When our Taoiseach offered a forum for post-Brexit talks, inviting all of the interested parties on this island a direct line of communication to the influencers in the government of Ireland, a state that does 1 billion pounds of trade with Britain every week and with whom we share a land border which in the past has been the cause of sectarian strife and bloody conflict, you would think that such a gracious offer was not to be sniffed at.
But no. Unionism rejected the offer outright as unwanted interference in our affairs.
And I can see why. 100% of our unionist contributors support the notion that such talks run the risk of state level discussions where unification might be mentioned and thus must be avoided at all costs while any other opinion on it than other their own doesn’t matter, whether we are all the worse off for it or not.
Believe it or not that is the reality, but I will choose to look at the positives.
It was nice to have a Taoiseach show a positive interest for a change.
I actually had respect for Enda Kenny for it and I hope the forum goes ahead with an open invitation to the leadership of unionism for a later date should there be any interesting proposals come out of it that the public may find appealing. It might be hard for unionism to keep away then.
I simply don’t believe that the idea of the elected leaders of political parties, responsible for running our economy and its future growth, talking with the governments of different states is an alien concept. In light of the issues Brexit threw up in this part of the world, the idea that there would not be all island talks is the one I would find abhorrent.
So what is the problem?
Is it because unionism knows that the 1bn of trade each week makes Ireland an important ally to Britain and that London may even support the idea of that relationship being better off through Irish unification?
Is it because unification is the best and possibly the only way we can achieve full reconciliation between our people on this island and at the same time maintain the strongest possible relationship with Britain?
London certainly didn’t offer anything close. They are more concerned with Scotland and Northern Ireland will be way down the list of things to do.
We should be grateful Mrs May could spare 30 mins to show her face before having the good sense to get the hell out of this place.
The sad thing is, the unionists on this site actually know this refusal to talk was pure bigotry yet are hell bent on trying to make excuses for it.
They also know that it is right for the leadership of unionism to acknowledge the actions carried out in their name which caused so much pain and suffering and kick started the conflict here.
They know they cannot simply wash their hands off the past actions done in the name of unionism. They can try and put all blame on the DUP, but they are the party the majority of unionists vote for and the second largest party, the UUP is who gusty Spence claimed paid his UVF to murder in 1966 and are no better. Unionism simply cannot divide in to different groupings and say it is that group who should acknowledge the past actions of unionism, we are the good guys, especially when the so called good guys are equally as intolerant.
I don’t blame our Taoiseach for saying unionism is not yet ready. It clearly isn’t.
But please don’t abandon us once again to this reckless and obtuse mind-set.
Cut spite off face nose your to,
In what way PJ?
I’ll try to make this clear Jessica.
I ( a Unionist) don’t have a problem with ANYONE from ANY political party, having talks with the southern government on ANYTHING.
I believe your 100% number blown out of the water.
I agree
Nothing unreasonable about that position whatsoever Scott.
It would be nice if the leaders of unionism would follow your lead, but I will accept your good faith and stop using that phrase at least
So your 100% assertion is incorrect?
“So your 100% assertion is incorrect?”
Once Scott proved it incorrect yes. Hence I gave my word not to use the phrase again AG.
I wasn’t asking for anything more than support for dialog.
may has appointed negotiators to deal with brexit,that includes the land border in ireland stormont doesnt come into it thankfully.imagine thon crowd negotiating on your behalf.
You make a good point there billy
Definition of a bigot. A person who is intolerant of opinions or beliefs other than their own especially in race, religion and politics. Enda Kenny is not our Taoiseach. He is the leader of a right wing 26 county political party and did not nor will not ever receive my vote.
He is also leader of the party in government and whether we voted for him or not, he is still Taoiseach.
Arlene Foster never received my vote either, but she is still the First Minister.
It is just a pity then neither of them have much time for concerns of the nationalist community in the north.
He is not OUR Taoiseach. The GFA ruled that out.
Well lets put it this way fiosrach
I will consider him my Taoiseach, such as he is, he has earned my respect in offering an all island forum and in bringing up a border poll in light of brexit.
As per the GFA as you mention, you can consider Mrs May to be your Taoiseach.
“He is not OUR Taoiseach. The GFA ruled that out”
A piece of paper doesn’t dictate my political views nor most Republicans.
The GFA, democratically supported by the whole island, so we’re told, removed the ‘constitutional imperative’. That means that the Dublin government no longer even pretends to rule the 32 counties. They now openly admit to being content with 26 counties. Thus, he is no longer our Taoiseach nor does he want to be. And we all know that republicans are democrats.
When did Dublin last pretend to rule all 32 counties?
I don’t know what has inspired this mope fiosrach, but the Taoiseach is the Taoiseach and even Charlie Haughey wasn’t loved by everybody.
But he should have been 🙂
He is exactly the type of Taoiseach we need today.
Brexit is for the sovereign governments to sort out.
A talking shop for self-important politicians is an irrelevance.
Leave it to the big boys
“Leave it to the big boys”
The thing is MT the “big boys” (last time I looked Mrs May was a woman….) care as much about Norn Iron as they do about Djibouti. Where is Djibouti? I don’t know but who cares.
So while Norn Iron’s economy goes down the drain in the next few years (whilst the Republic continues its 6-7% growth rates) its political structures feel the strain and more people are ditched into the hole of poverty, that’s when politicians North and South talking together becomes a relevance for both communities.
Nearly a million Catholics cant be ignored, never mind a large minority of Protestants who wanted to remain in the EU.
“The thing is MT the “big boys” (last time I looked Mrs May was a woman….) care as much about Norn Iron as they do about Djibouti. Where is Djibouti? I don’t know but who cares.”
I think in this instance you are wrong, since NI becomes disproportionately important in the Brexit talks because of the land border. The Southern government will also make it an issue.
Our political representatives will have input to negotiations on NI relevant matters.
I think it’s the output that counts, MT, rather than the input…
Obviously. But this discussion is about the input.
OK. So what does ‘input’ mean? You’ll be allowed to talk?
“OK. So what does ‘input’ mean?”
Presumably it means providing views and arguments to those negotiating Brexit.
What was it Charlie Brown said?
FOR ALL UNIONISTS ON HERE:
“100% of our unionist contributors support the notion that such talks run the risk of state level discussions where unification might be mentioned and thus must be avoided at all costs while any other opinion on it than other their own doesn’t matter, whether we are all the worse off for it or not.”
Jessica says 100%, so, lets take a vote:
I (AG) would happily see such talks.
What say the rest of you?
At the end we can tally up the score and compare it to Jessica’s.
Post-Brexit Talks?
Not a problem.
Now, as of 21:05pm, AG’s and PF’s votes make it 100% of unionists on this site who have no issue with such discussions.
As I said, if we can replicate it in political circles wouldn’t that be something?
I considered 1 was good, 2 is better.
It would have been nicer without the attitude though, it is not as if it was an unreasonable expectation.
Now if our political leaders could show the same resolve, we might actually get somewhere.
First it was bigotry, now it’s attitude.
Charlie Brown – where are you Charlie Brown?!
1 is good and 2 is better then what is 3 Jessica? Don’t leave my god self out of the party.
I meant you were 1 Scott and AG was 2
Maybe just the order they were in my email.
I had already replied that I would stop using the phrase because of your post, before I received this email from AG.
That’s all it took
*good self*
“I don’t blame our Taoiseach for saying unionism is not yet ready. It clearly isn’t”
They will never be “ready”. Nor should we wait for them to be “ready”. The future certainly wont wait for political Unionism to be “ready”. But be ready for what exactly? to realize and accept that they are not the only people to have an opinion and a political vote in the North? To realize that the Northern State has been a complete failure and political Unionism has helped make it a failure? To accept there is two narratives on the past here? I listened to Unionist Victims Campaigner Kenny Donaldson openly say on the Nolan radio show last week that he doesn’t want freedom of speech for Republicans. Yes, he literally said that. I don’t know what the response from Stephen Nolan/Chris Donnelly was because the recording ends, I was listening through a link Stephen put up on his twitter. The topic was the new Bobby Sands documentary. But Kenny is in La La Land if he thinks he can stop Republicans giving their narrative.
Ulster Unionism is not the same as Scottish or British Unionism. As I stated here many times before the root of Ulster Unionism is Protestant Fundamentalism. You cant say the same about Irish Republicanism. Irish Republicanism has mostly been very secular, its founders were mostly Protestants who wanted to unite both Protestants and Catholics. Hence the Irish Tricolour representing just that. Ulster Unionism has been the opposite. Its always been about a form of Protestant supremacy which hasn’t gone away.
Is Ulster Unionism a lost cause? Yes in its present state it is. I don’t think it will change nor can it. Any person that has ever attempted to steer Unionism away from sectarianism has been hounded or voted out. David Trimble is just one example. As the demographics change your going to see more Unionist seats being filled by Nationalists. As it becomes more obvious that power is being transferred due to Unionism not being able to make the numbers your going to have more flag protest style protests, riots and disruption. Violence from the likes of the UVF/UDA is likely too, they are even still recruiting today. Always remember, in the early years of the Troubles Unionism proclaimed that they didn’t just want to maintain the Union, they also wanted to maintain Unionist dominance. THAT is why most Unionists surveyed feel they are the losers of the peace process, its not due to some false perception as some political commentators say, its due to the fact Unionism literally did lose their dominance and rightly so. Political Unionism opposed equality (and still do) because they had to in order to maintain Unionist dominance.
There will be a forum type system set up between the North and South. The wishes of nearly a million Irish nationalists cant be ignored and wont be. Political Unionism has no where near the numbers and political muscle today as they had in 1916 or 1966.
The vast majority of unionists are pension age Ryan.
They don’t have the steam for it any more. If they cant handle us when we are a minority how do you think they will cope when we are the majority?
MI5 and its agents on both sides pose a threat to more bloodshed but it will be short lived.
” If they cant handle us when we are a minority how do you think they will cope when we are the majority?”
Well they lost that battle Jessica, it was a lost battle to began with, you cant literally have 35% of the population downgraded to 2nd class citizenship status, which was what Unionism wanted and demanded in the 1960’s and before.
Unionism has an awful habit of setting themselves unattainable goals. Like, for example, the Flag protests. Everyone and their dog knew the protests were useless, there was not a chance of democracy being overturned, especially under the threat of violence. If the flag had have went back up then every democratic decision that Unionists/Loyalists disagreed with would be challenged by mass protests. That was the plan by the leaders of these Protests (the UVF/UDA) to use mass protest to challenge and usurp democratic decisions they didn’t agree with, no matter how trivial. They cant go around murdering Catholics anymore because that would mean the “community grant” would be lost, not to mention they would have Republicans knocking at their doors to retaliate. So they resorted to a crude form of mass protest accompanied with a perverse grievance narrative.
Of course there was other unattainable Unionist goals. Such as the Drumcree Conflict, the Holycross Dispute (maybe their most sickening), Twaddell (still on going), wanting the destruction of the IRA (Impossible, according to a British Army General and Tony Blair), Majority Rule returned (definitely not going to happen), etc.
But when Catholics become the majority we must not repeat any of the mistakes Political Unionism made. We are not like them. We must reach out the hand of friendship to those Unionists who can be reached and be reasoned with. Our agenda was never to fulfil some Prophecy of Doom that Paisley preached so often and which drove fear, horror and hatred into the hearts of so many young and gullible Loyalists, most of whom destroyed their own lives and that of their Catholic victims due to Paisley’s utterances and that of other Unionist politicians. There will be Unionists who can never be reached, just let them drift by the wayside.
When I say reach out to Unionism, I’m not saying pander to them or the bigoted elements in their ranks. There should be zero tolerance to Unionist bigotry and to all bigotry in fact but those Unionists who do want equality and fairness for all should certainly be offered the hand of friendship.
Ryan
“Kenny Donaldson openly say on the Nolan radio show last week that he doesn’t want freedom of speech for Republicans. Yes, he literally said that.”
No, he literally didn’t.
He did, from what I heard.seem to be saying freedom of speech ends when it is used to promote terrorism.
Now I think he is quite wrong to complain about this documentary as it is examining part of our history and from what I understand could not be said to be promoting terrorism in any way.
But he did not say ‘no freedom of speech for Republicans’. On this occasion at least.
Will I get my pike out of the thatch, jessica? Damn, I forgot! Didn’t I exchange it for a seat in ………….. ?
By the way, if Harry is knocking about, there is a programme on TG4 on Thursday night @ 8pm “Gliondar” about bees. It’s in Irish but there are subtitles for the üntermensch. (Joke)
I really don’t get you fiosrach
I may not understand where you are coming from or what you are trying to say, or how your comments fit in with this thread but I do know there is nothing humorous about it.
Read the Irish constitution, jessica. The national territory used to be the island of Ireland etc etc. Now it’s not – unless the unionists and/or the British say so. Try to keep up.
I thought it used to say 32 counties but now it says the island of Ireland.
Have I got that wrong as well?