfiend  Brexit was supposed to have consequences. Did you think they would only be for others?
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  34.  @jdfiend  If you didn't vote, then you forfeit your opinion.
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  35.  @jdfiend  Yes, its their opinion. Was there a protocol before Brexit?
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