Ireland and your vote.

[RuggerHug]

I am genuinely interested in all opinions here and I really hope that comes across. I don't want to start arguments or stir up hatred or insults. I've been on these boards for awhile and I know I've probably been quite ranty at times. I really want to not be here, so I'd like to ask everyone who voted, leave or remain, the following and I'd really appreciate your answers/thoughts.

Did ROI and NI play a part in your decision to vote whatever way?

Did the effect of a vote either way to NI and ROI occur at all, if so how?

Since the result, did anyone have a change of heart/become more sure of their vote based on what came out regarding ROI and NI afterwards?

Have you any thoughts on how we've been during it all/how our media portrays activities in the UK(if you're aware of what is said/shown here).

Hopefully this won't come across as trying to start a fight but, in all of this, did you care about us and the fallout or did you consider it not the UKs/anyone elses problem?

For disclosure, I'm Irish, in ROI, spent a lot of time at the border/in NI before the GFA, not as much after. Anyone I know in the UK that had a vote voted remain, I know 1 Leave voter(who lives in ROI).

Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts.

[DarlingNikita]

Not sure I agree with that. Remember UK mainland were excluded from the vote/referendum. Excluded from? Anyway, not the point. The GFA (and the lead-up to it) were HUGE in the public consciousness/media.

Also GFA signed in 1998. By time 2016 came around it was very likely forgotten on UK mainland. Please. People do generally have sufficiently working memories to remember things like that (I bet people remember the poll tax/miners' strikes/Blair–Brown government and deal. Also see my next point...

Northern Ireland seldom mentioned in UK media or press. Only since the word backstop appear in the Brexit negotiations did Northern Ireland come to light. My original post referred to the national conversation in the broader sense (documentaries and TV dramas/films/novels/plays etc etc); even if you don't engage with the news you would have found it very hard indeed not to have SOME idea of the Northern Ireland situation. There is, off the top of my head, The Crying Game, In the Name of the Father, Harry's Game, Hunger, Cal by Bernard Laverty (sp.?), The Lieutenant of Inishmore… And of course countless TV shows/books/films etc include it even if it isn't their direct or main subject.

So, as I said in my first post, you'd have to have had your head in a bucket for this issue not to have crossed your mind at all when deciding how to vote. Or you just didn't care. Which I suspect is the position of most of the WM government.

[blubberyboo]

www.irishnews.com/news/2016/06/16/news/david-cameron-warns-of-post-brexit-border-controls-564340/

Mystery disagreed with me above but a simple google search shows the IRISH media reporting on David Cameron warning in WESTMINSTER in June 2016 that Brexit would mean a border either between ROI and NI or between NI and rest of UK

The British media obviously wasn’t interested enough to report it or the British ignored it. The other British MPs in attendance that day must’ve fallen asleep whilst Cameron discussed it with northern Irish MPS

I think the last 3 years have shown quite clearly that this is not just an Ireland problem

Sorry to have to correct you Mystery!

[bellinisurge]

A plain speaking Irish pal that I haven't seen in ages told me about a taxi ride they'd had in Manchester not long after the referendum. The driver went on about how he had properly researched everything before his vote and had concluded Leave was the right thing to do?
"Did you research the GFA?"
"What's that?"
"Well, you didn't do your fucking research then, did you?"

[MysteryTripAgain]

Mystery disagreed with me above but a simple google search shows the IRISH media reporting on David Cameron warning in WESTMINSTER in June 2016 that Brexit would mean a border either between ROI and NI or between NI and rest of UK

You are referring to Irish media which targets less than 7 million people. I refer to UK media which targets about 60 million people. Do you really think people on UK mainland read the Irish Times?

What can’t be challenged is the fact that the leaflet that was sent to every household in the UK (NI included) did not mention; borders, GFA or NI at all. Nor where they mentioned on the UK government website;

Eureferendum.co.uk

If Cameron thought; Border, GFA and NI were important issues, why were they excluded from the leaflet that cost £9 million to produce and distribute?

[pallisers]

ok it is a small point but ..

It is THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND

So the "Mainland" is great britain". The only reason to use UK to add in northern ireland. So referring to the UK mainland is just fucking stupid.

Do people of the UK not really learn anything about their country? Like even the name? this is awful.

[MysteryTripAgain]

"Did you research the GFA?"
"What's that?"

Imagine that scenario applies to most of those who voted leave. I had heard of GFA, before the referendum, but never read it until the word backstop appeared in the T May withdrawal agreement that was voted down due to the backstop and Labour’s attempt to force a general election they thought would win.

[MysteryTripAgain]

It is THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND

Maybe this choice of wording and construction is the reason some people think Northern Ireland is separate from mainland? No reference to Scotland or Wales on passports.

Why not just say UNITED KINGDOM without any reference to Great Britain or Northern Ireland?

[Voila212]

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-36539803&ved=2ahUKEwjDoJ_77aLlAhU7RBUIHWoqB4k4ChAWMAh6BAgEEAE&usg=AOvVaw3lxZ5HVSD_5w2SXATuTZjb" rel="nofollow noindex" target="_blank">David Cameron warns there could be checks
I do agree with Mystery though the UK press barely reported in it. What reporting was done shows real no concern compared to the Irish media. The UK government either believed that remain would win or that the border was not a major issue. Wrong on both accounts.

[AdoraBell]

I thought there would be a problem due to my experience while working decades ago. I was a buyer’s clerk, stock ordered for a London store from a USA company and they always delivered to Dublin instead of Belfast. Every time I raised the issue they could not grasp the fact that NI is separate from ROI, they told me, repeatedly, that it was only 1 country and was no boarder.

Fast forward to the Good Friday Agreement that removed the boarder checks.

Then, fast forward to a situation that undoes the Good Friday Agreement. That will not work.

I know that the Good Friday Agreement does much more than simply stopping boarder checks. Also, I don’t claim to be more intelligent than anyone else.

One of the reasons why I voted Remain was I could not see a way that we could leave the EU without damaging either the NI and ROI situation, or causing problems elsewhere in the UK. I know the EU isn’t perfect. But I do think Britain would be better off remaining in the EU rather than leaving.

[IwishIwasaspaceman]

Did ROI and NI play a part in your decision to vote whatever way?
No ( just as The Falklands didn't).

Did the effect of a vote either way to NI and ROI occur at all, if so how?
No.

Since the result, did anyone have a change of heart/become more sure of their vote based on what came out regarding ROI and NI afterwards?
No. I have always been sure of my vote.

Have you any thoughts on how we've been during it all/how our media portrays activities in the UK(if you're aware of what is said/shown here).
No. I've never looked at your media or the media of any other EU countries.

Hopefully this won't come across as trying to start a fight but, in all of this, did you care about us and the fallout or did you consider it not the UKs/anyone elses problem?
It isn't that I did or didn't care about people in your country. I didn't consider it at all because I feel it needed to be a decision made by the head and not the heart.

I don't understand why there would be a fallout. People talk about it setting back the peace process but, to my mind, as long as people want peace then peace will prevail. I don't see why war should suddenly break out ...unless the peace that we have been experiencing is just on the surface and the tensions that existed are still there.

[LaurieMarlow]

People talk about it setting back the peace process but, to my mind, as long as people want peace then peace will prevail. I don't see why war should suddenly break out

Do you know anything about what the GFA delivered for NI nationalists and what a border would do to dismantle a solution that had been found to a centuries old conflict?

I mean, I know the answer, but just trying to give you a chance.

‘Peace will prevail if people want it’ in the context if centuries of national and political turmoil is the kind of banal ignorance I’d expect from a 12 year old.

[DarlingNikita]

to my mind, as long as people want peace then peace will prevail.

Fuck's sake.

[bellinisurge]

I second your "Fuck's sake" @DarlingNikita

[IwishIwasaspaceman]

Do you know anything about what the GFA delivered for NI nationalists and what a border would do to dismantle a solution that had been found to a centuries old conflict?
Obviously not. I evidently need to read up in the Irish troubles and the GFA.
I'm in England and we weren't taught anything about the Irish troubles at school.
I think most people I know won't know anything about the detail of the GFA but just know that there's a (clearly not working) power-sharing agreement.

Hearing about horrific bombings and shootings all the time on the news, running out of town when the bombs went off in Birmingham and having bomb detectors for post in my workplace because we provided catering services to the RUC is probably the sum of what I know about the troubles. I had a friend in the army in the mid 1970s in Belfast who told us he never saw any trouble and spent his days bored and unrolling barbed wire.

I think until the Birmingham Bombings it was something most people I know felt was far removed from them.

Obviously you have good reason to have knowledge and perhaps experience of it all but I'm sure many in England, Wales and Scotland will not have the same insight.

'Peace will prevail if people want it’ in the context if centuries of national and political turmoil is the kind of banal ignorance I’d expect from a 12 year old.
I'm sorry you feel like that but I do still believe that there will be peace if people want peace.

[LoyaltyBonus]

No, TBH what it meant for the border in Ireland didn't even occur to me but now, I am disgusted that people were "sold" brexit as a way to "regain control of our borders" without anyone mentioning what that would mean for the Good Friday agreement and the repercussions of that.

I can't believe no one on either side of the campaign discussed it (or did they and it didn't get the press or did I just miss it?)

[LaurieMarlow]

I'm sorry you feel like that but I do still believe that there will be peace if people want peace.

Given you admit you know nothing about it, then you’re just bleating banal platitudes. Your ignorance is quite something.

Go and do some reading up on it and then come back to this thread.

But please understand that bringing back the border actively dismantles the framework that ensured peace.

[pallisers]

It isn't that I did or didn't care about people in your country.

This sums it up really. Whoops I forgot a whole bit of my country - silly me!

It is YOUR country. the people of northern Ireland are the people in YOUR country. You did or didn't care about people in YOUR OWN country. Unless you aren't a citizen of the UK in which case how did you vote?

[pallisers]

I'm sorry you feel like that but I do still believe that there will be peace if people want peace.

the utter offensiveness of this. Do you really think people didn't want peace before the GFA??? That they weren't striving for it, hoping for it, praying for it?

[Lifebi]

If people want unicorns there will be unicorns.

[LaurieMarlow]

What I find so offensive iwish about your position, is that the people who achieved peace in NI did not just bleat about it happening ‘if people wanted it.‘

They worked for DECADES on it. Understanding the nuances that people like you haven’t the first clue about. Getting key people onside. Applying considerable intelligence and education to it. I include key British politicians in that, most notably John Major and Mo Mowlam.

The result was the GFA, that you so blithely admit you know nothing about. It was/is a triumph. A total game changer. It created the framework for peace.

It saddens me more than I can ever express that brexiteers would tear this amazing piece of work up because they couldn’t be arsed understanding it’s significance or figuring out their own Brexit that they apparently wanted so badly.

To come on here with platitudes about people ‘wanting peace’ is just so fucking shallow and banal. It makes me very angry.

[IwishIwasaspaceman]

the utter offensiveness of this. Do you really think people didn't want peace before the GFA??? That they weren't striving for it, hoping for it, praying for it?
I'm sorry, I don't mean to be offensive. I should have clarified that I was referring to everyone collectively wanting peace. Yes, some or even many will have wanted peace and been hoping for it and praying for it (not that hoping and praying for it is a practical way of attaining it) but everyone has to want peace in order to do whatever it takes to secure it.

[IwishIwasaspaceman]

@pallisers

It isn't that I did or didn't care about people in your country.
"This sums it up really. Whoops I forgot a whole bit of my country - silly me!"

It is YOUR country. the people of northern Ireland are the people in YOUR country. You did or didn't care about people in YOUR OWN country.

Well, Northern Ireland is indeed part of the UK but I responded to RuggerHug's question:
"Hopefully this won't come across as trying to start a fight but, in all of this, did you care about us and the fallout or did you consider it not the UKs/anyone elses problem?

For disclosure, I'm Irish, in ROI,"
I clearly quoted RuggerHug's question in my response. They disclosed that they are in ROI and that is not a part of my country.

[blubberyboo]

You are referring to Irish media which targets less than 7 million people. I refer to UK media which targets about 60 million people. Do you really think people on UK mainland read the Irish Times

Fgs this has been the point of the entire thread!!!!!!

It is the British people’s responsibility to find out about these issues in their own country before voting

It was the prime ministers responsibility to make this bloody clear to the electorate.

It was the British media’s responsibility to report factually on what the prime minister said in Westminster

I didn’t say they had to read the Irish media. Just that it is a sad state of affairs that people defend Brexit when their own local media and government hid facts from them and yet a neighbouring country can report on it.

Forget about Nobel peace prizes for John Hume. Evidently it should have been awarded to British Mumsnetters who had the answer all along “ peace will prevail if people want it to!”

[Seeingadistance]

For fucks sake!

Watching QT just now, and another wise man in the audience has said why do we keep going on about the Island of Ireland and letting it stop Brexit, so let’s just have an Island of Ireland!

Ffs!

[MysteryTripAgain]

It is the British people’s responsibility to find out about these issues in their own country before voting

Do you really think people spend months, weeks, days or even hours researching in libraries or internet before they vote? They don't. They will read articles in the press, listen to the live TV debates, watch TV such as Question Time and News night. As the poster AthollPlace said several times, people vote on issues that will directly affect them. Issues that don't effect them will very likely be ignored when they vote.

It was the prime ministers responsibility to make this bloody clear to the electorate

Cameron was convinced it would be an east remain victory. He spent £9 million of taxpayers money to send leaflets to every household in the UK (NI included) that detailed the advantages of remaining in the EU. NI and GFA was not mentioned.

Leaflet also listed the potential disadvantages of leaving the EU. Again NI and GFA not mentioned. So Cameron and the other that developed the leaflet obviously thought NI and GFA was not worth mentioning?.

It was the British media’s responsibility to report factually on what the prime minister said in Westminster

Can you quote a law for that statement?

Media reported what they thought would catch peoples' attention the most which was;

Immigration is destroying the UK
UK sends £50 million per day to the EU
EU Commissioners like Barnier and Juncker are not elected

I didn’t say they had to read the Irish media. Just that it is a sad state of affairs that people defend Brexit when their own local media and government hid facts from them and yet a neighbouring country can report on it

The facts that you refer to might affect NI, but not UK mainland. Hence reported in Irish media, but not UK mainland media.

Surely you have heard of the phrases:

I am alright Jack

Look after number one first