To ask Irish & Northern Irish MNers what your views on the DUP/Tory deal are?

[stumblymonkeyagain]

There are a couple of threads knocking around on this topic where people are commenting on the impact on the Good Friday Agreement and peace in Ireland/Northern Ireland.

As an English person I won't pretend to understand the complexities and how it feels to you but wondered if you could share so I have a better understanding of the potential impact from your viewpoint?

Do you think it will impact the GFA?

How are people in Ireland (the island of...) talking about it?

And don't get me started on the role of the UK government in that civil war.

rockshandy, I hear ya.

I don't think anyone can understand if they didn't 'live it'. Every week when we went into town, my dad said he would pick us up at a certain place (shop electric lol) - but if there was a bomb scare - which there often was - then we were to walk out past central station to a set meeting point (no mobiles either to make change of plans easier!). I am so glad my children are not growing up with that threat hanging over them.

However as you know, it has taken a long time to try and rebuild society. Unfortunately some parts of society are still more worried about flags and marches than the economy. We still have a long way to go!

I'm no fan of the DUP but this

They pretend there isn't, but homes were leafleted during the recent election with instructions to vote for their candidate by a prescribed terrorist group....and DUP refused to distance themselves from this organisation.

is just wrong. The DUP did distance themselves from the loyalist paramilitary leaflet: m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2017/uup-and-dup-reject-loyalist-communities-councils-endorsement-35792573.html

And it sticks in my craw to hear people from GB moan about how unspeakably awful the DUP are, and how outrageous it is that they are propping up the Tories. Good enough for the people of NI though, eh?

You seem to have missed the point @uglyflowers was making completely

No, I'm disagreeing with it. Sailed right over your head but clear enough to everyone else.

Silently -

read this thread and try and understand

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2952652-to-not-get-the-hysteria-over-the-dup?

many of us took time to explain.

Teacher - that is sort of correct, they always did collaborate on things like drug dealing. Most petty crime is controlled by both organisations., look at NI news from yesterday, another punishment shooting in Belfast.

In some areas there is a significant amount of immigrants due to the volumes of workers required in the food processing factories. This has caused a lot of issues with ex Russian states and eastern Europeans coming in and there is a lot of organised crime associated with these groups.

Its not targeted at Muslims - its the organsied gangs of criminals who do also target each other.

www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/russian-gangsters-brazenly-deal-heroin-at-belfasts-royal-victoria-and-city-hospitals-34568678.html

Not just limited to drugs, lots of other cirme and trafficking going on.

www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2017/05/18/news/woman-29-rescued-in-co-tyrone-human-trafficking-raid-1029661/

And it sticks in my craw to hear people from GB moan about how unspeakably awful the DUP are, and how outrageous it is that they are propping up the Tories. Good enough for the people of NI though, eh? hmm

If the people in NI insist on supporting them (and many of them do) they get what they deserve.

@andtakeyourhorsewithyou you equated everyone who wants to remain part of the UK with terrorists. Pretty stupid.

Do you know anything about NI politics and history, AndTakeYourHorseWithYou? The nature of the divided society, the effect of the Troubles, the difficulties in moving towards 'normal' politics when the very basis of NI's geographical existence has made elections essentially a series of sectarian headcounts since 1921? The role of the British government in creating that state, in engineering that geography, in allowing those divisions to become ever more deep-rooted over the past 100 years?

Or do you just like making yourself look ignorant?

If the people in NI insist on supporting them (and many of them do) they get what they deserve.

In many places in NI people do not feel that they have a suitable alternative.

Why is that so hard to understand?

fuck knows @rockshandy. Getting angry about this now on behalf of all my NI friends. It's like chucking doughnuts into a black hole.

We have a fucked up situation here due to the Troubles. Because of this we are forced to tolerate a Sinn Fein/DUP government. I think that the Tory govenment must be really fucked to willingly enter into an agreement with the DUP.

As for the money, if we're lucky it will make up for the huge amounts we are losing in the RHI scandal.

No idea where this idea of being 'saved' from the DUP (or anyone else for that matter!) is coming from. Majority of people in NI vote for them, slightly less numbers vote Sinn Fein - both hardline parties in their own way, slightly less numbers again vote for others - Alliance/SDLP/Green/UUP etc.
IMO people need saving more from Tories - crazy brexiteers and austerity peddlers, but again they are voted for in huge numbers. It's democracy!

And don't get me started on the role of the UK government in that civil war

Been thinking a lot like that myself lately.. sure don't look too closely at why there was such problems over here, easier just to slam us all as bigotted and fighting amongst ourselves.

TeacherPresent I am unaware of any major Muslim hate this side of the Irish Sea, we tend to focus more on each other. There is a certain amount of dislike of foreigners in general, as we are relatively unused to immigration due to the troubles making us undesirable. but we tend to group them in one of our tribal entities ie Polish are Catholics etc

I'm a catholic in Ni and have never voted for the DUP understandably I will vote for sein fein as their policies are more with modern society and not backwards like the DUP.

I hate that DUP have been given more power as such and the head of the DUP has kept her job after all the scandal she's been involved in.

I do worry why will happen now going forward as the DUP are very one sided.

Can we just stop calling it The Troubles. That's a bullshit propaganda name used by the British and Irish governments and media to minimise what was very much an actual civil war.

Do you know anything about NI politics and history, AndTakeYourHorseWithYou?

Lot more than you do. Born and bred in NI.

Tbf they took their time about it Maud and look at Pengally and the flags in the last week..

Since the implosion of the UUP there's really no moderate unionist party so people worried about a united Ireland and Sinn Fein getting more powerful vote DUP ad there's no alternative for them and the DUP play on those fears...

As Pp have commented, the money is badly needed - those of you in England can only imagine how shite the roads are here, we have practically no train lines open, half our hospitals have closed and the other half are old crumbling ruins. The one nearest me used to be an actual work house from the time of the potato famine

The deal won't compromise the GFA because Sinn Fein will be totally on board with getting the additional funding. Anyone who thinks SF and DUP haven't agreed informally that this deal should have been done is incredibly naive.

That's why so much money has been pledged to health care - to implement the changes recommended in the Bengoa report - Michelle O'Neill's pet project.

Rockshandy, I have a fairly good grasp of the history and politics of NI. I think that it's really interesting that when anyone points out that NI is heavily subsidised by the rest of the U.K. or has the government they elected, NI residents get angry. You assume ignorance when you get the view of an outsider.

Northern Ireland doesn't have some kind of public relations problem. it has a sectarianism problem.

You assume a lack of understanding but I think the opposite is true. The majority of you vote for the DUP and you get the DUP in Stormount, along with everything they promise and corruption that you can't claim is a surprise anymore.

I don't understand why you don't understand.

The people of NI get more per head than anyone else in the UK. The fact that the roads are in shite and everything else is not because they've been neglected in money terms.
It's where that money goes that is the problem, and who siphons it off.

It disgusts me that TM has done such a grubby little deal to get a majority vote.
She has got 'into bed' with an unyielding,discriminatory party.
DUP are arrogant, smug and superior.
Teresa May can look forward to many tough battles Arlene Foster is extremely ambitious and models herself on Margaret Thatcher, if Teresa May thinks she will be able to influence Darling Arlene,she has another think coming.

Why are you posting such ignorant claptrap then, AndTakeYourHorseWithYou?

PS you don't know where I'm from, where I've lived, what I do for a living, but I admire your attempt to pull rank

I can state my opinions, and you can bite me if you don't like them.

Anyone who thinks SF and DUP haven't agreed informally that this deal should have been done is incredibly naive.

YY to this. SF/DUP is one.