It’s one thing to know that you’ve just been pushed out of a sixth-storey window; it’s entirely another when you hit the ground. The north has known for some time that the bone-brained Brexit scheme is on its way; a year from now we’ll feel it in every part and sinew.
Yesterday we got a glimpse of what’s rushing towards us. Boris Johnson’s clever points-based immigration system will mean skilled migrants with a job offer must meet the minimum salary of £25,600. Unskilled workers can simply stay at home.
This Brit-jobs-for-Brit-people has been met with cries of concern from all parties here. Sinn Féin sees the proposals as “unpopular, unworkable and a direct threat to the North’s economic viability”. The SDLP says it’ll be a ““fundamental threat to the North’s economy and the effective provision of public services”. The Ulster Unionist Party says it is “very concerned what these proposals will do to the hospitality, retail and agricultural sectors”.
And what about border regions? Yes indeed, Virginia. Employers there will look to relocate to the south, where these xenophobic rules won’t apply. So also will some firms not at all close to the border.
We’re back to the old Kerry farmer whacking his donkey over the head every morning: “Sure I have to get his attention, don’t I?” The attention of employers here has now been well and ruly secured. And the attention, as we’ve seen, of political parties. Even, would you believe, the DUP, who bust a gut making sure that we all got shoved out the sixth-storey window in the first place. Jeffrey Donaldson says he’s hoping ““that we get some form of regional variation on the salary threshold to recognise the high dependence of Northern Ireland on the agrifood sector”.
Peel the cat off the ceiling, Virginia. Here’s a man who has worked to bring Brexit about, who has then condemned any notion of variation between the north and what he would call the mainland, now requesting his much-loved British government to build that border in the Irish Sea wider and deeper and stronger.
Clearly two contradictory positions have no trouble co-existing inside Jeffrey’s DUP head. Which he’s entitled to – it’s his head. What he’s not entitled to do is facilitate the destruction of dozens if not hundreds of businesses here. For a Christian party, the DUP have an odd relationship with the truth and their fellow-humans.
Comments are closed.