Are you Brexit ready ?

@SW-User
So easy! Why didn't they think of that before?

@SW-User because they were too busy fighting

@SW-User It really only ended because the EU made the border irrelevant. I'm not sure the 6 counties are ready to join the Republic without the fighting starting up again.

If the border is irrelevant, then who needs it? In the name of administrative efficiency alone it makes no sense.

@SW-User Since when has politics made sense?

@SW-User yeah, never.

@SW-User 👍️

@SW-User It could easily be solved even without a united Ireland. And it’s quite possible that the Irish government will wish they had never thought of the problem.

@MartinII is that some kind of war threat?

@SW-User Certainly not! But economically, a no deal Brexit would damage Ireland much more than it would damage the UK.

@MartinII the UK will damage itself plenty with a no-deal Brexit

@SW-User Somewhat in the short-term I agree, though not as much as the EU will be damaged, given the trade balance. I think the longer term is impossible to predict!

@MartinII so everyone loses, pretty much. I'm just glad I have 2 passports and can watch from afar.

@SW-User good thing! You can cross both ways in the express line for citizens. Hmmm, isn't that one of the big advantages of the EU? No passport control between countries.

@SW-User Although there is “free movement” between all EU countries, the absence of passport control derives from the Schengen agreement, which is a separate arrangement between most EU countries and some others, including for example Switzerland. Crucially, the UK is not a party to Schengen, so people still have to show passports when travelling between the UK and France, Belgium etc. Once inside the Schengen area, British citizens can travel between different countries without showing passports. There are separate arrangements between the UK and Ireland, under the Good Friday agreement.

@SW-User please all read the history books.. the irish, north and south do not want be one ireland and even when ireland had its own independence, they immediately had their own civil war.

The two countries are so embedded in religious bigotry and hate, both of them, heck they even have different laws on abortion now in a total role reversal!!

Brexit was a terribly bad decision and was only passed by a slim majority and immigration and NHS are total red herrings. Please do not forget that the EU was originally formed a few countries, so as to stop France and Germany ever starting a 3rd world war ever again and provide a regional zone vs the iron curtain countries.

Please be careful what we all wish for.

@Justme264 Please read all the history books is not even a reasonable thing to say! It implies that you have, and that I am not entitled to an opinion based upon what I read in the newspapers!

@SW-User that was a simple request not an instruction.

I used to believe that the problem was a simple one of Ireland the country, just wanted to control all of Ireland... they don't.

I have not read all the history books , just some, And I had to learn about the Irish problem at school a bit through English political history.

I used to believe that the so called "loyalists" Protestant majority are loyal to the British nation and people. They are not.. in my view. They simply in my humble opinion, do not want to be Irish but would prefer to get back to the era of discriminating against a minority (which happens to be Catholic) over jobs, housing, education and everything else.

Please do read some factual history texts as to how this all unfolded.... the media will not tell you all the facts.

The Irish "problem" as been an insuoluble problem for successive UK govts since the pre 1800's and we still can't it right.

Brexit is simply going to threaten to put us back decades over the border... a closed border straddled by farmers smuggling their cattle across one night to claim a subsidy from a non EU govt, and them take them back the next night to get an EU subsidy the next day on the the same cow. Or a terrorist org stealing milk churns, put them 100 yds over the border filled with semtex and set the bomb off remotely when the RUC turn up to investigate?

A hard border again really will be a big setback. We can't go back to all of that horror.

Certainly form your own view and opinion but please don't do it off the back of the media... any morecthan you wpuld over Israel vs Palestine... please.

Lets please discuss... I am in no position to lecture anyone ... but it is "complicated"

@Justme264 I was just thinking about Palestine. Those trolls I was chatting with were into copy pasting Hitler speeches and clippings about the King David Hotel and the Grand Mufti like they were going to force all the history down my throat. When all I had done was read some articles about how some conservative strategists had come up with the idea of covering up the blatant anti-semitism of some Trump backers by accusing all liberals of being anti-semites. And they picked on Tlaib and Omar as their propaganda vehicle. Too much cognitive dissonance. As if accusing someone of immigration violations in the US has any impact on whether Israel should seize and destroy Palestinian land and homes.

so then we come to Ireland.
I recommend reading Doris Lessing's novel The Good Terrorist, to give some idea of how the thing works. Its about naive young leftists in London back during the troubles and how their twisted minds suck them into committing terrorism. People having empty lives and being what we would call today homeless, well, they were squatters, hatred growing into involvement in really somebody else's serious cause.
she did a more horror-movie is take on the theme called the Fifth Child also. Good, normal happy suburban family instead of having spawn of the devil like in the movies has the totally non-responsive evil son.

Which leads to northern Ireland. The villain in this story is Richard Cromwell, who raped and pillaged Ireland and sent over settlers from the roundhead army to rule the place. The Scottish troops were sent to Ulster, which is why the Loyalists are all Presbyterians. The leftover descendants of an ancient invasion force. A lot of them moved to the southern US and called themselves "scotch-irish."

The Ulstermen identify themselves with the Israelis/Israelites, as in the invasion of Palestine by Joshua's armies. God has given us to take these people's land.
The Irish / Palestinians view themselves as good people defending their homes, which makes total sense. However, by resorting to terrorism and devil worship they go too far. And the your normal waspy type, english or american liberal doesn't have a stake in this game and doesn't give a *** about either side. If they are sympathetic to the downtrodden and oppressed will favor one side or if they are sympathetic to righteousness and virtue will favor the other side.
And by the way,it was the British and Americans who created both messes and don't accept any responsibility.

Its only fair in the Irish case, that the British accept responsibility and say, we did unjustly invade your country, and after your war of independence, we didn't give you back your whole country. Now is a great opportunity to make it whole and give them back the rest of their country. And to provide resettlement support for anybody in Ulster who wants to move back to england or scotland. Call it a strategic withdrawal. Because the alternative of a hard border is impossible. Let the Irish Republic deal with the IRA after that.

Why not?
Do nothing and in 50 years there will be continuing "conflict" forever.

@SW-User I agree with a lot that you say. If one gives people nothing to live for then one gives them a cause to die for.

Many members of the current minority govt party, the "Conservative and Unionist Party" would nevercagree to you plan at the end of your informative response ( i am not being patronising there). They would have to change the name of their political party.

Your suggestion makes sense in theory and I wish it could happen but in practcal terms, the protestant loyalist majority in the north would never stomach relocation... they wave the union jack but they don't want live in the rest of the uk under the union jack I fear... too bitter, too anti catholic, too anti republican.

It would be seen as telling the British subjects in Gibraltar that we are giving it Spain (having stolen it centuries ago) and you can all go and live in Spain as EU citizens or come to the UK
and stay British itizens.... they just would n't do it

@Justme264 what a mess the Brits made by conquering the Empire. Never thought of the consequences when it inevitably fell apart.

@SW-User of course we,did n't... any more than the USA did invading Afghanistan and Iraq to preserve oil ownership at the time.... and looking for non existent WMD's ... and of course tny blair fell for it

We've both fouled up spectacularly thru' the years.

Some ex british colonies allegedly say that at least the Britsh left some semblance of order and structure behind... Singapore, Malaysia, India... a bit.... ... unlike the French in vietnam for example

@Justme264 well, the US certainly is not an example of conquest done right, if there is such a thing as that. Remember, the US is an empire, comprised mainly of a large part of North America conquered from it's previous inhabitants, or reconquered from the Spanish / Mexicans, bought from other colonizers like France and Russia. The US is a real patchwork empire trying to market itself as a single European style entho-state. Good luck, I say.