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.

Nine-year-old Patrick Rooney, the first child to die as a result of the Troubles, was killed inside his own home. “They can’t say to me he was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” his father Neely told the Irish News. “He was in his home when he was shot dead.”

@Mystery I'm getting a mix of answers which is what I was interested in. Most are a combination of yes I thought about it, no I didn't because it didn't occur to me and so far only one suggesting that we're the problem for Brexit and terrorists. So yes I'm getting insights which is what I asked.

My point is simply that it does not necessarily follow that Britain leaving the EU must result in a border.

That border, if it occurs, is reappearing just as much because the EU refuses to not have one, as it is because of Britain’s decision to leave.

I understand that Britain is changing the status quo, therefore much of the ire falls on it.

As ever with Brexit, we end up wallowing in the “obvious idiocy“ of the other side, and no one cares to think about why we are where we are. Which is the much more interesting question.

Every time a brexiter posts callous shit about Ireland, I'm posting about the reality of the Troubles.

3,500 casualties including 1,800 civilians, many of them children. Hundreds of thousands of lives blighted.

Brexiters who are OK with risking a return to this need to be called out and made to defend it.

Children survived the deaths of mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, best friends. They saw friends and relatives interned, or imprisoned. They were themselves “lifted”, beaten, jailed. Many were physically injured, and more again were left with mental scars.

Seamus Mallonn^, who later became Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister, recalled teaching English at St Catherine’s College, a girls’ school in Armaghh^, during the 1970s. “I had one small class, and every one of those girls had somebody belonging to them killed.”

I’m surprised more people didn’t pick up on what Nancy Pelosi said about a post Brexit trade deal with the USA, i.e. there won’t be one if the GFA is compromised

Nancy Pelosi saying the opposite to Trump is the same as Jeremy Corbyn saying the opposite to Boris Johnson. What’s new?

Get the feeling that many in UK are afraid of US food products and possible sell off of the NHS. So no trade deal between UK and US is unlikely to bother anyone.

Even if there was a trade deal, would people buy food that has “made in US” on the packaging?

Yes I did give NI and ROI a thought, and one of the reasons I chose remain. I have plenty of family in ROI.

I didn’t give it loads of thought, but if I was thinking of voting Leave I would have done.

All those who voted leave and didn’t think of NI should be ashamed I think. The leave vote was the action, the potential to have far reaching consequences. The remain wasn’t so the onus was not on people voting remain to have the first clue about any of it.

@dirtyrottenscoundrel we can leave the EU on 31 October if NI remains in a customs union with the UK. Which is more important to you? Pretending you give a shit about NI or delivering Brexit?

customs union with the EU, I meant. Ha ha😂

‘Nancy Pelosi saying the opposite to Trump is the same as Jeremy Corbyn saying the opposite to Boris Johnson. What’s new?’

No it isn’t. She’s speaker of the house. Legislation goes through her first. She has far more power than Corbyn.

It’s not that we hate talking about the troubles in N.I, but the rest of the UK should not be made to stay in the EU because politicians can’t sort out the Irish issue.
It should never have been made so difficult to leave. The troubles in N.I have been going on for decades, long before the EU as we know it.
This isn’t any voters fault ( leave or remain ) it’s the fault of the politicians who drew up an agreement that meant leaving the EU was nigh on impossible.
What if N.I had voted overwhelmingly to leave?

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

No. I voted Leave and most discussions in the media focused on the NHS, immigration, sovereignty. I was quite naive and unaware of the implications on NI and ROI.

During the past three years since the vote I've realised a lot of what I heard in the Leave campaign was lies, and I have been educating myself, or trying to! I am not particularly intellectual and have ill health and patchy concentration. But I am now an ardent Remainer and having learned what I have from the good people on Westminstenders, I realise that the border issue can't just be glossed over as Johnson and co are doing, it will be incredibly harmful to the people of NI and ROI if we end up with some variety of hard border. You could say it's now my number one concern.

But they did sort it out, that's what the Good Friday agreement is. Peace and everyone free to be British, Irish or both without persecution?

@Dissimilitude

I find it weird that the sovereign policy of a nation is to be held hostage to the bizarre political constraints of its smaller neighbour.

Do you find it equally 'weird' to expect the UK to stick to the terms of any international treaty which they signed, after careful negotiations and ratification by both sides?

No coercion. The Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement

How do you think it looks on the international stage, if the UK says it will keep to that agreement and then goes ahead and unilaterally breaks it.

Crunchy Thanks for that, truly.

Politicians did sort out the NI issue, it's called the Good Friday Agreement, which the UK government signed up to but are now willing to shred for the sake of preserving the Tory party.

But when they drew up the GFA did they factor in the possibility that we might want to leave the EU?

Clearly not.

"What if N.I had voted overwhelmingly to leave?" But it didn't.
Kept NI in the EU customs union and we leave on 31 October.
Simples.

I voted remain, and hoped almost expected that everyone else would do so too.

When I woke up to the news of the result, my first thought was 'what about Ireland?'

Sigh.

dirtyrotten Again, that is a problem of the British government. They didn't think about that, factor it in or anything before they asked people if they wanted it.

Given Britain’s culpability for the troubles they should be fucking grateful that a truce was possible. And yet still this arrogant idea that Ireland should do as it’s told

No. I voted Leave and most discussions in the media focused on the NHS, immigration, sovereignty. I was quite naive and unaware of the implications on NI and ROI.
Very honest post.

Nancy Pelosi saying the opposite to Trump is the same as Jeremy Corbyn saying the opposite to Boris Johnson. What’s new?

You aren't showing much understanding of US politics frankly. Trump is far from the ultimate arbiter on this one.

As Pelosi points out herself, it's very difficult to pass a trade deal in the House of Representatives anyway. Add in the power of Irish American sentiment over there and no way will a deal get passed if the GFA is compromised.

The Americans played such a crucial role in its development, after all.

How do you think it looks on the international stage, if the UK says it will keep to that agreement and then goes ahead and unilaterally breaks it.

The brexiteers seem to give no fucks whatsoever about this.

They seem to think the UK can behave however the hell it likes and suffer no consequences. Their understanding of how the modern world is really fucking limited.

but the rest of the UK should not be made to stay in the EU because politicians can’t sort out the Irish issue.

It's not an 'Irish issue'. NI is in the UK. Watch your language, it matters

It should never have been made so difficult to leave ... it’s the fault of the politicians who drew up an agreement that meant leaving the EU was nigh on impossible.

It was not 'made' difficult to leave. The UK signed up to the GFA of their own free volition. Yes, it had implications for their position within the EU, which they should have thought of before the vote.

What if N.I had voted overwhelmingly to leave?

They didn't. Your point?

This is a mess entirely of the Brexiteers making. The problem is, because they can't solve it, the shit is going to hit the ROI significantly, though they had absolutely no part in creating it. They are rightly furious about that.

It was one of the panoply of reasons that I voted Remain.

I was one of those raising the issue on MN pre-referendum. I think the "best" response I got from a Quitling (apart from all the "project fear" repeats) was "not my circus, not my monkeys". Which rather tells you something about them...