The NI/ROI Protocol

[The Agrarian]

‘The Future is Precious’: NI Youth Workers Speak

No, this wasn‘t documentary footage from the seventies or eighties. The videos of young lads throwing fireworks over peace walls and bombing buses may well seem like remastered old clips, but this is what is happening in Belfast right now, in 2021. Cars are being burnt out in Waterside in Derry...

www.leftsideupni.com

Valuable views from behind the front lines.

 

[Ashtree]

‘The Future is Precious’: NI Youth Workers Speak

No, this wasn‘t documentary footage from the seventies or eighties. The videos of young lads throwing fireworks over peace walls and bombing buses may well seem like remastered old clips, but this is what is happening in Belfast right now, in 2021. Cars are being burnt out in Waterside in Derry...

www.leftsideupni.com

Valuable views from behind the front lines.

Sobering indeed!

 

[Farm buy]

We are thinking or being told by political leaders the riots in NI is because of the border in the Irish sea, which is a result of Brexit. It did not exist before Brexit but tension in NI have as I understand have and are on a knife edge always in the last 23 yrs. I am in my 60s now and can remember nothing prior to Belfast agreement only trouble and violence every night on tv. One of the big issues that caught the imagination of the public in the Brexit vote was control of people coming into the Country which is very understandable. When people come from other countries and form communities and try and demand their ways to be the normal it leads to resentment. I have seen a local school south of London where because of the high pecentage of kids attending that traditionally dont wear shoes indoors looking to enforce their customs on the remainder of the school goers. If that continues or get established it will be resented and fester eventually.
I see the same situation exist in NI. Two different traditions live there and it looks like the majority are now in favour of joining the south from the results of some polls. At the moment that would seem to me that it will cause as much of a problem as it will cure. Is it possible to have citizens of two countries trying to have both of their customs equally acknowledged and have peace

 

[Ashtree]

We are thinking or being told by political leaders the riots in NI is because of the border in the Irish sea, which is a result of Brexit. It did not exist before Brexit but tension in NI have as I understand have and are on a knife edge always in the last 23 yrs. I am in my 60s now and can remember nothing prior to Belfast agreement only trouble and violence every night on tv. One of the big issues that caught the imagination of the public in the Brexit vote was control of people coming into the Country which is very understandable. When people come from other countries and form communities and try and demand their ways to be the normal it leads to resentment. I have seen a local school south of London where because of the high pecentage of kids attending that traditionally dont wear shoes indoors looking to enforce their customs on the remainder of the school goers. If that continues or get established it will be resented and fester eventually.
I see the same situation exist in NI. Two different traditions live there and it looks like the majority are now in favour of joining the south from the results of some polls. At the moment that would seem to me that it will cause as much of a problem as it will cure. Is it possible to have citizens of two countries trying to have both of their customs equally acknowledged and have peace

Its no longer really a story of two differing traditions only. Yes, that is the case for the older population, who lived through the troubles and before. Those who grew up after the Good Friday Agreement ( which the DUP resisted to the end), are not all that fussed about orange and green.
Their real issue is lack of opportunity, lack of proper jobs, drastically declining education standard particularly in loyalist areas.
Stormont is dominated by the old guard politicians, the regions MP’s are of the old guard also. Tribalism is their go to mantra. Tribalism trumps, working for common socio economic improvement for the younger people.
In fact, that is what Brexit was all about for NI. Pure unadulterated tribalism not by unionists, but by the old guard unionist political establishment. AKA the DUP. They never in their wildest imagination expected vote leave to succeed, so they saw no real danger in running the tribal flag up the pole.
This same old, same old, political class is ultimately responsible for what eventually turned into the Protocol.

 

[Farm buy]

Its no longer really a story of two differing traditions only. Yes, that is the case for the older population, who lived through the troubles and before. Those who grew up after the Good Friday Agreement ( which the DUP resisted to the end), are not all that fussed about orange and green.
Their real issue is lack of opportunity, lack of proper jobs, drastically declining education standard particularly in loyalist areas.
Stormont is dominated by the old guard politicians, the regions MP’s are of the old guard also. Tribalism is their go to mantra. Tribalism trumps, working for common socio economic improvement for the younger people.
In fact, that is what Brexit was all about for NI. Pure unadulterated tribalism not by unionists, but by the old guard unionist political establishment. AKA the DUP. They never in their wildest imagination expected vote leave to succeed, so they saw no real danger in running the tribal flag up the pole.
This same old, same old, political class is ultimately responsible for what eventually turned into the Protocol.
There is and has been Billions pumped in to there for years. What has happened. I visited there a few year ago for the first time and I have to say it was an education which I definitely needed.
I foolishly always thought that the Peace Lines or peace walls were peaceful spots when in fact they are the very opposite ,they are the war walls in my opinion. They were areas also that you dare not speak as my accent could have got me in trouble. I went there with the opinion that no ill will or sides existed publicly now but was I wrong, My son had warned me it did. Tribalism is very much in existence .Ecomonic reasons I dont know but after finishing my holiday I take a very different view of the powder keg that I think exists there

 

[The Agrarian]

It's a whole collection of things. Mostly about about social deprivation and the gap between the mean and the least well off. Hundred or two years ago, rioting and social unrest was much more strongly linked to political issues. There was much less difference between the mean and the bottom. That's because the middle class was tiny by comparison with today. People were in general much poorer, despite the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland being one of the most (or the most) successful industrial revolution countries in the world. But that was a gradual process, of moving people from subsistence agriculture to better paid industrial jobs in the cities.

So what we are looking at today is in some ways a success story. That despite the IRA having spent thirty years blowing businesses to smithereens and sparking the flight of young educated people to the Mainland, never to return, and with the prevailing trend to a post industrial society anyway (but with no service companies in their right mind wanting to open shop here during the IRA campaign), we have somehow managed to have vastly increased the number of people on good incomes, and decreased the relative number living in poverty.

It's worth noting that the number of kids out filling bottles with petrol each night is a few dozen, rather than a few hundred or a few thousand. But it's very headline grabbing. There happens to be an historical precedent for how social deprivation vents it's frustrations in this part of the world. In other parts, it may be knife crime or gangland warfare or whatever. I'm reminded about the American who moved with his Ulster wife from St Louis to here in the early nineties. He thought from the news it would just be a terrible place. But it wasn't long before he realised what a murderous hole he had come from, where racial strife between whites and blacks and Hispanics and Chinese and so on was off the scale, with thousands of murders each year. Something like 40 odd thousand people are gunned down dead every year in the US.

Yes theres a chasm between political leadership and the poorest. But then so there is between Obama, Trump, Biden and the poorest in America. They must try much much harder. And they must stop constantly distracting the political processes and institutions from the proper work of governing for the people, by the relentless pressure to change the constitutional position of Northern Ireland. For a so-called left socialist party, SinnFein have spent decades only getting in the way of how government can actually help create jobs and better prospects for the population of Northern Ireland. Just imagine if the question of the border was dropped for ten years, and instead they focussed solely on improving Northern Ireland. I know all unionists would walk forwards with them. Even the DUP.

 

[M-J-G]

The place is too top heavy with civil servants, which has been used as a lame argument as to why a united Ireland is a bad idea as it would lead to there being no need for an NI civil service.

To me that's like saying farm subsidies are a good thing because it causes the department of Agriculture need more employees.

 

[Ashtree]

Something Arlene said recently caught my attention. The executive signed off the last lock down, with its various restrictions across society, which was based in the scientific advice available to it at the time.
Arlene announces one day later that if it had been DUP decision to make, it would have been a much different decision.
So with scientific advice forming the decision making process, for pretty much all parties in the executive, except DUP given what Arlene said afterwards, I very much doubt that present DUP leaders would ever work with SF, unless of course they happened to have a majority and the absolute final decision.
Brexit was the ultimate case in point. DUP didn’t really want Brexit, as they knew the likely economic impact on a big swathe if their vote base. BUT, their tribal instinct just took them on theirs and Ulsters destructive path. Im no SF fan, but the DUP make them look half acceptable. That in itself shows rather a lot.

 

[M-J-G]

Something Arlene said recently caught my attention. The executive signed off the last lock down, with its various restrictions across society, which was based in the scientific advice available to it at the time.
Arlene announces one day later that if it had been DUP decision to make, it would have been a much different decision.
So with scientific advice forming the decision making process, for pretty much all parties in the executive, except DUP given what Arlene said afterwards, I very much doubt that present DUP leaders would ever work with SF, unless of course they happened to have a majority and the absolute final decision.
Brexit was the ultimate case in point. DUP didn’t really want Brexit, as they knew the likely economic impact on a big swathe if their vote base. BUT, their tribal instinct just took them on theirs and Ulsters destructive path. Im no SF fan, but the DUP make them look half acceptable. That in itself shows rather a lot.

I think you're giving the DUP a bit too much credit for being intelligent in this part.
They basically acted like a thick old petted cow and kept pushing in the only direction can think of without actually wondering why or thinking about the consequences.

To be fair I can only assume SF didn't see the ricochet of their actions being what put the union under pressure, they simply did what the DUP did and kept their heads down and kept pushing on regardless of what sense it made.
It just turns out that were lucky Brexit went ahead, thanks in part to the DUP.

In reality when it came to Brexit and the union the DUP did more for SF's cause than SF have done in a long time, possibly ever.

 

[The Agrarian]

Not intending to stand up for the DUP specifically, but I don't know how you derive that conclusion from the comment she made the day after the decision. I don't think it was anything to do with tensions with Sinn Fein. In fact, they agreed to it despite it not being their preferred policy.

One mistake people seem to make on handling the pandemic is that disease modelling is only one part of the information politicians need to take consideration of. The effect on all other diseases, the effect of widening the gap between middle class and poor children that lockdown has, and a host of other things. Foster was pointing out that her ministers would have come to a different balance than the one which was agreed across all parties.

 

[The Agrarian]

I think you're giving the DUP a bit too much credit for being intelligent in this part.
They basically acted like a thick old petted cow and kept pushing in the only direction can think of without actually wondering why or thinking about the consequences.

To be fair I can only assume SF didn't see the ricochet of their actions being what put the union under pressure, they simply did what the DUP did and kept their heads down and kept pushing on regardless of what sense it made.
It just turns out that were lucky Brexit went ahead, thanks in part to the DUP.

I reality when it came to Brexit and the union the DUP did more for SF's cause than SF have done in a long time, possibly ever.

Agree with first part. I think they probably let that tool Sammy Wilson rant about the EU and push party policy and following some kind of Trumpian Make Britain Great Again notion. Sucked in by the ERG. I honestly don't think they investigated the downsides too much and somehow believed it would be a good idea.

But, I don't think Brexit happened in part thanks to the DUP. It didn't make a pin of difference numbers wise to the result. There still would have been brexit.

 

[M-J-G]

In the meantime, this moron thinks if he runs fast enough he'll get outrun his own burning feet

 

[M-J-G]

Agree with first part. I think they probably let that tool Sammy Wilson rant about the EU and push party policy and following some kind of Trumpian Make Britain Great Again notion. Sucked in by the ERG. I honestly don't think they investigated the downsides too much and somehow believed it would be a good idea.

But, I don't think Brexit happened in part thanks to the DUP. It didn't make a pin of difference numbers wise to the result. There still would have been brexit.

Yes that's true mathematically they didn't have any influence but they did their best and in a narrower margin they'd have mattered more, their limited following is all that saved them from themselves.
If they were in a bigger country they'd have screwed themselves even harder.

 

[Ashtree]

Agree with first part. I think they probably let that tool Sammy Wilson rant about the EU and push party policy and following some kind of Trumpian Make Britain Great Again notion. Sucked in by the ERG. I honestly don't think they investigated the downsides too much and somehow believed it would be a good idea.

But, I don't think Brexit happened in part thanks to the DUP. It didn't make a pin of difference numbers wise to the result. There still would have been brexit.

Of course it made zero difference to the overall result. That’s certain. What it did do though, is reawaken sleeping dogs. Borders and all that stuff.

But the old adage of “we are where we are”, throws up incredible economic opportunity for NI. It’s in GB but also in the EU single market. It is therefore an absolute economic magnet for GB businesses needing and wanting an EU base and ROI business wanting GB bases.
Why the NI executive haven’t formed a high level task force to market and take advantage of that, is quite simply beyond me.
The IDA in Dublin have done that already and are landing GB businesses who want into the EU.
There is a significant opportunity for NI to attract this business and help alleviate much of the deprivation suffered by the youth in NI, but sadly its being wasted. Left too long unattended ROI will have taken the cream off the top....

 

[nivilla1982]

In theory there is "Invest NI".

 

[nivilla1982]

 

[Ashtree]

Something on RTE this morning about EU + David Frost announcing some new agreement on application of the protocol in practical terms to alleviate the worst effects. Announcement to be made this week.


EU, UK officials working to resolve NI Protocol issues
https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2021/0412/1209211-northern-ireland-protocol/

 

[nivilla1982]

Something on RTE this morning about EU + David Frost announcing some new agreement on application of the protocol in practical terms to alleviate the worst effects. Announcement to be made this week.


EU, UK officials working to resolve NI Protocol issues
https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2021/0412/1209211-northern-ireland-protocol/

Was there something last week about the EU delaying their legal action in part due to the rioting?

 

[M-J-G]

Was there something last week about the EU delaying their legal action in part due to the rioting?

A handful of numbskulls throwing the odd milk bottle full of petrol surely isn't that significant on the grand scheme of things and wouldn't warrant delaying things.

 

[nivilla1982]

EU set to delay legal action against UK over Brexit due to violence in Northern Irelan

The European Union is set to delay legal action against the United Kingdom for breaching the terms of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement in response to violent riots that have taken hold of Northern Ireland over the past two weeks.

www.irishcentral.com