So the Good Friday Agreement? How do LEAVE propose to sort? (on Brexit and Northern Ireland - title amended by MNHQ)

[RedToothBrush]

Go on. Lets have some answers.
Can we have a proper talk about how we can stop this affront to democracy and ripping up of a peace plan?

[Peregrina]

The CTA can continue. The BoJo argument. Not without people sitting round the table and thrashing out a new agreement, it can't. BoJo forgot that both Ireland and the UK entered the EEC as it then was, at the same time.

[Peregrina]

The CTA can continue.

As a statement from Martin McGuiness says:

"And the simple fact is that Theresa May hasn’t ruled a new border out because she can’t rule it out. It’s not within her gift to make that decision because this will be a matter for negotiation with the other EU member states."

[RedToothBrush]

'Lets take the word of people who have screwed us over for centuries that they will look after us. Especially one with a big bus and who admitted days later it was all a lie.'

Yep. That'll work.

[Peregrina]

You point out the historical context of people violently opposing unrecognised rule in NI - this is exactly what could happen if Britain is forced to remain in the EU against the majority referendum vote.

We can non of us predict the future accurately. The UK vote for Leave was much less of a majority than the NI vote for Remain. We have had sporadic violence - witness the unrest in Liverpool in the early 80, or the relatively recent unrest in Croydon, but it has been nothing like so entrenched and bitter as the situation in Ireland. Given that the Leave vote don't know what they want, I would suspect that violence would be much less likely. I could see violence erupting in poverty stricken communities when they realise that whichever way they vote, they will be shafted.

[RedToothBrush]

Leave has no uniform belief structure or organisation.

Though Arron Banks has threatened to create one.
Even then, though, Britain First have 1 million facebook likes and 30 odd people turned up for their convention.

A lot of sentiment was stirred up - but much of it wasn't there previously. Its history is not based on centuries of people being killed. Or, at the very least, facing injustice at the hands of the law, rather than purely social inequality.

[GloriaGaynor]

RE McGuiness's point - May has said is that there won't be a return to the borders of the past, which leaves wide open to interpretation the borders of the future...

[MangoMoon]

Good Friday Agreement was signed 18 years ago now.

The question is no longer what did people want then, but what do they want now.

There has been 18 years of relative 'stability', albeit shaky & fragile & not without its problems.
People have had the longest period of peace for generations and for the younger generation this is all they've known.

18 years prior to GFA was 1980 - after a decade of violence and preceding a decade of more violence.
No one at that time could foresee any sort of peaceful compromise, yet it happened.

By the time Brexit has been negotiated it will be 20 years since the GFA was signed - time enough for the people of the island of Ireland to decide how they want to move forward into the future.

The divide & conquer strategies employed in the early 20th century and prior have long been denounced as unacceptable ways to govern (one household, one vote; open discrimination based on faith etc for eg), so there is no fear of a return to that regimen.

It is entirely up to the cross party and cross govt groups how things move forward and I would like to believe that they're doing their best to do so and ultimately it will have to be put to the people.

There seems to be a view in Scotland & Ireland that 'the English' want to rule over them at all costs.
This may have been true back in the days of empires, aristocratic rule & landowners but it's not now.
'The English' are no more a homogenous mass than anyone else is, and your average English person would not want to 'keep control' of any country against its people's will - just as they don't want to concede their own autonomy to others (hence the EU 'out' vote).

[HyacinthFuckit]

Yes, Ireland is a fragile & unique situation and this is surely being discussed at length & addressed by all parties involved; but as history demonstrates, to force any country into unrecognised control is dangerous - this includes Scotland, England & Wales.

Let's leave aside for the moment the fact the Ireland has in very recent history been ruled by force by the British, indeed some Irish feel this is still happening in part of Ireland, in a way that doesn't have a recent parallel for England, Scotland or Wales. Can you really not see the distinction between a society that was in open conflict a couple of decades ago, that still has a number of active and semi-active paramilitary groups and a fair number of weapons still hanging around unaccounted for, and one where none of these things are true? And that maybe the former might just have a slightly higher risk of unrest?

And purplevase, have you missed the posts explaining that at least some of the couple of hundred thousand people in NI who voted Leave did so because they thought it would cause the problems people are talking about?

[RedToothBrush]

There seems to be a view in Scotland & Ireland that 'the English' want to rule over them at all costs.
This may have been true back in the days of empires, aristocratic rule & landowners but it's not now.

The trouble is that the noises coming out of the current government do sound a lot like those days of empire etc.

Those fears die hard anyway.

I personally, as someone affected by what happened but English, am afraid of life without the GFA. It provided comfort and security. I do feel it needs another 20 years at least to past through generations before looking at the situation again.

I suspect that there will be much stronger feeling along the same lines in NI itself.

[HyacinthFuckit]

The divide & conquer strategies employed in the early 20th century and prior have long been denounced as unacceptable ways to govern (one household, one vote; open discrimination based on faith etc for eg), so there is no fear of a return to that regimen.

I rather wonder why you felt the need to dismiss this as a possibility, when there's no realistic suggestion it's going to happen again. It's almost like you might be trying not to address the thing people are really afraid of, isn't it?

And of course what's important is what people want now. The majority of the electorate in NI having made their views on both the referendum and GFA very clear. Remain achieved a significant victory, and a majority of votes cast in the last elections and indeed every one since GFA have been for pro GFA parties.

[MangoMoon]

Can you really not see the distinction between a society that was in open conflict a couple of decades ago, that still has a number of active and semi-active paramilitary groups and a fair number of weapons still hanging around unaccounted for, and one where none of these things are true? And that maybe the former might just have a slightly higher risk of unrest?

Well of course I can, I haven't suggested otherwise.

What I can also see though is that UK (as a whole) voted to leave the EU.
England & Wales majority Leave, NI & Scotland majority Remian.

Judging by history with Ireland and other countries throughout the world where the people are ignored and ruled by force, violent revolt is inevitable.
I do not want that for any part of the U.K.

[MangoMoon]

I rather wonder why you felt the need to dismiss this as a possibility, when there's no realistic suggestion it's going to happen again. It's almost like you might be trying not to address the thing people are really afraid of, isn't it?

I've no idea what you mean by this.
(Genuine, not goady).

[Peregrina]

No one at that time could foresee any sort of peaceful compromise, yet it happened.

It did not just 'happen' - it took some very hard negotiating.

[RedToothBrush]

I'll also point out that Adams and McGuinness are very much still alive and until they are dead and buried still represent something.

Not only that but splinter IRA groups were responsible for the later attacks. No one was ever held responsible for the Warrington bombing. (Which was also claimed to be linked to a British leftist political group called Red Action)

Now if you want to look them up, and have a little look at current politics in that area and prominent figures on the left you might see why I might still be a touch nervous of the whole situation.

That's not to say this is necessarily a Republican issue. It could easily go completely the other way.

They, are all fuckers, as was the way in which the British government 'dealt' with it.

[HyacinthFuckit]

You sort of have suggested otherwise though mango, because when people talk about the possibility of unrest in recently post-conflict society, you've mentioned other completely different countries that aren't post-conflict. Basically, your argument appears to be that because the constituent countries of the UK voted differently, some of them are going to be having the will of others imposed on them whatever we do (absent a break up of the UK entirely of course) and that's inevitable so there'd be a risk of unrest regardless. But this ignores the undeniable fact that one constituent country is not like the others. Either accidentally or deliberately, you minimise this risk when you say oh well, everywhere would revolt if the will of the people isn't respected. Everywhere doesn't and some places are much more likely to experience that than others!

What I mean by my comment above is that as nobody seriously thinks we're going to return to gerrymandering, one household one vote, Derry Council style antics it's not immediately obvious why you would bother to dismiss that, whilst not addressing the worries people actually have.

[GloriaGaynor]

The Brexit plan is not going to be drawn up only by those who want to leave (Arlene Foster in Northern Ireland for example is not being put in sole charge of negotiations there)

No indeed, and Foster's vision (with McGuiness) of NI in a letter to May looks very much like EU membership.

Letter here

[MangoMoon]

It did not just 'happen' - it took some very hard negotiating.

Yes, I know this.
I didn't say it 'just happened'.


Hyacinth, I see what you mean I think.
I wasn't suggesting that that sort of thing is a possibility, just pointing out that people who were not aware of what happened there look back horrified at that sort of persecution and discrimination.
With immediate access to information & history nowadays, thanks to the Internet, it means people are no longer hostage to the print & tv media and can find both sides.

[HyacinthFuckit]

As it was always going to Gloria! Not that Arlene was the most committed of Brexiters anyway, and like quite a lot of the politicians on the Brexit side, she won't have expected to actually win. I thought this article by Newton Emerson, himself not a huge fan of the EU and a fairly reluctant remainer, was a very prescient analysis:

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/newton-emerson-dup-opposition-to-brexit-forum-purely-parochial-1.2736287

I've talked mostly about the republican Leave vote so far in this thread, which was a minority within a minority, but this discusses some of the cleavages within the Unionist community on the issue.

[GloriaGaynor]

I agree that it could come from either side RedToothBrush I think people on mainland England don't realise how much tension there is in NI still.

Some Loyalists have said to me personally that they will ever accept a United Ireland, not even if it's for the purpose of saving NI economically by keeping it in the EU.

They said, and I quote 'why should the IRA get what they want'. The result will be and again I quote 'blood on the streets'.

That's quite extreme, but it's an indication of how some Loyalists think.

[HyacinthFuckit]

Hyacinth, I see what you mean I think. I wasn't suggesting that that sort of thing is a possibility, just pointing out that people who were not aware of what happened there look back horrified at that sort of persecution and discrimination.
With immediate access to information & history nowadays, thanks to the Internet, it means people are no longer hostage to the print & tv media and can find both sides.

Right. And that's fine, but none of it addresses any of the points that have been made. People in NI, who presumably have the access you mention, are worried about a threat to the relatively fragile peace process, because of their clearly and repeatedly stated wishes being ignored. Greater access to information thanks to the internet and the impossibility of losing one person one vote are, while positive things in themselves, not at all relevant to these fears.

[Peregrina]

With immediate access to information & history nowadays, thanks to the Internet, it means people are no longer hostage to the print & tv media and can find both sides.

Yes, but people don't bother to find out both sides. There is another thread running with the title 'Not my circus, not my monkey' because that was exact saying of one poster - she neither knew nor cared.

And yes, I know you didn't say that it 'just' happened, but people do need to remember just how much work was involved. Any Brexit agreement about NI will take some extremely hard negotiating, and as yet, there don't seem to be all that many competent negotiators around.

[RedToothBrush]

Mango, I have faith that will happen in time.

The trouble is there are still far too many for whom its still present rather than past tense, in the sense they experienced it and its effects directly.

Its not something that they read about in the paper or saw on the TV. They LIVED it.

This is why I stress the 'too soon' thing.

[GloriaGaynor]

The leave campaign is a very good example of people being hostage to the the media actually.

The truth is out there but no-one bothered to look.

[whatwouldrondo]

Yes I have a friend who campaigned hard on the streets of NI for Remain, and it was fought hard because there were plenty of people who really appreciated the benefits of the EU and didn't take it for granted in the way it was in parts of the country that have had lives that have enabled them to be more complacent and entitled. They were frustrated that people were coming out with the meaningless rhetoric and xenophobia that was promulgated in some of the media, the same syndrome as Sunderland, when they had so much to lose. The rush for Irish passports was very much in preparation to vote with their feet as well.

[blaeberry]

There seemed to be a lot of confusion at the referendum; we were not voting for government. People asked 'what would brexiters do about (for example) the NHS?'. The answer is 'nothing' brexiters are not in power but neither are remainders. It was about choosing a direction. 'Remain' MPs now have just ask much responsibility to make this work as Brexit MPs and should hopefully bring some balance.

The SNPs may have had a landslide in Westminster but they are in the minority in Scotland.