Boris Johnson is playing politics with Northern Ireland's 'delicate balance'

[Soph0571]

Unionist parties have not won a majority of votes cast in a Northern Ireland election since 2005. While there is likely still a majority for Northern Ireland remaining in the United Kingdom, this is not the same thing as a “unionist majority”. Both unionism and nationalism are minorities now, with the balance being held by an unaligned, liberal middle.

Where there is a majority is for the backstop. Successive polls and the European election results indicate nearly 60% consistently voting in favour of special arrangements to accommodate Northern Ireland’s strangeness. We have come to quite the historical pass when a government in Dublin finds itself pointing out that the will of the majority of partitioned Northern Ireland should be respected. Wherever Éamon de Valera and Edward Carson are now, we can only hope they are able to enjoy the irony together.

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/22/boris-johnson-northern-ireland-uk-sovereignty|]

The Brexiteers should have thought about all this before the referendum. They didn't because they do not give a shit about the peace in NI - or they do not give a shit enough in comparison to their ideological madness re leaving the EU. On the rare occasion the border issue was pointed out to them they dismissed warnings as Project Fear. Now they are trying to make the EU to solve the problem for them.....but the Irish border conundrum is unsolvable outside the EU's CU and SM, unless there is a wet border, which would bring down the government... so I cannot see them going for that.

I want to say that the country from which I come has matured enough not to tumble back into violence if we end up with a hard border, but the heightened tensions and recent shooting suggest otherwise.

The fact that a hard fought for peace is in the hands of Cummings and Johnson is terrifying.... the literally do not give a shit about this, NI is but a 'province' of Empire.

[3Hotdogs]

1. Why would there need to be a closed border?

[Soph0571]

2. The Northern and Southern Irish border

Is the only land border between the UK and the EU. If we crash out without a deal free movement will end immediately. That is movement of both goods and people. That would mean custom posts on the border between the North and South. Everyone (bar the far right zealots in Downing Street) is trying to avoid that - in the troubles the border was known as the Bandit Border for a reason....