QUESTION TIME (BBC ONE) came from our own dear North(east)ern Ireland (NEI) last Friday. Or maybe I should say it was about our own dear NEI, since apart from a few well-spaced studio guests, Fiona Bruce had all contributors on Zoom, with Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill getting big screens and the ordinary punters smaller images.
One guy from the ordinary punters wanted to know about rules for bringing his pet from NEI to GB. As he spoke, his pooch stood up on the sofa, stretched and ambled off. Much laughter from presenter Fiona Bruce and guests.
More pressingly, punters wanted to know if the GB-NEI form-filling and delays were just teething problems or could we expect better times ahead? No one seemed to know. Prof Anand Manon, who likes to wear suits and an earring, figured it was both: there’d be at the very least some disruption to trade because that was what you got when you opted for Brexit.
The punter Liam wanted to know when the serious planning for a border poll would begin, adding that the EU had said that should there be a majority vote for a united Ireland, NEI would automatically become part of Ireland and thus an EU member.
Michelle O’Neill said we needed to get together and have “conversations” on a new constitutional arrangement and besides, the “unstoppable conversations” were on their way anyway. And she quoted George Osborne, who says the decade of commemorations will be followed by a decade of opportunity.
Brandon Lewis, the British secretary of state for NEI, was in the studio, and he said he was for conversations that would point out the wonderful opportunities ahead for NEI, what with technology and cyber security mastery and of course Queen’s being just about the best university in the world. (Not many people know that, Virginia.)
Arlene agreed with Brandon – there was indeed a need to show how maintaining the union with Britain was the “rational, logical choice.” (See what Arlene did there? Anyone agin the link with Britain must be an irrational, illogical nutter.) As to the pesky Protocol, sure wouldn’t we be looking at it again in four years’ time? Meantime, not to worry, since the Protocol gives NEI access to both the UK market and the EU market, so we should be telling the world of our unique position and possibilities.
Um – Arlene. If we’re in a unique position, thanks to Protocol, how come you want to have a hard look at the Protocol in four years’ time? Isn’t that cake-and-eat-it stuff, or even just a little irrational and illogical?
One man in the audience, more in sorrow than in anger, it seemed, agreed these conversations had to be had, but said he never thought he’d live to see the day where there’d be a need for a conversation about Irish unity. He said other stuff as well, but I was distracted by the edge of the Easter Proclamation showing proudly on the wall behind Michelle, and the Crown brooch riding even more proudly on Arlene’s bosom. Indeed, Virginia, you speak truth: a picture is worth a thousand words.
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