There are two ways of looking at where and how we are – the D way and Y way.
The D is for Disney, and it involves looking at a happy world awash with balloons and smiling people and adorable puppies. In this world the politicians resemble our favourite uncle who always had time for us when he visited and never forgot to slip us a couple of bob as he was leaving. It’s a world of cute babies, trilling songbirds and floating hearts, a world where the sun nearly always shines, and on the few occasions it rains, it give you an opportunity to pull on your wellies and go dancing down the street like Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain. If anybody gets lost it’s only for a short time and ends in Mummy running down the garden path to hug the lost one, a hug that’s prolonged and backgrounded by a mass of unseen choirs singing Alleluia!
Would you say our social or political world resembles the D model? Hardly. The reality of our world is less dominated by loving family members and friends who join hands with you to sing Auld Lang Syne before hugging and kissing, and more dominated by the crumpled greyness of Aleppo and the hopeless wailing of bereaved relatives.
It’s a world that contains Nigel Farage, who codded the British people into making a massive miscalculation with Brexit; and Donald Trump, who codded the American people into making an even more massive miscalculation.
The funny – that’s funny-peculiar, not funny-ha-ha, Virginia- thing is, we’ve been here before, almost one hundred years ago.
Which brings us to the Y way of looking at life – that’s Y for Yeats, initials WB. Yeats was a great poet but no one could accuse him of being a man with an enlarged funny bone. Here’s how he saw things in 1920:
“Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. “
Not your Polyanna of the poetry world, W B Yeats. But have you ever read a better description of the collision between people who aren’t sure what they believe in, and the unblinking certainty of neo-fascism? Think passionate intensity, think a Donald Trump rally. And as the weeks and days tick down to his inauguration as US President, how appropriate are the final lines of Yeats’s poem:
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
There’s a fear that haunts the EU today: “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold”. After seventy years of relative peace in Europe, there is a red-alert danger that Europe could fall back into rabid nationalism, that the world could fall back into the bloody-drenched folly of two World Wars.
The same fear of disintegration now grips the UK. For some, however, in Scotland and Ireland, it’s less a fear and more a hope. A disintegrating UK? Whoopee! Either way there is that sense of the bonds of order being stretched to and beyond breaking point, as we step into the minefield of 2017.
As for the rough beast that slouches towards Bethlehem to be born: can you think of a better description of D Trump Esq? His blank and pitiless gaze, his heavy presence moving inexorably towards centre stage in world affairs.
We’re told that it’s insulting to see the people who voted for Brexit as stupid. It may be, but what else would you call people who knowingly and consciously act against their own interests? Who accept the lies of those they voted for, and embrace the massive difficulty that they created for themselves? Ditto the people of the US. It’s not really a question of whether voting Brexit and/or Trump was a stupid thing to do. It’s more a question of what level of stupidity it exhibited. Within the next couple of years, we’ll learn from that grimmest of instructors, Experience.
Brilliant.
Thank you, Jo…
Thank you Jude for your thoughful reflection. There is also,I would suggest, the third way of looking at where we are in our evolutionary journey, the M way, which is the way of hope in these dark times. The M stands for Mystical and it is the way of the prophets like Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day and Daniel Berrigan, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer .-the way of solid opposition to the war mongers and racists who seem to be in the ascendancy now. They will never have the last word no matter how much evil they perpetrate
Did Christ not say a man’s enemies will be those of his own house
So you are saying however indirectly that a majority of people are stupid and made their choice to leave the EU based on lies.
However, those who voted to for the EU, were not stupid, and made their choice on truth. Truths such as the impact of brexit would be devastating and immediate yet, here we are 6 months on and Londons market shares are at record highs.
Now the truth has morphed into the next couple of years, then they will know all about it.
We are moving into an era where the US is going to pull as many US jobs back into the US and move away from the globalisation and multi national approach the EU was benefiting from however discriminately among the working class population.
The US does not want an EU able to take over number 1 slot as the worlds largest economy and the UK has a head start in making an independent deal with the US that will have mutual benefit and you can be sure it will be at the expense of the EU political union project.
A smart Trump would woo Germany who will be courted out of the EU project in the near future.
We have replaced small border issues with super powers now rubbing against one another.
The New World Order policy you describe is flawed, it will run its course and get so far before running into new and greater issues with potentially more destructive outcomes.
The only solution to avoid conflict is not through overthrowing them but by correction of the flaws and strengthening the positives.
Your truth seems to have omitted that was the UKs preference and what Cameron attempted to do and what many EU nations have been crying out for reform but has to date fell on deaf ears and the political EU union is pressing ahead regardless which will result in gradual growth of far right attitudes inside its borders.
The EU in pursuing political union will guarantee its breakup, whether it results in the bloody-drenched folly of two World Wars will be down to whether we are foolish enough to repeat the mistakes of WW1 and prepared to fight over someone else’s money and greed. The people who will lose the hundreds of billions are the goldman sachs IMF and other banks who control and profit from national debt. I would not raise a stick for one of them, but the control they wield through the EU will give them the power to cause conflict through trade barriers and tariffs.
If there is another war, it will be the EUs refusal to reform itself or put people first that causes it.
‘If there is another war, it will be the EUs refusal to reform itself or put people first that causes it.’
I have said before, and strongly suspect, there will be, and this time to ‘leibenstraum’ the petpetual hun intrest in their east, Ukraine and it’s Crimea need beware.
I doubt very much that Russia would allow the former soviet union to join the new European union without a fight.
Fortunately the EU just happens to be building a grand army paid for by individual member nations and has millions of floating immigrants in need that could rapidly form one of the largest armies on the planet. Not sure how that fits in with Jude’s thinking though, being on the side of honesty and all.
I suppose the planned EU army is just me telling lies also?
Jude, I suspect ye may have gotten out of the wrong side of the Sperrins this AM, the boul Walt, who was as ‘Irish’ as WB or, I suspect as democratic it appears as yourself, the fact is, you and Sinn Fein did sign up to GFA and with it ,devil democracy, the ccupied type gives us Brexit (in the alternative youcan have the EU two referenda and lackof democracy, once or twice shunned by Sinn Fein) and inthe US of S, democracy gave us Donald.
We should not argue with democracy unless we’re european, I’m not and neither was Walt.
yes mark all the bloggers seem in a very bad mood this week.(its arlenes turn this week)to blame.brexit thankfully will be here in a few weeks,mr trump has said today the wall and the deportations will go ahead,the right are gaining ground across europe,the labour party in the uk are finished whats not to like.it shows their attitude to democracy imagine calling people stupid for voting to save their children and their countries future from roaming gangs (often armed)marauding through borders left open to the world.maybe a visit by mr trump to ireland and the uk before brexit would help,its got to be better than the pope visiting with his depressing spiel.
Billy, the Pope has a capital, on the rest though we can agree, I’m as far from ‘right’ as is possible to get but, like others am a law abiding tax paying citizen, fed up with poor services.
It is the continuum offered by Cameron and Clinton which lost them both, ordinard Sean’s and Siobhan’s are I feel, fed up with the status quo( God rest Rick Parfit) and the middle earner rebellion has started.
Billy, the Pope has a capital, on the rest though we can agree, I’m as far from ‘right’ as is possible to get but, like others am a law abiding tax paying citizen, fed up with poor services.
It is the continuum offered by Cameron and Clinton which lost them both, ordinard Sean’s and Siobhan’s are I feel, fed up with the status quo( God rest Rick Parfit) and the middle earner rebellion has started.
Jude – a few points on this – and I speak as a lifelong republican who is curious of some of the positions you have taken on recent major developments.
First on Brexit and Farage,
You seem to have completely bought the line that all the Brexit voters were ‘duped’ by Farage and Bojo into voting for future economic oblivion and future European conflict.
My opinion is that the Brexit vote went through despite – rather than because of these guys. In fact the exit margin would have been greater had they stayed out of it.
The polls consistently showed sovereignty and law making as the main concern for exit voters.
Not immigration. Not the NHS. Not finance.
And I agree with them.
I used to be very pro-EU, but as it morphed from a trade structure to a political one I eventually became against it.
I cannot read the Irish Proclamation and reconcile it with 27 un-elected bureaucrats in Brussels being the sole proposers of EU law which in the end must be adopted by Irish citizens without any effective redress. That is a fundamental for me. I can’t understand how Irish republicans – SF especially – can square that in their heads.
On the question of war prevention, the main threat to world peace since WW2 has been the US/Soviet cold war confrontation.
The EU has done zero to prevent conflict on that front. In fact there is a strong case to be made that its expansionism was responsible for stoking some of the recent aggro in the Crimea.
No – if you are looking for an organisation to have prevented catastrophe in that era it is not the EU – it is NATO. Like it or not.
Do you really think Germany, France, Britain etc would have been getting into it again in recent times were it not for the EU? Really?
And that they are now destined to go to war again because of Brexit?
And as for Trump, you also need to look honestly at the alternatives that were presented to the electorate.
More of the same in the form of a hopelessly corrupt Hillary Clinton.
Again, Trump was elected despite his massive character flaws – not because of them.
I’ve had the opportunity to see many small town US areas – and some inner cities that look like they’ve been carpet bombed,
These people have been effectively told there is no economic future for them, but they better suck it up because it is for the ‘greater good’.
The votes that took Trump over the top were from the centre – and they were economically motivated. However it turns out, these people were voting for decent jobs, the potential for an education for their kids, a nice house etc. Not some caricature of an evil messiah indulging their darkest deepest prejudices.
I don’t know how Trump will turn out – but the disastrous economics of globalization got him in, and it will be interesting to see if he actually does deliver some hope to areas where it is desperately needed.
It is too easy to take a cartoonish approach to Brexit and Trump.
Rather than pass it all off as the ascent of a large knuckle dragging and politically illiterate electorate you need to start looking at the issues through the eyes of honest hard working people who have found themselves on the economic and political scrapheap for the last 20 years.
Well said Jud, my feelings exactly
Agus misr fosta Jud
Btw, just the other day, we had the spectacle of some Bank of England official admitting that they did ‘get it wrong’ when they claimed during the brexit campaign that if there was a vote to leave the EU, immediately I.e the very day of the result, there would be financial catastrophe for Britain. In other words they lied. But I am sure if the result had been different there’d have been no clamour and wailing that they lied and it’s not fair.
One other footnote, in case people have not noticed; although European nations have had relative peace with one and other since ww2, the same can’t be said for other nations around the world. A lot of countries have borne the brunt of EU/NATO ‘peacekeeping’ efforts. Just saying like.
Down here in DIY Dublin, Esteemed Blogmeister, there is a distinguished organ of record which would insert an extra Capital Letter into the middle of the DY model: I for Irish.
We are, of course, referring to ‘The Irish Times’ which is how The Unionist Times (for it is it!) contributes to the gaiety of the nation by skittishly describing itself as TIT when it, TUT, takes to the stage of the Comedy Circuit on a diurnal basis.
The columns of TUT’s leading comedians are published cheek by jowl on Monday and Tuesday and are known in the biz of show as ‘’C.A.W’ for the thigh-slapping way in which they raucously crow over the way things are shaping up nicely, nicely in the Rainbow Republic of Ireland.
-C for Corset and W for Whalebone.
Una Mullally (for it is she !) is the, um, corset while Fintan O Toole (for it is he !) supplies the whalebone for that intimate item of female apparel which rhymes with Dorset Street, Dublin 1.
This pair of cheek-by-jowl comedians are truly a howl and their brand of Hillary-style hilarity was never more in evidence than as recently as The Other Day. This was when it published an Aunt Sally article in its on-line edition but, curiously enough, in its print edition, not.
The alt in question (oddly, the Leprechaun for article is, erm, alt) was written by a Wicklow-based American called Nick Pell, and entitled:
-The Alt-right Movement and all that you need to know.
It listed a litany of Alt-right terms and their meanings. Everything from the ‘Alt-lite’ and all the way down to S for Snowflake. The last term might provide a hint as to why the Aunt S. alt did not appear in the print edition, most of which leaders in readership are of a sensitive nature and so, good for a slushy gush itself
Well, talk about all h. breaking loose in the wake of the Nick Pell piece. H. hath no fury like a scornful female and before one could say ‘The Dungarees of the Dworkin Class’ wasn’t the Corset quick off the mark and giving welly to The Unionist Times for having the gall to hang out such an Aunt Sally article of inanimate male clothing on the Clothes Line of the Closed Minds.
You’d almost be inclined not to forget that The Unionist Times wasn’t actually employing Una Paloma to fire these Blankas.
Even the normally subdued and lowkey Whatchamaycallem O’Gorman of D’Amnesty Ireland rode in on his high horse, Dudgeon, nostrils aflare.
We have yet to hear from the measured Fintan O Toole on the matter but corgis on the streets of Dublin are barking to the effect that the Tooler is already, by way of preparation for the ultimate retaliation, dusting down the family jewels in the formidable form of (gulp) the Whalebone of Moby Dick himself.
Weld it in to your diary, dear reader: the column of Tuesday’s Child next week.
D stands for Disney, as you quite rightly point out, EB.
And no cohort is more vividly reminded of this post-factoid than us dedicated perusers of The Unionist Times, both on-line and Norwegian pine. We subscribers daily drink from this thinking reader’s uplifting stirrup cup of Disneyland Bland, the libation of the liberal, with all the enthusiasm of, say, celebratory brake fluid imbibers at a typical rural wedding feast in remotest India.
For those bloggers not privileged to be privy to the daily outpourings of The Unionist Times the ever-helpful Perkin would like to supply a brief glossary of terms which are de rigeur for a full appreciation of said bland Disneyland Daily.
-The Walt-right movement and all that you need to know.
1. Snowwhite and the Seven Dwarfs: this dates back to 1916 and refers to General Maxell and the Seven Signatories.
2. Bliss Family Robinson: this refers to the Presidency of the first female incumbent of said office, south of the Black Sow’s Dyke..
3. The Aristocats: the endless pussibilities opened up by the compelling of males to do the dishes under pain of forty eyelashes.
4. Bednobs and Broomsticks: interchangeable with Number 3.
5. Darby O’Gill and the Little People: those dwarfs of the diglossia líofa in the lingo of the Leprechaun
6. The Lady and the Tramp: par for the course of Modern Mother Ireland.
7. One hundred and one Dalmatians: see life in black and white, bro, or hangdog.
8. The Absent-minded Professor: John A. Murphy, forgotten but not gone.
9. Around the World in 80 Days: Charlie ‘Je suis Charles’ Flanagan aka the Phileas Fogg of clear thinking.
10. Pirates of the Corribean: same as Number 5 (see above).
(Hold on to your corset. sis: we’re in for a bumpy ride !)
PS Y ? Whatever Y-front you’re having yoursefl, Yune !
So, I see, we are on the portal of Yeats’s apocalyptic future – we have met the enemy and we have (or they have) voted for it, or something like that. And down with democracy.
But do help me out, because I’m confused.
“there is a red-alert danger that Europe could fall back into rabid nationalism”
And what was the trouble with 1916 and The Rising and the Covenant and the War of Independence and all that? (And when was the poem written – although we can concede the interpretation of a cyclic history in his poetry.)
And don’t many on this site support the aims of the SNP? And yet, what are they (those aims), Scottish Nationalism or European integration? Seems like Nic (nat) Sturgeon wants both.
(Both? said Alice. Why, whatever nationalism means, nationalism is just whatever I choose it to mean.)
And what is ‘Trumpism”? American nationalism, or American imperialism?
It’s all very confusing; but that’s OK, because at least we know who the enemy is: English Nationalists are but not Scots Nationalists are not; Ulster Nationalists are but not Irish Nationalists are not, and American Imperialists are but not European Imperialists are not.
That’s that sorted then.
Here’s the bottom line, if SF or any other form or Irish Republican/Nationalist can find it within themselves to support an EU, then they forfeit the right to call themselves Irish Republicans. Full stop.
“Here’s the bottom line, if SF or any other form or Irish Republican/Nationalist can find it within themselves to support an EU, then they forfeit the right to call themselves Irish Republicans. Full stop.”
Well said Peter, 100% agree
I agree PF. Again the utterings of those who rail against the brexit and Trump still don’t get it. To simply label people as stupid is easier I suppose than looking at themselves and perhaps discovering they are stupid or at the very least naïve.
Going by the antics of Obama(sending more tanks to Russian border) it seems he and his cheerleaders would like a war just do they could point the finger at Trump and say I told you so. Evil masquerading as good is still evil.
with the uk scrubbing the eu human rights laws and bringing in a british bill of rights might kick off trouble,and it might be planned to do just that.a few days rioting in inner cities will be easily quelled but will open the door for the tough new laws promised.mass deportations will be easier especially if trump starts his first,british people reclaiming their towns and cities back after brexit is the only way the uk can go now.young kids now in the future will thank the brexiteers.
Who’ll do the menial jobs,Billy, when Johnny foreigner goes home? There is a class of people in every country who will prosper, no matter who or what is in government. In France they prospered under the Nazis. In Ireland they prospered under the Britishers. As long as you’re in that class, you’re flying.
who done them before they come,just put the wage up a bit for the locals paid for with the savings in benefits these people are taking up.local people no matter what class they are have to come first in their own country.
Who are you going to kick out Billy, everyone? Even people who have married a local person and have children and a mortgage?
Don’t forget there would be a reciprocal response by the E.U. in response to deportations of E.U. citizens. So all those Brits living it up in Spain or Portugal would soon find themselves back in Dear Old Cold And Rainy Blighty.
M, as I pointed out some months past, the EU, ruled by it’s elected heads of state in the EC and administered by the commission are frightened to reciprocate, the money in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian economies from ex pat brits is what keeps many supermarkets open and locals employed, unlike here, they employ indigenous persons in ‘menial jobs’, loose this income and their electorate will soon tell brussels to effoff.
you would be better addressing your mp on whos going or staying but your a bit late now i think,the people have voted.
My MP is Mickey Brady of Sinn Féin Billy.
In my direct experience, you’d be better off connecting jump leads to a bike, ta bron orm but, last time I asked him for help I was seven hundred yards away from where I am now, 2012 and I’m still paying too much tax.
maybe he will enlighten you then to whats happening,him being near the border and that he should know were the checkpoints and that are going to be situated.or thats maybe dublins role to set these up i dont know or care really it will hardly effect me.
Yeah good man yourself Billy, it doesn’t affect you so you couldn’t care less.
yea something like that.just following mickeys and the rest of mlas example of every man for themselves attitude.they all seem to be doing alright out of it.
Walt Disney was an interesting character. A man very proud of his Irish roots, whose great grandfather, Arundel Elias Disney, emigrated from Kilkenny, Ireland to North America in 1834. Arundel’s Irish born son married another Irish immigrant, Mary Richardson, who then gave birth to Elias, Walt Disney’s father. So, ethnically, Walt was at least 50% Irish.
We need Ireland to produce more creative masterminds like Disney!
“The same fear of disintegration now grips the UK. For some, however, in Scotland and Ireland, it’s less a fear and more a hope”
Enoch Powell, whilst UUP MP, once said that the only way to keep NI in the Union was to scrap Stormont and for NI to integrate fully into Britain. He opposed devolution for Scotland and Wales also and considered that to be the start of the break up of the UK. I think he was right because as the years goes on the United Kingdom is getting less and less United and is turning into more of a loose Federation where Independence for the likes of Scotland and Irish Unity for NI is more and more likely. The House of Lords Committee has already recommended giving Devo Max to Scotland, Wales and NI and shrinking Westminster from 600 MP’s to just 100.
But what will happen if Stormont collapses and we have direct rule back? Well as Jude mentioned in a previous blog, the Republic could have a direct say on the running of our North-Eastern State to the point of Joint Rule. That’s actually very likely or even inevitable.
Just recently former British Minister and Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Vince Cable, called for a United Ireland within Europe as a solution for Britain to secure its borders after Brexit. Of course the main media outlet’s ignored Cable’s statement. Republican outlets didn’t, however.
http://republican-news.org/current/news/2017/01/cable_calls_for_united_ireland.html#.WHFERGB77IU
“Enoch Powell, whilst UUP MP, once said that the only way to keep NI in the Union was to scrap Stormont and for NI to integrate fully into Britain.”
And he was right. (And no single party has done more to damage the UK Union than the DUP.)
“He opposed devolution for Scotland and Wales also and considered that to be the start of the break up of the UK.”
And he was right.
“as the years goes on the United Kingdom is getting less and less United and is turning into more of a loose Federation where Independence for the likes of Scotland and Irish Unity for NI is more and more likely.”
And you are right, Ryan.
“But what will happen if Stormont collapses and we have direct rule back?”
There won’t be another Stormont. (Here’s hoping, anyway.)
“the Republic could have a direct say on the running of our North-Eastern State to the point of Joint Rule. That’s actually very likely or even inevitable.”
Most probably the latter.
“Vince Cable, called for a United Ireland within Europe as a solution for Britain to secure its borders after Brexit.”
Which (and a form of such is possible), as I keep saying, would be a lose-lose for Unionists and Republicans.
“The House of Lords Committee has already recommended giving Devo Max to Scotland, Wales and NI and shrinking Westminster from 600 MP’s to just 100.”
Only one thing is missing: scrap Stormont, and return a United Ireland to the Federal fold – sorry two things, an English Parliament wouldn’t go amiss either.
I would rather see a united Ireland in a reformed UK than remain in the EU Peter.
I think it is the direction we are heading in. Ireland will struggle to return to the punt,
I can imagine a new arrangement with Ireland back in Sterling, no longer controlled by bank of England but in a three way split between the banks of Scotland, Ireland and England.
England would have the most to give up but I don’t see them having a lot of choice but it would give the best futures for both of these islands.
“I would rather see a united Ireland in a reformed UK than remain in the EU Peter”
I would rather see a United Ireland out of both Jessica….to talk of a “United Ireland in the UK” is a drunken, Linfield supporters club style suggestion. We literally see suggestions like that coming from Willies Frazers supporters on his facebook page. Its not going to happen, its fantasy.
The EU, in its current format, is finished. But that doesn’t mean the EU itself is.
David McWilliams spoke about this 2-3 years ago and said the most likely outcome of the crisis the EU finds itself in is the reshaping of the EU itself. Countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain might be kicked out. Italy is heading in that direction as well. McWilliams says this is because Southern Europe is refusing to become “German”. Obviously that’s not meant literally but they are not doing politics/economics like Northern Europe is. Ireland, which is regarded as a Western/Northern European country, will more likely stay in this new EU because its economically and socially qualified to do so. Ireland did not have a crash due to government over spending, it was due to a housing bubble that burst. The Irish Government had to pick up the tab of banks and it ultimately couldn’t afford to do so, hence the EU bailout programme, which Ireland left in 2013 and to my knowledge is the only country to do so. So a new EU might consist only of Northern/Central European countries, like Germany, France, Netherlands, Finland, Poland, Ireland, etc.
Yes, we are dependent on Trade with Britain but that must change and it can change. As I recently told you, recent polls show that over 90% of the Irish people back staying in the EU. All major political parties in Ireland back that too. We wont be leaving the EU to follow Britain into the unknown. We need to do more trade with a market of 500 million people in Europe and with 300 million Americans in the USA. That’s where our future lies.
“The EU, in its current format, is finished.”
Yes, it is moving ever closer towards autocracy.
“David McWilliams spoke about this 2-3 years ago and said the most likely outcome of the crisis the EU finds itself in is the reshaping of the EU itself. Countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain might be kicked out. Italy is heading in that direction as well. McWilliams says this is because Southern Europe is refusing to become “German”.”
That is a load of tosh.
The EU rates itself in trade negotiations based on numbers of people, if you think it is going to kick out existing countries while taking in turkey, Ukraine and other eastern nations then don’t talk to me about fantasy.
The reality is, the EU are pressing ahead with full political union Ryan.
They have already planned an EU army paid for by member states. That means Ireland will be contributing towards weapons of mass destruction and a European army.
They are looking at integrating security which means an EU wide police service.
They are now discussing further fiscal controls being run from Brussels.
The direction the EU is going in is a united states of Europe and I want no part of it and will fight against it.
The next war in Europe will bring civil war to each member country.
“I would rather see a United Ireland out of both Jessica”
Then why are you pressing for Ireland to merge into an EU state?
Unionists don’t want it, many republicans don’t want it, you can see the divisions playing out on this blog.
I believe an Eirexit campaign will have the same result as Brexit.
Yet Jude is calling us stupid for rejecting it.
I may be many things, but I am not stupid.
“to talk of a “United Ireland in the UK” is a drunken, Linfield supporters club style suggestion. We literally see suggestions like that coming from Willies Frazers supporters on his facebook page. Its not going to happen, its fantasy.”
Is it? First of all, I did not say Ireland in the existing UK, I said a reformed more federal UK in which Scotland and Ireland would have more sovereignty than they would have in the EU.
“Ireland did not have a crash due to government over spending, it was due to a housing bubble that burst. ”
Oh yes it did.
Fianna Fail were allowing the banks to dictate policy and made zero preparations.
They blew every penny and not even wisely keeping absolutely nothing in reserve.
So your statement is totally inaccurate.
And the housing crash was obvious, yet Ireland was the single most unprepared country on the planet. Why?
People who should have known better, were blinded by greed.
Too many were landlords or making too much profit on the housing boom and this went right the way to the top.
The recent stand off over rent in the Dail is a farce and proves the same problem still exists.
Rent should be slashed to ease the housing crisis and public money pumped into building social housing.
Instead we have a 12% increase cap over 3 years.
Why?, just look at how many TDs are landlords and you will see why.
It should be illegal for any TD in Ireland to also be a landlord.
Irelands economy is growing because of local businesses and the efforts of Irish people. There were more local businesses incorporated last year than ever before.
Irish companies account for over 80% of employment in Ireland, there are more jobs in Ireland than ever before driven by this growth, yet most state aid still goes to multi nationals. Ireland needs to do more to help local businesses grow and throw less at multi nationals.
Investing in renewable energy will not only give us new industry but provide lower energy costs which will help local businesses, there needs to be an economic adjustment as wages and cost of living is too high.
Previous governments have borrowed billions to pump into the pensions which is unaffordable and is making it all the more unaffordable, it is not only kicking the tin down the road but replacing it with a bigger tin harder to kick.
There is far too much incompetence in Irish politics north and south.
“Yes, we are dependent on Trade with Britain but that must change and it can change.”
So how do you see this change happening?
It is a lot easier to trade with GB, no language barriers, closer, we are already familiar with one another, there is a good working relationship, and the people in GB actually trust Irish businesses more so than their own. That is my experience anyway.
The EU may well have a population of 500 million, but the majority live in nations in poverty where there would be no margins for Ireland to trade with, and in fact we would have to trade at a loss to compete with the local businesses within the EU, especially in agriculture which would be a cut throat trade relationship.
Irelands future lies in trade with the UK and US and we should stick with what is working and what we are familiar with as well as increasing trade to other areas in or out of the EU such as Canada, Australia, India, China, Russia and so on. Russian and the EU are going to clash.
The opportunities for Ireland to increase trade with both over Brexit and to grow other markets as part of a UK wide trade deal which Trump has already said he wants with GB and he will not dilly dally in setting it up.
Your problem is you are listening and believing Michael Martin. You say you know business owners in your family.
Ask where they would find it easier to increase trade into, GB or EU.
I would have zero chance of selling into the EU, but I could and will be increasing trade into GB.
Remaining in the EU will make that harder for me in a UI.
How wold you address this Ryan?
We CANNOT have Ireland in and out of the EU.
“As I recently told you, recent polls show that over 90% of the Irish people back staying in the EU. All major political parties in Ireland back that too.”
First of all, the poll you refer to is not an accurate reflection. It doesn’t even reflect opinion on this blog – perhaps you should start there instead?
Second, you cannot base government policy on polls, a single incident could reverse a poll result overnight and government would be expected to respect the peoples wishes, such as with brexit. I believe the first official talk of Eirexit will happen mid year.
“We wont be leaving the EU to follow Britain into the unknown. We need to do more trade with a market of 500 million people in Europe and with 300 million Americans in the USA. That’s where our future lies.”
The unknown is currently the only direction we can be sure we are all going in.
On one hand you say the EU is finished and now it is a sure thing.
How can Ireland increase trade with the US as part of the EU when the fiscal reform being introduced throughout the EU will mean Irelands lower corporation rate advantage will be removed and there will be an EU wide rate. This will help poorer nations within the EU grow at Irelands expense.
They have already won legal cases and declared Ireland as giving illegal state aid over tax policy.
Ireland is still being investigated and this is happening.
And lets see if Trump prioritises a trade deal with the EU or with GB and that might shed some light on what is or is not the unknown.
So, PF, you don’t believe that the good unionists of you’re beloved NI are capable of looking after their own affairs? You’d prefer to be governed by Englishmen under direct rule. Isn’t that a little pathetic. You no doubt refer to yourself as an Irishman too, or at least when you’re aboard? But not the Holy Roman Empire of Europe obviously. You know that construct that exists in you’re mind only.
I could be wrong Freddie, but I thought Peter was saying that England should have their own parliament to rule themselves, not Ireland and not Scotland.
I believe he may well be as disillusioned with London as I am with Dublin.
Jessica
London had already told me what they think of me: ‘no selfish or strategic interest’.
I don’t like that, I’d prefer it wasn’t true, but it is what it is.
An improvement would be four equal partners in a new arrangement.
I would be ok with that also Peter.
In fact I am in no doubt any longer that it is what is going to happen,
Mrs May is doing the right thing in calling the EU bluff and going for hard brexit.
The UK would be better off apart from the financial institutions which are stronger in the UK than in the EU, so the EU would come under more pressure than they could afford to cope with to do the deal with the UK.
Hopefully her meeting with Mr Trump will go well and they can show the world that the EU way of dotting I and crossing ts for many years before anything is agreed can be put in the bin and a sensible trade deal put together in a sensible time with a fraction of the bureaucracy. I wish her well.
I am also sick to death of idiots on this site claiming Irelands future is in the EU. When the UK leave, Businesses in Ireland which make up 80% of the workforce will demand we leave the EU.
Peter Sutherland and his goldman sachs or Fine Gael buddies can shove that it their pipe. They will have no choice in the matter and will be given a reality check.
I would bet my life on it.
Freddie
That’s not what I said. I outlined a number of preferences related to differing circumstances.
First of all (and I’ve said this before) I am not a devolutionist – I am an actual Unionist. Now, that may surprise some as Ulster’s unionists have always been associated with Stormont, but in my view Stormont was a mistake. If Partition had to happen, full integration into the UK Union’s Parliamentary democracy. Which, properly understood, is not the same as ‘English’ rule.
My second preference is connected, I’d prefer Direct Rule to Stormont. Stormont doesn’t work – and the DUP don’t help. Then again the DUP are devolutionists – little nationalists, in other words. And the best kind of direct rule would be MPs elected to Westminster to represent the people. Given the wider breakup of the UK, however, this isn’t the best option.
Thirdly, I also happen to think that a United Ireland connected in some way to Scotland, Wales and England would be an improvement on what we have. And, as Jessica has pointed out, that does not mean English rule either. It could mean either a full return to a UK Union (which I don’t suspect many would want) but it could also mean some kind of federal arrangement with four National Assemblies, and one Federal Assembly meeting on matters of mutual interest.
Finally, I mentioned nothing about a Holy Roman Empire. I did mention a secular EU, but no mention of anything religious at all.
Personally, I’d find a Federal Union of the Isles to be acceptable – one which included Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh Parliaments – so I suppose if you wanted a name for that, I’d be an Irish Unionist – with the union bit working it two directions.
None of that amounts to ‘English Rule’.
I think that is a little disingenuous, PF. Do you believe for one minute that there has ever been equality in the UK. This is a construct of self interest by England and for England. Sure, Scotland, Wales and Ireland were all subjugated by the English crown. Do you seriously believe that the English aren’t in control? I mean come on, really.
Freddie,
Perhaps what you see as English rule in the UK, I see as the strongest partner supporting the rest.
Northern Ireland can’t support itself; and that certainly isn’t equal for the English.
And the RoI struggled prior to the EU stepping in. We’d all be best facing economic facts in this part of the world.
Anyway, that wasn’t my point either. What I’ve said is that my objective preference in the current circumstance is for 4 National Parliaments in a Federal arrangement cooperating in areas of mutual benefit.
That was all I was saying – you are the one making more of this than I was.
When you have been on the wrong side of that supporting boot or gun, it gives a different perspective Peter.
A federal arrangement where each part of these islands maintains a degree of sovereignty is one thing, but england cannot rule over any part of Ireland.
That is a non starter and I believe the UK has accepted that which is why it agreed to the GFA and as you point out, had no difficulty saying it had no economic or strategic interest in Ireland.
I haven’t said anything about England ruling Ireland. What I did suggest was 4 sovereign Parliaments cooperating in areas of mutual interest. That arrangement alone would give Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales greater autonomy than any of them have currently as members of the EU.
Fair enough, PF, but it looks like subservience by another name.
Freddie, see my reply to Jessica directly above. Subservience is neither sought nor implied.