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?

I think there can be ways to make it work in most other areas, even if I don't like.

This is the one issue I just can't see there being a solution that fits outside the EU.

This is actually why I'm asking if someone from Leave knows if there was ever a wisdom or idea that covered this issue in any way other than it being 'an add on' or an inconvenience to the economic and dislike of immigration.

Its very much at odds with all things on the table given that the government really does seem to be going for hard brexit from all the evidence and noises from Westminster.

A soft brexit would, perhaps covered it.

That is NOT the direction we are headed.

This is why saying that hard brexit in particular, really does hold problems and we need to head for a (much) softer option.

In an NI context, talking about MPs having a responsibility to make things work isn't particularly helpful or realistic because:

a) there are too few of them to have any real power or influence at Westminster anyway

b) four of the eighteen of them don't take their seats, indeed are elected on a platform of not doing so. I disagree entirely with abstentionism, but democracy. So it's rather hard to argue they have a responsibility to do anything at all, when their constituents voted for them to do nothing and would prefer things to unravel enough for a reunification vote to be a possibility.

Your point would probably have been better made on a thread not about NI, in all honesty.

I think that all MPs have a responsibility to make this work - not those that just represent NI. Unless of course, they don't care that they are MPs of the UK, not just England (or Wales).

Which presumably the Sinn Fein ones don't, what with being opposed to the whole concept of the UK and all.

I just think it's unrealistic to talk about MPs having a responsibility to do X when they've been elected on a platform of doing literally nothing in Parliament. It's also a bit of a slippery slope if one is Leave, because then what you're actually saying is that MPs should prioritise what they see as the common good over the views of their constituents. While that's an arguably legitimate perspective in itself, it obviously undermines the Leave argument that MPs should, despite their own views, pull together to make Brexit work because the people have spoken.

because then what you're actually saying is that MPs should prioritise what they see as the common good over the views of their constituents.

I think that can be said to be the case - they are elected as Representatives and not Delegates. It's to be hoped that they are better informed about the issues concerning the country than Joe and Jill Bloggs, their constituents, because that is what they are being paid to do, day in day out. If they genuinely think that a cause espoused by their constituents is potentially damaging, they should say so. If 52 out of a 100 people roped themselves together and said that they were about to jump off Beachy Head, you would sincerely hope that the 48 not involved endeavoured to stop them. Not to say, go on then!
A trivial example, I know.

Yes, I think that approach is fine. It just doesn't really work when you're a Leaver who does want Brexit, because what you're then saying it that it's fine for Parliament to ignore the referendum result in favour of the views of the MPs. If you think SF MPs should ignore their constituents abstentionist wishes in order to participate in making Brexit succeed for the UK, you can't really argue against other MPs ignoring their constituents Brexit wishes in order to do what they think is best for the UK ie block Brexit.

I admit to being in something of a quandary over SF MPs. I can see why they do it, but by not taking their seats it means that their constituents aren't represented.

the point to have raised that would have been during the progress of the Act which legislated for a referendum in the first place?

I absolutely agree. I think it was an appalling dereliction of duty to allow such a poorly drafted piece of legislation through. The only crumb of comfort I took from it was that it showed just how stupid Cameron was and that it wrecked his Prime Ministership.

Not that this is helpful to resolving the current situation.

The whole of Parliament is implicated in this folly, not just DC.

I disagree with abstentionism entirely, I think it's imbecilic. Particularly when the Tories, who Republicans obviously hate, have a wafer thin majority and a few lost by-elections could mean the SF MPs would have the balance of power if they took their seats. None of that matters though, because that's the platform they were elected on and they've always spelled out that they won't sit. It also means they're not going to be very receptive to any platitudes from anyone about what they should be doing to make things work.

The problem with that analogy tiggy is that there was nothing in the Bill to say the result would be abided by. The Remain campaign were in no position to give that guarantee and it can't be considered any more binding than any of the dimmer Leave promises. I take your point that they didn't spell out the advisory nature of referenda, but nor did they do anything else. So the Beachy Head analogy would actually have to say that a majority of us vote to allow people to decide whether to jump off or not, but we're saying nothing about how we'll respond to that decision.

What it is not in any shape or form is legally binding as with Switzerland for example.

SF MP abstention makes perfect sense. They do not recognise Westminster as having any authority over NI. They stand and win seats to prevent unionists being MPs and having a balance of power. One very genuine reason John Major failed to get a peace agreement was that he was partially reliant on Unionist support in the commons.

The referendum was in the conservative party manifesto and it specifically spelt out that either result would be honoured.
It is not legally binding, but morally binding on all Conservative MPs and the HoL by agreement.

And what do morals count for in the least moral UK political campaign in my lifetime.

Well there are republicans who don't recognise the UK but who chose to take their seats anyway. Bernadette Devlin, for example. Personally I think her promise to 'take my seat and fight for your rights' is much more logical, but it doesn't matter because I don't live in any of the constituencies with a Sinn Fein MP. They can vote for someone to sit outside the Commons and scratch their arse every 12 minutes for 5 years if they want to, regardless of my views on the subject.

As for the rest, let's try and keep this thread NI related, shall we? There's plenty of room for the moral obligation discussion on any of the other general threads in this subforum. I know I've posted a couple of points not relating to NI but I'm going to stop. I cordially invite other MNers to do the same.

I think the extent of obligation is relevant to the NI question actually.

The Tories are acting currently as if hard Brexit were a moral obligation rather than the free choice it is. This will put WM on a collision course with the requests of Foster and McGuinness and the Remain majority quite apart from the GFA and border question.

I have read the Tory party manifesto, and it was a bit like a pic n' mix. How about the promise of the £12,500 personal tax allowance for a starter?

Keeping to the NI issue - their manifesto promise was "We will continue to build in Northern Ireland where politics works, the economy grows and society is strong." So they have just delivered them a huge constitutional crisis, which would suggest that this aim will be compromised.

Then again, a manifesto promise now reneged on: We will scrap the Human Rights Act and introduce a British Bill of Rights. This will break the formal link between the British Courts and the European Court of Human Rights......."

Now the membership of the ECHR was a major plank of the GFA. I don't see any paragraph, or sentence even, to say, that 'we are mindful that we cannot break the link between the ECHR in NI without renegotiating the GFA.'

Now maybe TM did wake up at that point and realise that she couldn't actually scrap the Human Rights Act without causing major upsets. She said lots of fine words on the steps of No. 10.

Peregrina, perhaps sweeping changes to human rights law is just on the back burner for now. Withdrawing from international treaties is quite complex from an administrative point of view, and the government have their hands full at the moment, what with Brexit.

and the government have their hands full at the moment, what with Brexit.

Yes, but the GFA is an International treaty that they can't divorce from the Brexit vote, however much they would like to.

I was talking about the ECHR, not the GFA. But you're right, the GFA assumes that we are members of both the ECHR and the EU, and the necessary amendments to the GFA as a result of Brexit could give rise to all kind of legal difficulties.

That's a valid point actually gloria. I hadn't thought of it that way, and clearly neither had carol given that she thinks it's simply a question of a moral obligation even in the context of a country without a single Tory MP. The hard Brexit point is particularly interesting, since any moral arguments that can be made for Brexit don't apply to hard Brexit at all. What with nobody having voted for it. Indeed, in an NI context there's a stronger moral argument against hard Brexit than anything else because of the border issue.

The ECHR is also an interesting issue. In the past, ROI has taken action against the UK for breaching ECHR obligations due to mistreatment of Irish citizens within the UK (IRA members who were being violently interrogated within NI). Both the UK and ROI were members of the EU at that point, but the ability for one ECHR signatory state to take this kind of action against another signatory state would still exist regardless of whether either or both were in the EU. Since NI contains a great many Irish citizens living on UK territory, it provides plenty of opportunity. The permutations are fascinating!

May woke up the the fact that we couldn't leave the European Convention on Human Rights without leaving the EU, as we're signed up to it in the Lisbon Treaty.

GloriaGaynor, I'm not sure that's quite correct. Membership of ECHR is a condition for accession to the EU for candidate countries, but as far as I'm aware there is no actual legal obligation for countries already in the EU to remain members of the ECHR. I think we could withdraw from the ECHR and remain in the EU, but if we withdrew from the ECHR and the EU and then at some point in the future wanted to rejoin the EU, we'd have to rejoin the ECHR first.

You have to become a member of the ECHR to be a member of the EU.

And Article 6.2 of the Lisbon Treaty states the EU itself will become a signatory of the ECHR with Article 6.3 binding the EU to abiding by the Convention’s principles.