Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.

Support for Protocol grows in N. Ireland

by Frank Schnittger Thu Oct 28th, 2021 at 08:40:39 AM EST

The disconnect between British government policy and rhetoric and what the people of Northern actually want grows ever wider. The ground is shifting under Lord Frost's feet and he doesn't have a democratic leg to stand on in his stand-off with the EU (not that he was ever elected to anything in the first place). A survey carried out by respected pollster Lucidtalk for a Queen's University study has found that 52% of N. Ireland adults thought  the Protocol was, on balance, "a good thing" for Northern Ireland, compared with 43 per cent in a similar survey in June.


The percentage of respondents who agreed the protocol provided Northern Ireland with a "unique set of post-Brexit economic opportunities" that could be beneficial also rose to 62 per cent compared with 57 in June.

<snip>

The emphasis of the UK government on the removal of the European Court of Justice from the protocol as an "over-riding priority" was "not a priority concern of voters in Northern Ireland", Prof Phinnemore said.

<snip>

Most participants - 53 per cent - now agree or strongly agree the protocol provides an "appropriate means for managing the effects of Brexit for Northern Ireland, compared with 46 per cent in June. A total of 53 per cent also disagree that the UK would be justified in triggering article 16.

The report also found continuing high levels of distrust of those involved in managing the protocol in Northern Ireland, particularly regarding the UK government, with 87 per cent saying they distrusted its ability to manage Northern Ireland's interests regarding the protocol.

The only group that was trusted by a majority - 54 per cent - were Northern Ireland representatives.

My bold

That figure of 87% distrusting the British governments handling of the issue is truly astonishing. With the DUP currently languishing at 13% in the polls (from their prior Brexit average in the mid 30's), it means that every single adult in N. Ireland bar the DUP now distrusts the British Government.

Part of the reason for this distrust may be illustrated  by a leading British diplomat's account of why she resigned her postion: UK diplomat asked to `peddle half-truths' about Brexit's impact on Ireland

A former top British diplomat in Washington has accused Boris Johnson's government of damagingly downplaying the impact of Brexit on Northern Ireland's "delicate peace process" in statements intended for an American audience.


Alexandra Hall Hall, the lead Brexit envoy to the US who quit her job in late 2019 because she was unwilling to "peddle half-truths on behalf of a government I do not trust", has condemned Mr Johnson's government for being "wilfully disingenuous" in the official messages she was asked to deliver about Brexit in the US.

In a lengthy article published in a US academic journal, the former career diplomat excoriated the UK government for downplaying the cost and impact of Brexit in "public talking points" aimed at presenting the official UK government line in Washington.

"They downplayed the increased friction that was likely for businesses trading between the United Kingdom and the EU countries as well as third countries such as the United States, " wrote Ms Hall Hall in the Texas National Security Review journal.

"But, most damagingly, the talking points also downplayed the consequences of Brexit for the delicate peace process in Northern Ireland, in which the United States was a core stakeholder, having helped to broker the [Belfast] Agreement and supported it since then," she wrote.

Ms Hall Hall wrote that one colleague at the UK embassy in Washington working on Northern Ireland was "nearly in tears" as he "could not get his minister to register the enormous damage that would be done to the fabric of Northern Ireland, politically and economically, if the United Kingdom left the European Union without a deal".

"A low point for me was when I heard a senior British minister openly and offensively, in front of a US audience, dismiss the impact of a no-deal Brexit on Irish businesses as just affecting `a few farmers with turnips in the back of their trucks,' " she wrote.

Another reason for the distrust of the British government in Northern Ireland is laid bare in a unionist commentator's column in the Irish Times today: Newton Emerson: No hurry in London for Stormont stability

Although collapsing devolution has some appeal to hardliners on both sides, it is deeply unpopular with the electorate overall. Voters punished Sinn Féin and the DUP for the last collapse and it is evident both parties fear history would repeat itself.


The sense of fragility despite this brings us to a third threat to Stormont, from the UK government itself.

The House of Commons did pass a piece of NDNA [New Decade, New Approach deal signed by all N. Ireland parties and the British and Irish governments] legislation this week, designed to prevent an executive collapse. The Bill, which must now go to the Lords, will extend the period between one of the two main parties walking out and a collapse from one week to six months.

The DUP demanded this legislation and O'Neill welcomed its progress this week. Neither party objected to it taking priority over their language or protocol concerns. However, its progress has still been frustratingly slow.

The UK government has been warned throughout this year, including by its own backbenchers, to get on with it as a matter of urgency. The Bill's passage was substantially complete by early July and could have been through the Lords before parliament's summer recess.

Westminster can pass laws for Northern Ireland in days when the government orders it. UUP leader Doug Beattie noted his disappointed this week the Bill has not benefited from accelerated passage.

The obvious suspicion is the UK government finds Stormont's fragility useful in negotiations with the European Union. "Serious societal difficulties" are a trigger to suspend the protocol under article 16.

So basically, the UK wants the DUP to be able to collapse the power sharing institutions established in Northern Ireland under the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement without delay so it can point to a "societal crisis" as an excuse to trigger Article 16 to suspend the Protocol.  Moderate unionist Alliance Party Leader and Ex-MEP Naomi Long had this to say:

Boris Johnson's government is using Northern Ireland as a lever to gain advantage over the EU, Alliance leader Naomi Long has told a parliamentary committee at Westminster.


Ms Long told the House of Lords constitution committee that Northern Ireland was "not so much an afterthought as a political football" for Downing Street.

"I don't believe the current government negotiates with Northern Ireland's best interests at heart, but I do believe that they use us for leverage over the European Union," she said. "And I do believe that Northern Ireland has become essentially a lever rather than the priority in terms of the protocol."

Britain and the EU are negotiating changes to how the post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol operates after the European Commission said most checks on goods moving from Britain to the North could be eliminated.

Britain is demanding that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) should no longer have a role in the protocol's governance, but Ms Long said her constituents were more interested in practical issues.

"No one in my constituency has contacted me specifically concerned with respect to the sovereignty issues around the protocol, the European Court of Justice or those issues. Those are not the issues that businesses bring to us daily. Those are not the issues that are causing practical challenges."

Ms Long, who is Stormont's justice minister, said the strain Brexit had created in the relationship between Dublin and London was affecting political relationships in Northern Ireland as well as North-South co-operation.

"It's a bit like being the child of a divorce at this point where the parents are not speaking and the children are essentially vying for attention. It's not a pleasant place to be," she said.

The power sharing institutions established under the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement of 1998 have resulted in 23 years of relative peace and stability in Northern Ireland after a war which cost over 3,000 lives. That the British government could play fast and loose with these arrangements in a bid to further its dispute with the EU on entirely spurious grounds is a measure of just how despicable these people are. That even most unionists have woken up to how they are being used in a dispute not of their making shows how transparent and obvious this perfidy has become.

Is there no low to which Boris Johnson's government cannot sink?

Display:
The disconnect between British government policy and rhetoric and what the people of Northern actually want grows ever wider. The ground is shifting under Lord Frost's feet, and he doesn't have a democratic leg to stand on in his stand-off with the EU (not that he was ever elected to anything in the first place).

A survey carried out by respected pollster Lucidtalk for a Queen's University study has found that 52% of N. Ireland adults think the Protocol is, on balance, "a good thing" for Northern Ireland, compared with 43 per cent in a similar survey in June. The percentage of respondents who agreed the protocol provided Northern Ireland with a "unique set of post-Brexit economic opportunities" that could be beneficial also rose to 62 per cent, compared with 57 in June.  (Most people in Northern Ireland now view protocol positively, Freya McClements, Irish News, 28th. October).

Even more remarkably,  87 per cent of respondents said they distrusted the British government's ability to manage Northern Ireland's interests regarding the protocol. With the DUP currently languishing at 13% in the polls, it means that virtually every single adult in N. Ireland bar their allies, the DUP, now distrusts the British Government.

Newton Emerson, (Opinion, No hurry in London for Stormont stability, 28th. October), gives us a clue why this may be the case. The British Government is delaying legislation, agreed by all the northern Parties, which would make it more difficult to collapse the power sharing institutions. In his view this is so that they can use the threat of a collapse of the institutions as an excuse to trigger Article 16 of the protocol in their dispute with the EU.

Naomi Long has testified to a Westminster parliamentary committee that the Johnson government is using N. Ireland as a political football in its dispute with the EU, (British government using the North to try to gain advantage over EU, MPs told, Denis Staunton, Brexit, October 20th.) while Alexandra Hall Hall, the lead Brexit envoy to the US quit her job because she was unwilling to "peddle half-truths on behalf of a government I do not trust" and which had instructed her to down play the consequences of Brexit for the delicate peace process in Northern Ireland.

That the British government could play fast and loose with the Belfast Agreement institutions in a bid to further its dispute with the EU on entirely spurious grounds is a measure of just how despicable these people are. That even most unionists now believe they are being used in a dispute not of their making shows how transparent and obvious this perfidy has become.

Is there no low to which Boris Johnson's government cannot sink?



Index of Frank's Diaries
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Thu Oct 28th, 2021 at 09:29:26 AM EST
`It's not war, but it is a fight': Tensions rise in Anglo-French post-Brexit row
France has released a list of possible sanctions against Britain which it says could come into force from next week unless sufficient progress is made in resolving a post-Brexit fishing row.

Paris also said it was working on a second round of sanctions that could hit power supplies to the UK. The French are unhappy that Britain has refused to grant its fishermen the full number of licences to operate inside British waters that France says is warranted following the UK's departure from the EU.

The warning came hours before French authorities seized a British trawler that was fishing in the country's territorial waters without a licence on Thursday. A second vessel received a warning.

"It's not war, but it is a fight," France's marine minister Annick Girardin told RTL radio

Negotiations between Britain and the European Commission on post-Brexit issues have continued this week.

The British government said the "threats" of sanctions are "disappointing and disproportionate" and that it would be seeking urgent clarification before considering action in response.

France could step up border and sanitary checks on goods from Britain, prevent British fishing boats from accessing designated French ports and beef up checks on trucks coming from and going to the UK, the Maritime and European Affairs Ministries said in a joint statement.



Frost and Johnson are about to learn that both sides can play hard ball. If the UK invokes Article 16, they could face these problems with all of the EU and all Frost's bleating will be in vain...

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Thu Oct 28th, 2021 at 10:38:53 AM EST
As I wrote elsewhere, fishing turned out to be a surprising point of contention between France in the UK. Mostly for the symbolic value: 0.1% of the GDP in both countries, but fishermen are an important constituency and the French presidential elections campaign (April 2022) is gearing up. On the Brit side, picking up a fight with the French has always been a winning diversion strategy - the tabloids are too happy to oblige.

This could get really ugly:

Frank: Is there no low to which Boris Johnson's government cannot sink?

I'm afraid we haven't seen the bottom yet. One point though: the Tories feel they can bully a small country of 5 million people that they have occupied for centuries with impunity. Trying the same playbook with a country of similar size and GDP, which controls the continental half of the strait through which the vast majority of the UK trade passes and literally controls a significant chunk of the electricity delivered to the island, is another kettle of fish entirely (pun intended). Not to mention the EU as a whole.

by Bernard (bernard) on Thu Oct 28th, 2021 at 06:26:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The question was rhetorical, as you know. Tories have always been adept at fighting symbolic battles which serve to united the populace behind their leadership. It is even more necessary now as class divisions become more obvious. Boris is a past master at a "dead cat" strategy which focuses attention away from where they don't want it to be.

What the Brexiteers may not have factored into their calculations is that the French can play this game too. The EU, which has traditionally eschewed such childish behaviour could also do with some distractions from other issues - Poland, Hungary, Covid, climate change, immigration - and, without Merkel, has lost a lot of its authority.

I suspect there are some very itchy trigger fingers in Paris and Brussels just waiting for Frost to fire the first shot by triggering A. 16. "Proportional retaliation" will go out the window as Britain will hardly take the EU to the ECJ to test proportionality.

Frost and the DUP have been playing with fire and don't seem to realise how precarious their position is right now. The DUP have always over-played their hand but Frost is a pale imitation of past British masters of the genre, who always knew when they game was up and it was time to pull back.

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Thu Oct 28th, 2021 at 06:56:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]
by Bernard (bernard) on Thu Oct 28th, 2021 at 08:36:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]
in which the United States was a core stakeholder, having helped to broker the [Belfast] Agreement and supported it since then"
but not a signatory to either that or TEU--unlike OSLO I-II proceeding from Camp David. And everyone has seen how that "delicate peace process" turned out, not to mention serial interventions and cease fires in the "Greater Middle East" brokered by US State Dept and projecting unilateral powers of seven (7) manqué US presidents.
< wipes tears>
Sure. This time will be different, because one of Joe's ancestral homelands happens to emanate from counties of republican Ireland and the Holy See. Not because NI voted Remain.
by Cat on Thu Oct 28th, 2021 at 12:43:01 PM EST
Relying on international courts or arbitration to ensure compliance with Treaties is a mugs game. You either have significant support from powerful stakeholders like the US or EU, or you can sing for your supper.

Index of Frank's Diaries
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Thu Oct 28th, 2021 at 06:45:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]
significant support from powerful stakeholders
were that were true, and I'm reminding y'all "public talking point" consumers: It isn't. There is nothing in US diplomatic history including but not limited to "The Special Relationship" to support any expectation that US State will directly or indirectly intervene in on behalf of, ahem, the colonized.

So. Act accordingly. Follow the money, not yer hearts.

by Cat on Thu Oct 28th, 2021 at 07:07:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Ireland is the #1 location for profits for US corporations having surpassed the UK quite some time ago. I am following the money.

Index of Frank's Diaries
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Thu Oct 28th, 2021 at 07:16:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]
umm the EU-27 en toto is the #2 trading partner (sandwiched between CHINA and NAFTA). And IE barely registers.
reference
csp.ie, FDI in/out as of 2018
[BREXIT! PANDEMIC! oops]
US Commerce/Census, IE 2021
US Commerce/Census, EU 2021

And US is fixated on reducing CHINA trade deficit, while the EC is fixated increasing EU trade surplus across industry sectors AND corp tax revenue, until further notice. BUT the republic is playing like DK with the TEU.

So. ie.gov is in the wind, and US is not going to interrupt that "process", because Never-Waste-a-Crisis® is policy. I promise you. The USTR is waiting to clean up "US-based" corp profit, when after IE/EU completes the heavy lift -OR- China concedes marginal, politically attractive capital gains for US domestic ahh media consumption.

by Cat on Thu Oct 28th, 2021 at 07:57:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Decouple POTUS "talking points" from the money (FX pairs), IF gov.ie strategy intends to enforce TEU political economy.
by Cat on Thu Oct 28th, 2021 at 08:05:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Maybe as the consumer sector swings from UK products to EU products, people will gradually lose the tie to their favorite UK brands.

When the covid pandemic hit here, we started getting our groceries using the "curbside pickup" method, where you put in your order on line and somebody gathers the stuff from the shelves for you. Often there were/are shortages of the specific item we requested, so they substituted something different. We have learned about several new brands that we had previously avoided--avoided out of habit.

If NI consumers get into the habit of buying {struggling to quote an actual example} flour, say, with a German brand instead of an English brand, then perhaps they will be less insistent on maintaining a special exception for the English brand. Maybe?

by asdf on Thu Oct 28th, 2021 at 03:31:08 PM EST
British companies like Unilever are world leaders at creating, buying, developing food brands which they sell at premium prices in many markets and market niches. Most consumers would be unaware of their progeny and buy them simply out of habit when faced with a bewildering choice in a supermarket. Although cheaper supermarket own brands are making inroads on some of these market sectors, they remain money spinners for their owners with less price conscious or confident consumers.

As you say, once these consumers are forced to select a different brand, and find it is equally good or better, they may never return to their original favourites. Chains like Aldi and Lidl which focus on own brands are making significant gains in market share in the UK in any case, but supermarket chains in many European countries still retain a "British Bands" section for their British ex-pat customers - often at hugely inflated prices.

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Thu Oct 28th, 2021 at 06:43:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]
by Oui (Oui) on Fri Oct 29th, 2021 at 02:58:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Leading supermarkt chains are Ahold and Jumbo with more than excellent own brand to offer at reasonable pricing. Increasingly offering bio-foods as demand increases.taking business from specialty shops. In my home town the Irish ☘️ pub is famous and for British and American groceries there are expat shops.

Kellys Expat Shopping The Hague/Wassenaar

Thanksgiving goods

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Sat Oct 30th, 2021 at 05:16:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]
{struggling to quote an actual example} - Sausages?

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sat Oct 30th, 2021 at 03:47:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]
No one can match the British emulsified high fat offal tubes...



Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Sat Oct 30th, 2021 at 07:10:49 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Just how low can Boris Johnson's government go?
The disconnect between British government policy and what the people of the North actually want grows ever wider. The ground is shifting under David Frost's feet and he doesn't have a democratic leg to stand on in his stand-off with the EU.

A survey carried out by Lucidtalk for a Queen's University Belfast study has found 52pc of Northern Ireland's adults think the protocol is, on balance, "a good thing", compared with 43pc in a similar survey in June. The percentage of respondents who agreed the protocol provided Northern Ireland with a "unique set of post-Brexit economic opportunities" that could be beneficial also rose, to 62pc.

Even more remarkably, 87pc of respondents said they distrusted the British government's ability to manage Northern Ireland's interests regarding the protocol.

With the DUP currently languishing at 13pc in the polls, it means that virtually every single adult in Northern Ireland, bar its ally, the DUP, now distrusts the British government.

The British government is delaying legislation, agreed by all parties in the North, which would make it more difficult to collapse the power-sharing institutions so that it can use the threat of a collapse as an excuse to trigger Article 16 of the protocol in its dispute with the EU.

Naomi Long has testified to a Westminster parliamentary committee that the Johnson government is using Northern Ireland as a political football in its dispute with the EU, while Alexandra Hall Hall, the lead Brexit envoy to the US, quit her job because she was unwilling to "peddle half-truths on behalf of a government I do not trust".

Is there no low to which Boris Johnson's government cannot sink?



Index of Frank's Diaries
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Fri Oct 29th, 2021 at 10:33:20 AM EST
Worst threat to Belfast Agreement is London's nationalist agenda
The British government's reckless disregard for Ireland and the peace process has long been this region's burden to bear. Aside from serving as the proverbial pawn in Johnson's forever war with the EU, we have witnessed innumerable attempts at undermining the human rights protections and hard-won peace which have nonetheless sustained for over two decades.

Newly appointed justice minister Dominic Raab has triumphantly declared that he will be scrapping the Human Rights Act, despite it being the legislative underpinning of the European Convention on Human Rights in Northern Ireland and an essential component of the Belfast Agreement. Raab is of course infamous for shamelessly admitting that he had not bothered to read the aforementioned 32-page document in full, deflecting cynically that: "It's not like a novel where you sit down and you say `do you know what, over the holidays, this is a cracking read'."

At the time, he was serving as the UK's Brexit secretary, tasked with negotiating a deal that could achieve Brexit while safeguarding an internationally binding peace agreement of immeasurable importance - which he couldn't be bothered to read.

Last week, while in Armagh during a one-day visit to Northern Ireland, Johnson laid bare the motivations and intent behind the recent amnesty proposals designed to halt all Troubles-related investigations and block all avenues to justice for countless victims or their families. He described the passing of former British soldier Dennis Hutchings - who at the time of his death was standing trial for the 1974 shooting of John Pat Cunningham - as "tragic" and "very, very sad" for the Hutchings family. He added that "[Hutchings's] particular case started before this government came in, so no matter what we did we wouldn't have been able to stop that one". Johnson made no mention of the Cunningham family who had fought for almost half a century for truth and justice, and who will now receive neither.

---<snip>---

In 1990, then secretary of state Peter Brooke stated that the British government had "no selfish strategic interest" in Northern Ireland. This position of neutrality in pertinence to the outcome of a future Border poll was seen as a crucial intervention in a tumultuous period of history, ultimately ensuring its inclusion in the foundation of the Belfast Agreement eight years later. Earlier this year, however, leader of the House Jacob Rees-Mogg imposed his own thoughts on the subject, reminiscing that: "Somebody once said that the UK had no selfish or strategic interest in Northern Ireland - I dispute that. I think we have an interest in keeping the whole country together as a united kingdom."

---<snip>---

Selfish strategic interest has also been made evident in the government's overt opposition to the Northern Ireland protocol, exemplified by David Frost's recent laments over the significant growth in cross-Border trade, complaining that the protocol was providing "incentives" for increased trade on the island of Ireland - a benefit he feels requires urgent correction.



Index of Frank's Diaries
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Fri Oct 29th, 2021 at 11:08:31 AM EST
...and influence people:

by Bernard (bernard) on Fri Oct 29th, 2021 at 09:04:38 PM EST
France may be "already in breach" of the deal.
So says Boris Johnson, the universally trusted UK Prime Minister.

Fishing row: Turbulence has hit relations with France, PM says

Referring to Mr Castex's letter, he acknowledged that "there's some turbulence in the relationship",

"If one of our partners decides to breach the Trade and Cooperation Agreement that we struck, that's a matter that we have to pursue," Mr Johnson said.

The UK government suggested on Friday that France's threatened measures - such as blocking ports to UK boats, increasing checks on UK goods, boats and trucks, and even cutting energy supplies - would be a breach of the post-Brexit trade deal with the EU.

The prime minister also suggested the UK was concerned France may be "already in breach" of the deal.

Mr Johnson raised his concerns with European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen over the "rhetoric from the French government" at a meeting at the G20 summit, the prime minister's office said.

by Bernard (bernard) on Sat Oct 30th, 2021 at 06:55:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The Irish Independent has published two letters in response to mine, which remains the most read on their letters page, with my letter on taxing vacant properties in third place.

It only suits the Tories for Northern Ireland to fail

In response to Frank Schnittger (`Just how low can Boris Johnson go?', Letters, October 29), watching the antics of British Tory ministers and advisers since the Brexit brouhaha began, I am of the opinion that none of them wanted to realise the difficulties and problems Brexit would incur, let alone examine them.

Tories being Tories, as usual Northern Ireland is only useful when there is violence there. Johnson and Frost - "two halfwits that would not make one wit between them" (as an Irish councillor remarked on his colleagues, circa 1980) - need Northern Ireland to fail, as this would create a massive distraction from the coming winter of discontent in the UK.

The old Irish adage, "England has the ear of the world's press on Irish affairs", may be lurking in the foolish mindset of the Olde Englande crowd, as is the sectarian mindset, "Shout at them [the EU] if they don't speak English".

It is a known fact that the Tories of the world have the ability to go far lower than even a snake's belly, thus absolutely nothing is beyond them when it comes to "Lies, damn lies and deceit". Time for the peaceable people of Northern Ireland to demonstrate to London they are not interested in a return to violence merely to suit Johnson and his cohort of thundering gobs**tes.

Declan Foley

Melbourne, Australia

---

The ballot box can deliver so much without violence

I agree with Frank Schnittger (Letters, October 29). The British government, in reality, finds Northern Ireland an inconvenience it would happily abandon at the first opportunity. A referendum should be held in the near-future on Irish reunification. If a Yes vote is recorded, Ireland should be peacefully reunited, with protections incorporated for the Protestant community.

As there has already been power-sharing in the North, a general election should be held after reunification, with Sinn Féin hopefully winning and thus obliged to fairly govern Ireland for Catholic and Protestant alike.

So much can be achieved by the ballot box without a shot being fired.

Dominic Shelmerdine

London

(And no, I don't know these people and they are not friends of mine!)

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Sat Oct 30th, 2021 at 07:36:29 AM EST
Is this perhaps your non-friend Sligoman from Melbourne? Well known for Yeats Poetry. An earlier letter on the GFA in 1998.

'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Sat Oct 30th, 2021 at 09:35:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]
love those 2 letters

keep to the Fen Causeway
by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sun Oct 31st, 2021 at 04:39:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]


'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Mon Nov 1st, 2021 at 11:04:32 PM EST
against what?

Index of Frank's Diaries
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Mon Nov 1st, 2021 at 11:26:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The hijacking and burning of a bus in a loyalist area of Newtownards, Co Down, on Monday morning was timed to mark the DUP's missed deadline.

Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie called the incident "utterly disgraceful" and said the "stupid actions of thugs and criminals" was simply hurting their own community. His party colleague, Strangford MLA Mike Nesbitt, said there was "absolutely no justification" for the hijacking and destruction of the bus.

Sinn Fein MP John Finucane called the attack "reckless and despicable" and urged unionist leaders to cease using "provocative language" around the NI Protocol.



'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Tue Nov 2nd, 2021 at 02:19:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]


Display:
Go to: [ European Tribune Homepage : Top of page : Top of comments ]