You heard the lady. Which lady? Take your pick. Theresa May has declared emphatically her concern to keep trade flowing between the north-east of Ireland and the rest of Ireland. Outside 10 Downing Street, Arlene Foster repeated this assurance: no hard border for Ireland. Whooo-hooo!
Just one drawback: Theresa didn’t have time to explain how she was going to do this. She is, after all, the woman who believes that Brexit Is Brexit, which most commentators interpret as either a statement of the bleedin’ obvious or a declaration that there are going to be no half-measures, Britain is leaving the EU, bye-bye-, so long, it’s been good to know ya. So how to juggle the soft Irish border with the hard Brexit?
Arlene Foster, some months ago, explained that it would be done with technology. Ah, technology. I was watching a guy on BBC FOUR last night. He was an author (they all look alike to me, Virginia) being interviewed by Andrew Marr, and he said that every age has its own gods. Ours is the iphone. If he’s right, then Arlene would appear to have joined the worshippers. Certainly if she thinks technology is going eliminate any drawbacks or delays once the border is between an EU state and a little NE corner that is not part of the EU. Maybe it can be done – who knows? Maybe there’ll be a separate little drone hovering over the head of every individual crossing from Dundalk into Newry. Maybe a Googlemap will tell the authorities exactly where incoming people are and which of them to stop and search (electronically of course). But if that weren’t the case, wouldn’t Theresa May have followed Nobel Laureate Boby Dylan and “come out just once and screamed it”?
We’re all ears, Theresa/Arlene…
I think as time goes on, its obvious the border will be around the island. Its the most easiest and logical solution. NI’s status in the UK was always only temporary.
Short circuits
The media has once again provided evidence of an ability to have its cake and eat it. A striking characteristic of the Irish media is the priority given to certain current affairs. To date there has been scant coverage of a legal analysis of the concentration of media ownership in Ireland,
A Report On The Concentration Of Media Ownership In Ireland,
commissioned by Sinn Féin MEP Ms Lynn Boylan It highlights the concentration of ownership in the Irish media and argues that there are no barriers in the Irish Constitution or in European Union law, to State action in support of a more diverse media.
The report addresses:
“…the accumulation of power by particular media organisations…cosy relationships between dominant media groups and governments, leading to a reduction in scrutiny and an undermining of the ability of the media to hold the powerful to account…
…it highlights additional risks to freedom of expression and the Irish media’s ability to perform its vital watchdog function….
…the Council of Europe has put it,
“…democracy would be threatened if any single voice within the media, with the power to propagate a single viewpoint, were to become too dominant”…
conditions in which wealthy individuals and organisations can amass huge political and economic power and distort the media landscape to suit their interests and personal views.”
In this electronic age, some might say:
“Now that is bad news.”
Why do we do it? it’s the Emperor’s New Clothed on repeat. You watch them in parliament braying and naying as they argue about how many angels they can balance on the head of a pin while we slide into chaos. Why and how did we let these clueless numbskulls lead us into such an untenable situation .Theresa May will talk Brexit up to pump up the troops , but we all know she really thinks it’s the dumbest idea ever….and the best she can hope for is that somehow we’ll be able to slip away from it all….maybe there’ll be a new world war to disract us all…that usually worked in the past………Most of those with wits ,at all ,knew in advance that it was going to be a right crock. Let’s face it …what the hell does the like of Arlene Foster know about the economics anyway? She wanted Brexit really bad…so bad she could taste it, help us.She and Marty traipse in and out of meetings talking and discussing the topic but anyone with a functioning brain already knows and knew back then that Brexit was going to be the dumbest idea ever undertaken by any government…. anywhere. most of us in norneverland knew it for a fact.We knew it would end in a nightmare.Soft borders , hard borders, imaginary borders!!!!Sweet Jeeeezisss they’ll have to have borders in Liverpool, Newcastle and London…more queues …even longer security lines at the airports and docks .They’ll have to filter out the immigrants somewhere and if they don’t do it in Ireland , they’ll have to do it in the UK…either way the queues will grow….and best of all the UK’ll have to pay for it all and also pay to trade across Europe on top of it all.No matter how you look at it , it will cost even more than it does now.
Britain will come out of it damaged, no matter how it pans out. They all know that ,but some are afraid to say it out loud .That would make it too true.It would hurt too much to actually state to the rest of the world that we’ve been led into the dumbest situation any government could ever be led into.At the end of it all we’ll all be poorer , shoddier and more divided than at any time in history.Then there’s the amount of extra work involved to get right to that inevitable situation …A million man-hours of waffle coming up to get right back to 1970 with a UK ….divided and fraught. The worst part is that we’ll all be dragged into this mad circus with the silly buggers.Take a look at the calibre of the idiots who wanted to get into this particular boat..I’ll not mention the giggling Thunderbird ,Nigel Farage and his great buddy Donald “the Grope” Trump……aye world leaders, my eye!!!
“what the hell does the like of Arlene Foster know about the economics anyway? She wanted Brexit really bad…so bad she could taste it, help us.”
Did she? She wasn’t very visible during the referendum campaign.
“Did she? She wasn’t very visible during the referendum campaign”
She was on platforms urging Brexit MT. But even she thought the majority would vote to stay in the EU, the DUP even had their speech written for when the UK voted to remain in the EU……much like UKIP, Pro-Brexit tories, etc they all have no idea what they achieved, how to handle it and what happens next…..
“She was on platforms urging Brexit MT. ”
Was she? I didn’t see her on any. It seemed to me that she handed the Brexit campaign to Sammy Wilson .
Dammit MT …Either you have a very short memory or you really do believe the things you say. The DUP and Arlene really did want Brexit and wee Sammy Wilson went around the country promoting it with great vim and vigour….That is a fact. Look it up.
“Dammit MT …Either you have a very short memory or you really do believe the things you say. The DUP and Arlene really did want Brexit and wee Sammy Wilson went around the country promoting it with great vim and vigour….That is a fact. Look it up.”
I never claimed otherwise.
“..and best of all the UK’ll have to pay for it all and also pay to trade across Europe on top of it all.No matter how you look at it , it will cost even more than it does now.
Britain will come out of it damaged, no matter how it pans out. “That would be great if we did not get damaged in the process. Nicola does not intend to let Scotland be damaged.Will the Dublin government stand up for the Irish?
It’s my opinion that Theresa May is in favour of Brexit and always has been. A closet brexiteer and was only working in her own interest to be on the remain side. She is now courting the majority voters and denying MPS a vote. If she had said she would leave it to parliament it would have been in keeping with with her remain point of view. Methinks the lady’s somewhat transparent.
The charming wedding picture, Esteemed Blogmeister of Theresa and Arlene together at the 10, Downing Street Reginald, oops, Registry Office, is the very model of a modern political same-sex marriage made in Evans, oops, Heaven.
Apologies for OTT-ing on the oops but The Perkin’s inner fan of serials about serial killers has this unfortunate, erm, tendency to confuse one Number 10 with another Number 10. That would be, of course, Downing Street and Rillington Place, respectively and retrospectively, alike..
Possibly on the grounds that both have harboured notorious serial killes on their premises.
The serial killer of 10 Rillington Place is the lesser known. Probably on account of his slaughtering only an infinitesimal fraction of the numbers carried out by the industrial-strength serial killers who have resided at 10 Downing Street, whose names are too notorious to need reminding of in this uber-aware blogsite.
John Reginald Halliday Christie (for it is he !) killed in the Kellog manner, eight females. At his place of residence, a flat in 10 Rillington Place Notting Hill, during the Unfoturnate Forties when his role model Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was in residence at the other tendentious address on Thames-side.
(Being the bearer of four names would appear to be a foresightful acquisition if one desires to be numbered among the, erm, foremost fiends of the Mainland).
Although Dickie Attenborough gave a wunnerful performance in the role of the reprehensible resident of 10 Rillington Place in the fillum of that name, yet, there was something lacking in the portrayal of Christie. A lacuna of sorts, Lilly. He was, essentially, a gas man, though not in the sense that a Christie Minstrel of yore was a gas man of the gag-cracking, hat-tilting, bootpolish-faced and high-kicking variety.
No, but a gas-man in the solemn sense of that term. While serving as a infantrry man in the mud, and the blood of the Great Donkey Derby (14-18) this noble liberator of Little Belgium was gassed by the ghastly Huns. This had long-term unfortunate consequences for the victim as it blurred his subsequent ability to differentiate between ordinary decent killing and serial killing.
Though, nothing as unfortunate as the consequences which the eight Notting Hill victims of the original victim were to suffer. The latter’s modus operandi in subduing his victims, , incidentally, also involved the use of gas, such as used to be switched on by the rider of the Rillington Range..
If , as has been reported, there was a load of compromises on the road to the horizon of the prototype Rhinestone Cowboy, then, it must be averred, there was also a load of single shillings involved in this agonsing Aga saga of ghastly gagging on the road to the horizontal Rillington Place killings.
Incidentally, putative PC Poppy Wearers need have no qualms about the alms they are thereby donating : the Private Christie they will be honouring during the increasingly elastic and exponentially compulsory Remembrance Sunday will be the gallant PC of the pre-gas attack in the mud and the blood by the no-good Gunters.
Prima face evidence indicates that Christie was a putative proponent of same-sex marriage. This is borne out by his murdering not only his own female wife but also the female wife of another tenant at Number Ten.
Indeed, the tenant in q. was later unfairly hanged for this latter slaying as the Crown Court took the word of Police Reservist Christie (!) over his. That was Timothy Evans from Wales. The other Number 10 in cahoots with Schloss Buckingham subsequently awarded TE, in the manner of a cheated Olympic athlete receiving a bronze medal twenty years down the line, a Posthumous Pardon.
On the Mainland, Miscarriage of Justice and Posthumous Pardon go together like Hollyhocks and Warlocks in an English Country Garden.
If Timothy was the fall guy in 10 Rillington Place then Falls Road Pat is the ongoing fall guy in 10 Downing Street.
Indeed, the much derided Christie Minstrels are in dire need of a rehabilitative reassessment by some (gulp) lyrical Revisionist if the truthiness were known.
Yo ! check out this verse of their’s, bro:
-If you’re Irish (or Welsh) come into the parlour
There’s a welcome there for you;
If your name is Timothy or Pat
As long as you come from Wales or Ireland
There’s a welcome on the mat.
Dispassionate hindsight can only recognize the clarity of this foresight. Even the corgies in the streets of London, taking time out from their diurnal four-legged orgies and other sixteen paw reels, would bark in unison.
Mais revenons a nos moutons/ let us return to that snap-happy wedding photograph of Theresa and Arlene at the still named Number 10 Downing Street. (The other Number 10 has long since has its Rillington willingly scrubbed and replaced, with far, far less good reason).
Hopefully, a certain Aryan nonagenarian has spotted the winner of the ‘Have your Cake and Eat It Award 2016’. The latter would have been, Arlene , of course: with her Pro-Brexit from the European Mainland policy in one hand, and her Anti-Brexit from the Irish Mainland policy in the other hand. One white, t’uther red.
If the Hausfrau Saxe-Coburg-Goth (for it is shape-shifting she!) has spotted it then assuredly She will invite that epitome of the same-sex political marriage to a Cake Fest in Schloss Buckingham. Where the same-sex threesome could gorge themselves on the only cake in foggy old doggy old London town, erm, Black Forest.
LET THEM TWEET CAKE
No mistake in targeting the fruit cake
Shop: a tip top publicity sweepstake !
Sure as the F. of Athenry
Are where Munster do try
Next up is a cake baked as trousersnake.
In the end of the day the blame for our current predicament lies with the unionists in the north of Ireland. Unionism is keeping us in a union with a country that has little in common with us. Unionism must be called out for what it is abdication of responsibility and anti-irish rhetoric.
In the end of the day the blame for our current predicament lies with the nationalists in Ireland. Nationalism is trying to end our union with the rest of the country. Nationalism must be called out for what it is abdication of responsibility and anti-British rhetoric.
MT ..In this case your little mirroring technique doesn’t actually ring true.It is the DUP which pushed for Brexit which has ultimately put us in this situation by hanging onto the coattails of Brexit Tories in the UK for their own party reasons. It is they who have actually helped to destabalise the entire union ,albeit unwittingly,.for all of that their voting power helped to bring on Brexit , which everyone ,now realises is going to be a madhouse.
Correct, Paddykool. The difference is that the Irish government are a sovereign nation with control of a fiscal system and a constitution. Devolved power under the UK government is little more that a government subcommittee. Brexit is just the latest demonstration of the lack of democracy in the statelet in which we reside. Is this it? Is this all we can expect for the future of our children and our children’s children?
It is time for us to stand up and make our own decisions! To raise our own finances! And to live with them decisions in the knowledge that we can change things in the future if they don’t work out. Currently we have to live with whatever decsions are taken by the English government. I don’t think this situation benifits anyone in our society.
Are you a unionist MT? I don’t know If I am a nationalist or not but I certainly believe that Ireland should run its own affairs. Does that make me a nationalist in your books?
The kind thing to say would be that those claiming there will be no hard border are fools, but the more honest thing would be that they are liars.
English people voted for Brexit so she could ‘control our borders from immigrants’ and that is impossible with a soft border. So to control the flow of immigrants there will have to be a hard border.
For the past few years the French were suckered into doing the Brits’ dirty border work, and it seems they would now like to sucker the Irish into doing the same for them. But I cannot see the EU allowing the Irish, as EU members, break their rules by controlling immigration for themselves, or especially, a non-EU member.
So when you hear this soft border claptrap, wise up and vow you’ll never vote for the fool/knave who uttered those words!
so to control the flow of immigrants there will have to be a hard border…….
not really,if the new laws are properly made there will be nowhere or no reason for migrants to want to come here they will stay in the south.controlling the immigrants will be dublins headache for years to come now.
“English people voted for Brexit so she could ‘control our borders from immigrants’ and that is impossible with a soft border”
The only way Britain can control its borders is by drawing their borders around the island of Britain, its really that simple. This would obviously mean people are required to show their passports when entering Britain, including people from the North.
Its not really that simple, as Theresa doesn’t seem to be the sort to give N Ireland back to its own people. ‘Our’ border will have to be manned/controlled for its complete 300km!
“Its not really that simple, as Theresa doesn’t seem to be the sort to give N Ireland back to its own people”
Have to agree with you on Theresa Sherdy, she does seem the type that thinks shes the successor to Maggie Thatcher and looks up to her. I just hope Theresa freshens up on her History when it comes to this place because Maggie had a terrible time when it came to the North, indeed she was lucky to leave politics alive, her two best friends (Neve and Gow) didn’t make it…..Lets hope Theresa doesn’t try similar strong arm tactics that Maggie favoured because the last thing we want is a return to violence and its clear the British Governments agenda could take us back.
Its obvious to everybody (even UDA Commanders) that the British Govt doesn’t give two hoots about the people here. Unfortunately our Unionist neighbours cant take that on board and remain emotionally and psychologically wedded to “Mother England”. I mean, even after the Warrenpoint Ambush, the first thing Westminster sought to do was employ more UDR, so they will serve and die instead of English born soldiers. Says it all. They called this “Ulsteration”.
“‘Our’ border will have to be manned/controlled for its complete 300km!”
Prepare for Troubles Round 2 if that happens.
“Theresa didn’t have time to explain how she was going to do this”
That’s because saying there will be no hard border is easier than actually preventing it. Many would say its impossible not to have border checks now unless Britain draws its borders around the island of Britain itself, something which Mike Nesbitt said was inevitable but which he would “fight against with every breath”. But didn’t Theresa May say before the referendum if Brexit occurred there would definitely be a hard border here?…..
“Arlene Foster, some months ago, explained that it would be done with technology”
I fail to see how Technology is meant to replace checkpoints, prevent delays and stop illegal immigration…….Arlene doesn’t look like an expert in Technology, does she expect there to be Terminator like machines patrolling the border? Drones hovering 24/7 around countless fields, small lanes, back roads, etc stopping and turning back people who seek to travel to the UK from the South? Lets give Arlene the benefit of the doubt, lets just say Technology could work…..then why hasn’t it been proposed to stop illegal smuggling? (especially fuel smuggling, its estimated that 50%, yes 50%, of all cars in the North have illegal fuel in their tanks) Why hasn’t the DUP advocated this before?…..
“Maybe there’ll be a separate little drone hovering over the head of every individual crossing from Dundalk into Newry”
The border would be littered with shot down drones if it ever went that far! I’m sure they would last as long as those “Welcome to Northern Ireland” signs lol I’m no expert in technology but drones are easily disrupted or destroyed. A £5 laser pen can disrupt and damage them. The PSNI warned protestors during the flag protests that they would be arrested if they attempted to shine a laser or shoot at the drone in the sky, which filming everything. If they turned up at the border, especially to reinforce the border, they would be used for target practice. A real gun wouldn’t even be needed, a good air rifle could knock them out. (ohhh, just remembered the time I got shot by one of those, my left butt cheek has never been the same).
“We’re all ears, Theresa/Arlene…”
We wont hear anything soon. According to UTV news, Brexit talks could take as long as 3 to 5 years. Though I read the UK must be out of the EU within 2 years after article 50 is triggered. But there is many people in the North, England and Scotland challenging Brexit through the courts, maybe there wont be any brexit at all?….