Leo is the man.
John Bruton will be apoplectic.
No – Boris is such a fuckwit, he makes Leo look like the man.
Pissed off if Varadkar agrees to checks away from border. He notably hasn’t ruled this out of late. It’s the same issue just moving the problem further north and south. GFA dealt with issues of symbolism and identity very well. Checks on island of Ireland will compromise that for Irish people particularly those who live north of the border. Checks in Irish sea would be less provocative in my view (but ideally wouldn’t be needed).
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The ones which need a valid UK student number and/or postcode… idea!!
A few months ago, before Johnson became PM but when it was obvious he was going to, I set out in a post what I thought he’d do
The key to this was an October election
His hapless incompetence has surprised me and its been borne of a loss of nerve and a disastrous choice of advisor
It has denied him that October election
Cummings has set the alarm bells ringing and the red lights flashing by being underhand in his methods and giving the impression to others, entirely reasonably, of an anti-democratic coup
His grand promises with no caveats were designed to portray strength but instead portrayed fear - the exact mistake May made except on a much bigger scale
This has galvanised the opposition
Had Johnson played things straight, not prorogued parliament, not given the impression that he was playing a devious game to get no deal through via an effective coup, and called the election straight away, effectively as a second referendum, he likely would have got that election, he would have stood a great chance of getting a majority, perhaps a significant one
Now we have the ridiculous situation where the entire Tory party is demanding its leader break the law
Johnson never had any ideas, while Cummings is nuts and believed himself to be the messiah when he was nothing more than another Nick Timothy - a blogger with an entirely unjustified God complex
They have played this so badly, it’s hard to think how they could have played it worse
Mixed performance from Varadkar.
As some lad, with the thickest Nordie accent you’d ever hear, said when asked by Newstalk earlier “that Boris Johnson needs to go away and catch himself on”
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This Johnson chap seems to be in the wrong game altogether
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Apart from the shooting how was Dallas Mrs Kennedy?
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Think he did a reasonably good job of trying to explain to the hapless simpletons across the water that a no deal Brexit is not the end of the process but the beginning. A lot of them believe that will be the end of it, no more Brexit and all of the problems the EU created for the UK like inequality between north and south, post colonial immigration and the disappearance of heavy industries like coal mining.
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Varadkar did well on that front as he did for most of speech. He made one big mistake though in opposing hard border only and not ruling out checks elsewhere on island. I fear this is code for Irish government leaving open the possibility of checks elsewherenas Johnson has askes. There is absolutely no need for Varadkar to agree to this and it is at best a tactical error. Tactical errors could have dire consequences for peace and stability.
Sounds very familiar
The number 1 wish for Johnson was to delay negotiating and go to the EU with a last minute proposal. That way he could either try and hold a barrel over Ireland or simply blame the EU for no deal. See the watered down negotiating team and the failure to meet with the Taoiseach until today.
Number 2 was for an early election imo.
With 1 I suspect in the back of his mind he thought Parliament would stop a No Deal even in late October following a failure of negotiations. That way he could go into an election, save in December, promising No deal and blaming the saboteurs. Presuming victory, he would have had a strengthened hand with the EU.
I don’t see how this can happen - it’s a smuggler’s charter and the EU won’t have it, rightly so
If you abolish the backstop, you’re giving the UK the go ahead to open up to all sorts of junk from the US and have it flood over the border into Southern Ireland, and again the EU won’t have it, rightly so
Abolishing the backstop is the real go ahead for a permanent hard border
An NI only backstop was rejected before, predictably the Scots and the Welsh said
“we want that as well” which is why May got it changed to all-UK
The CNR community rightly rejects a hard border in Ireland, yet many of us seem to think it’s A-OK to just plonk one in the Irish sea without the consent of Unionists
That’s anti the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement, and perhaps the letter - I don’t know
We insist our concerns be listened to, why should we just dismiss the concerns of Unionists who see a border being placed in their own country - they will see it as being hoodwinked into a united Ireland against their will - their point of view is entirely fair - this is not the way any future united Ireland should happen
We say rightly that there is a massive risk of any north-south hard border infrastucture being attacked by dissident Republicans - yet we completely discount the risk that any east-west hard border infrastructure could be attacked by Loyalists
NI creates a set of circumstances which are unique in Europe
There has to be free movement both north-south and east-west
Give this, the hard Brexiteers’ position is fundamentally untenable
They are demanding something which was never, ever campaigned for or voted for - they are nihilists who need to be defeated because it’s not just British society they are out to ruin, but our peace
If he thought he could hold the EU and Ireland over a barrel, he needs to stop reading the Daily Telegraph opinion pages
Well see the second part.
I do think he thought this was a better negotiating angle. Run down the clock and go with a proposal. The agricultural points raised do suggest they have thought of something at least, even if it is not all encompassing.
What he didn’t count on was that he was so widely disliked and mistrusted in his own Party along with Corbyn resisting an election, boxing him in.
I don’t discount the risk of checks in Irish Sea at all. Recent historyy with Troubles and geography make checks in Ireland very dangerous though. Checks in Irish Sea are risky but as risky as checks in Ireland.
Attempting to hold Ireland over a barrel was never going to work because without a backstop, or with a time limited backstop (ie. not a backstop at all), a hard border becomes the default likely permanent outcome, given that Ireland would know giving in to Johnson would mean a radical de-regulating Tory government in situ for an extended period, who would open up the UK to a US trade deal which would necessitate a hard border - and Ireland would have given the green light for this to happen, so there would be nothing we could do in the future
Even in a no deal situation we would have much more bargaining power and they would have none - even if the short to medium term consequences would be disastrous - the damage would be somewhat fixable, whereas if Ireland folds it wouldn’t
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This isn’t what happened though? She agreed to it, the press were briefed on it then the DUP kicked up holy war?