Our First Minister of Norneverland, Arlene Foster , seems to have some fears after the Brexit vote to exit the EU and the loss of EU finances in the future.There is also the fear that the economy will not be so easily sustained without the free-movement of people.
In a letter to the British Government, both herself and Martin McGuinness, the Deputy First Minister who thought she’d already got it totally wrong ,has been forced to compose and write to the British Prime Minister Theresa May…who also thought that Arlene had got it completely wrong :
In the letter, five areas of fear are mentioned :
These are the border, trading costs, the energy market, EU funding and treatment of the agri-food sector.The Sinn Fein Deputy Minister, who also thought she’d got it wrong, was forced to join her in saying that Northern Ireland was uniquly vulnerable ,being the only part of the UK that has a land -border with an EU member state.They are both now realising that the border could become an even greater smugglers’ paradise and a motivation for gangland terrorism to begin all over again. The peace process, they say, is in peril.While the UK as a whole voted to leave the European Union by 52% to 48%, in Northern Ireland 56% of people ,voted to remain.We can assume that most of those who voted to leave were DUP supporters.
This is the same politician whose party promoted an exit from the EU only weeks ago. Of course , most of the people in the land thought she was promoting nonsense and voted to stay in resounding numbers but on overall balance the UK pulled every one of us out of the EU because ultimately we are a tiny minority and our opinion barely counts.
Now Arlene Foster is suddenly worried about the future for Norneverland . That sounds a bit rich for any of us who voted to stay.It’s obvious that she hadn’t thought any of this through in any kind of detail and it’s also very obvious that many who supported her stance never thought this thing through either.It’s just a little too late to have doubts about a decision like this, after the event .Why did she not mention her fears before the vote and explain the ramifications of leaving the EU to her followers?I’ve asked myself what she saw that I couldn’t see. Could this be the most foolish political decision for a party ever to make? None of this surprises me in any way.It is just another mad prank in a long line of cartoon politics that we have experienced down through the years here. This time it’s sadly not a joke that can be untold .It is very much a bell that can’t be un-rung .
Now, before the dust has barely settled the DUP will have to go cap-in-hand and beg the British government for money to replace that EU funding. I wonder how the remainder of the people in the UK …in Sunderland and Manchester ,will feel about those Irish asking to replace the billions of pounds sterling that the EU has pumped into Norneverland ….money that has allowed us to live in comparative luxury for this past forty years on our agriculture-based industry , while their own heavy-industry crumbled in front of their eyes .
What it seems Arlene Foster is actually asking for is a return to exactly the same thing she wanted to leave only weeks ago; money rolling in by the truckload for farmers…free-movement of skilled and unskilled labour and an open border once again.So I ask myself again …why did she want everyone to leave the EU in the first place?
They thought remain would win but they could show themselves as super brits prepared to go it alone. Careful what you wish for. Can’t remember who said that recently to those wanting a UI.
EU funding should be withdrawn from areas that voted to leave, the funds could be redistributed to areas that voted to remain. That way everybody would get what they wished for.
good idea that..only fair they take the refugees and migrants and their baggage along with the funds.
Do you mean county by county ….or house by house AJ…?
I thought something similar myself when I read the letter this morning.
But why are they doing what they are doing – no idea; however these sorts of things tend to confirm my own view – and for the life of me I don’t understand why Nationalists/Republicans can’t see this – that the UK Union is lost, at least Northern Ireland’s part in it.
And that bit is reasonably straightforward to explain.
The UUP campaigned to remain in the EU and in doing so relegated the important of the UK Union to a place beneath the EU.
In doing this, they also:
recognised the continued emphasis on an all-island-Ireland agenda, thereby placing the economic importance of Ireland as a unit (at least) on a par with the UK;
accepted an on-going open border between North and South;
granted credence to the inevitable – a Federal Ireland within the EU, and likewise a Federal Scotland, England and Wales.
Remain equals – an eventual United Ireland.
But they’re Unionists, so that’s OK.
The DUP on the other hand campaigned to leave the EU, while at the same time, as we now know, expecting all the benefits of the EU: finance, all-island-Ireland agenda/economy and an open border between North and South.
Had they any courage, they would have campaigned for ‘Leave’ on the basis of a strengthening UK Union, a closed North South border, an end to EU money, a tightening of the money belt if necessary due to Brexit, and a UK based economy.
But they didn’t.
But they are Unionists – so that’s OK.
Either way, a UUP Remain vote, or a DUP Leave vote, leaves the all-island-Ireland project intact.
The letter is proof of that.
Thats a great summation, well done. The DUP want their cake and eat it. They cant have it both ways.
If you missed it, harry. TG4 @ 8pm tonight.
Ta fiosrach..
What’s this about lad?
If you understand anything about the psyche of Arlene and her DUP you will know how thraan they are and as they trust no one, they are against everyone and everything.
Since the Brexit vote someone must have been whispering in her ear about the ramifications, and the fact that they will be expensive, they will cost her votes by the thousand, especially from the farming community. Votes and money are more important than any principles she may have thought she had.
So now she’s telling Theresa: ‘We want Brexit, but we cannot afford it – can you pull us out of this hole?’
Don’t know where you got the above picture – she’s not laughing like that anymore!
Aw…sherdy I simply thought that when you laugh just like that, it looks as though you’re howling at the moon…which I thought might just be the appropriate response.Never let it be said that I can’t hoke a little humour out of the darkness….
She supported the leave campaign because it was a little englander thing to do and simply widened the gap between the 26 and 6 counties in her warped way of thinking
shes from 4 miles of the border near Clones, Aghadrumsee to be exact. Shes a neighbour across the fields. But she would like to be a neighbour across an international boundary from me.
Precisely, Harry. I’m afraid the coiffured harridan, forgive me, DUP leader just doesn’t care about the economy, let alone inherit an ideology wider than the queens highway. Just so long as she dragged NI back to the good ole days of empire and isolated us further from the Catholic conspiracy that is the EU.
Honestly the world view of this woman is ludicrous in the 21st century. Anti black, gay, fenian, Irish, Polish, European, science, Islam… The illiterate have an excuse, but sadly our first minister does not.
Harry I should preface My comments by saying that it is the DUP as a party that has displayed the aforementioned world views, rather than Arlene herself, but I suspect that she would be slow to pull anyone up on them.
I understand completely, Freddie.There is a strange dynamic going on there which must be akin to snake-wrangling …or walking backwards for Christmas !
That letter really is a doozy. Arlene Foster campaigns vocally for leave, with the DUP even going so far as to pay for a wraparound cover on UK editions of the Metro newspaper (out of party funds, I hope…) Yet now she writes to the PM seeking to retain all the benefits of EU membership. Jesus wept.
I thought that Foster was supposed to be the brains of the operation? Such blind stupidity coming from Wells, Wilson, Campbell or Poots I could understand, but Foster? Isn’t she supposed to be the shining beacon of light, dragging the DUP into the 21st Century and beyond (apart from the gays obv). She’s as ignorant as the rest of them. A fitting leader, it would seem. The blind leading the stupid.
I’ll tell you why, because its anything to affirm or reaffirm a failing sense of being British. A sense that I’m part of the UK and whatever the UK says I’m with it! What brexit has demonstrated is the fallacy of such a belief. The north has never been and will never be an integral part of the UK. This Scotland is increasingly becoming aware of as it distances itself evermore from Westminster politics and from the overarching arm of British identity. While Scotland will forever remain part of Britain geographically, this can never be said of the north of Ireland and if the civic identity of the UK construct crumbles what then for Arlene and her ilk. This, fundamentally, is Arlene’s and her cohorts reason for promoting brexit.
“I’m part of the UK and whatever the UK says I’m with it!” –
but mr cameron’s position, and the labour position were to remain. Ms Foster aligned herself with the extreme right-wing of the Tory party.
Agree with the rest of what you wrote
“These are the border, trading costs, the energy market, EU funding and treatment of the agri-food sector.”
I can understand and respect her honesty in writing this letter to Mrs May. It would be an utter disgrace had she refused to do so, and possibly would be out on her arse as more and more jobs are lost as a direct result of the very issues above they have raised.
I have been harping on for some time now about the ridiculous cost of energy is and the jobs being lost over it, first of all in Ballymena and now job losses brought forward in Bombardier over this. This is also an all island issue as is the border and free trade movement of people who work across the border each day.
Not sure what the delay is in the 240mn investment in the north south interconnector, but we have had Bombardier come out now and mention the need for such north south cooperation and suggested that lack of progress is now resulting in job losses.
This will just be the start of it. I imagine the unionist narrow mindedness will come under gradually more scrutiny now it is hitting pockets.
I wonder will she reconsider the offer from our Taoiseach and participate in the forum to discuss these very issues which she so arrogantly dismissed off hand?
Arlene just brought a United Irealnd forward by years. Thanks very much. a Border poll needed now.
ultimately we are a tiny minority and our opinion barely counts……..
your right on the money there,the micro ministers in stormont will play no part in the negotiations.the people have spoken,time to get on with it.
Yes …billy , but yourself and Jessica surely supported Arlene’s vision of a Brexit Exit…possibly not for the same reasons, which you’ve already sketchily laid out time and time over these last weeks . Your reasons were to do with your loathing of the free-movement of people and you’d have preferred to stay within the EU with some tighter immigration controls…even though that can never really be possible(it’s what the EU is all about , isn’t it?)….and Jessica ‘s view is that basically we are all under Germany’s economic thumb and will eventually lose our complete identity within a super-state( and would be better off rowing our own boat whether or not it might be full of holes and might take another twenty years to patch-up….I think!!!..if I haven’t got that right , Jessica will soon let me know!)….but what the hell were Arlene’s views on any of this? I’m sure I still don’t know… but I get the distinct impression that she’d rather the vote in the UK had gone the other way …otherwise why would she now be worrying about the very same things that the we in the “Stay” camp flagged up as reasons for not leaving , long ago. In my perspective , she wants it all back the way it was ,pre- Brexit ,but now she has to go with a begging bowl to ask for it back …only to get the same thing all over again. I’ve got to tell you that it sounds like a whole lot of work to get back to square one …and that she’s not going to get there anytime soon…. so she’s not making a lot of sense to me.
Or maybe there’s an implication that a vote to leave the EU was, in fact, a convoluted , reverse conspiracy by nationalists played out on unsuspecting unionists to make them vote to leave the EU and in doing so actually weaken the union. If unionism loses votes in the future..We’ll all suffer economically but unionists will suffer more because they’ll hav e more votes to lose…..a bit like the story of the Uncle Remus childhood tale of “TheTar Baby”….the more they struggle to free themselves, the worse becomes their fate….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar-Baby
arlenes vision of a brexit wouldnt be strong enough for me to support harry shes well too soft.no thankfully she wont be at the table during the negotiations or we would be overrun in our towns and villages as ole enoch predicted 50yrs ago.the begging letter from stormont is a red herring thrown in to confuse the electorate to the stormont endorsed cuts that are coming once they return from their 8week holiday thats all..
What people billy? The English? The welsh? And you on a different island! The people on this island also spoke, and spoke loudly. NO TO BREXIT! Did you not hear them Billy? Or were you busy listening to the English again? Yes I agree the people have spoken. The people on this island. Yes time to get on with it. Time to look to change. Time to look out for Ireland for once.
what people billy..the uk people of course who else it was a uk vote after all.
time to look out for ireland for once..thats exactly the point in supporting brexit,
‘a bell that can’t be un-rung’ thanks for that Harry, I genuinely hope it cannot, albeit, I suspect it can and will be, like the sheeple of the twenty six, twice voting to be european rather than Irish, despite having previously voting against Treaty change.
I’d agree, not for the first time with Jessica, it was a thing she has to do, otherwise, the few non-public sector jobs we have in occupied Ireland can be lost, not much use being citizens of the UK to people in a bru office.
I voted out, and for good reason, again, down to preferring being a subject of a united kingdom, with at least some say in how I, and my family, are governed, rather than being a ‘citizen’ of a super-state which, one day, will go to war.
The economic argument for sovereignty is also stronger, ‘BRIC’ states are where we can, and will trade, rather than be tied to EU regulation, tying us in knots because some person in Brussels has to dot ‘i’s’ and cross ‘t’s’ in queerly complex ways.
Being paid, rather than not having a job is always a better option, freerer trade will suit us better in the long term, my pension hopes depends on it.
But Mark, if all is well in the land of Brexit why is Foster a prominent leave campaigner writing letters expressing her worries about Brexit?
Ta bron orm, posted before finish, to answer the question Harry, if, ‘men are from Mars and women are from Venus’ then, Arlene is from south west Ulster, curiously, a place where sectarianism is not quite so pronounced as it is elsewhere in the occupied portion, in my direct experience. Why then is she not alike others from the same part of Ireland?
Now, some might say it’s an attack on her paramilitary father while she was still at school, many of us have been there and are not quite so devoutly bitter, some might say those Protestants with Catholic names are subject to harassment from young peers so react by being more Prod than the Prod’s, perhaps this is true but that’s not what she is paid for so time to give it up.
Again though, what she has done is, simply seek the brit. taxpayer money some have always sponged from the neighbouring state’s taxpayer now saved by not being paid to Brusslels, we must always remember, the monies paid into the six Ulster counties is money hived off to make relatively well off public and voluntary sector staff better off, what real benefit this part of Ireland obtained is barely visible on the ground, where is where it is supposed to be seen. Ta bron orm aris nach, ca bhfuill an arigead EU inniu?