The Irish protocol.

Good to know what he was alleging. I expected nothing less from him.

You say that “if Leo and those advising him were being ‘graceful’ and had the interests of all the people at heart, then they would be using any influence they had to minimise checks between Stranraer and Larne”. Two points about that:

First, the incident you’re complaining about occurred in 2018, before the NI Protocol was thought of, and so at a time when Larne/Stranraer checks were not an issue. You imply that he’s “holding up pictures of our people getting murdered” as an alternative to establishing workable arrangements for GB-NI trade. That is flat-out false. 

Secondly, your question implies that you think Varadkar etc haven’t been doing all they can to minimise checks between Stranraer and Larne. Whereas, of course, the truth is that they consistently have been. As I have pointed out to you more than once, Ireland’s interests very much lie in the lowest possible levels of checks between Ireland (all parts) and Great Britain, and they have at every turn backed the option which would tend to minimise checks. It is the UK government which has chosen checks, and which has made choices - and continues to make choices - that maximise rather than minimise those checks. There is a limit to what the Irish government can do about this. If you can point to something specific that they could have done but didn’t do, please do. If you can’t, well, why do you think that might be?

I share you hope that the checks, whether at Larne or at Newry, will not lead to a return to violence. (For what it is worth, for reasons I have already explained, I think that checks at Larne are less likely to do so, so if the UK government cannot be dissuaded from insisting on checks then Larne is the place for them. But it would be perverse to blame the Irish government for this.)

And I note that you concede yourself that you “cannot be sure” that checks won’t lead to violence. How can you object to Varadkar pointing out a risk that you concede is a real risk? If the UK government’s choices present a threat to the peace process, are we supposed to shut up about it? As I say, I think you’re shooting the messenger here; Varadkar wouldn’t be warning about the implications of border checks if the UK weren’t making choices leading to a need for border checks, and your ire should be redirected at the proper target.

I think this is unfair. You're referring to an incident that occurred in 2018. Nobody was planning or projecting border checks at Larne at that time. If Varadkar has started speculating that there would be border checks at Larne and that they might lead to violence, perhaps then you could justifiably accuse him of scaremongering, because he would have been warning about the implications of a scenario that literally nobody was promoting or considering at the time. Whereas the hardening of the RoI/NI border was very much a real possibility in 2018.

And when, in the post before, you say "I think your posts come from the premise that there is no risk of a return to violence created by a hardened border at Larne" you mistake me. I'm not saying that border checks at Larne present no risk; just that - in this regard and in others - they are generally less of a problem than border checks at Newry. If the UK government's choices mean that there must be border checks, then it is better that they be at Larne than at Newry; that's all. Obviously, I would vastly prefer that there be no border checks either at Newry or at Larne, and so would Varadkar, and so would the Irish government, and so would the EU, and so, of course, would the people of Northern Ireland. But we must be realistic about what all these forces can achieve in opposition to the will of a UK that, on the one hand, has "taken back control" and, on the other hand, has no regard for the wishes or interests of the people of Northern Ireland.

The plain truth is that Ireland and the EU are much better situated to avert border checks at the RoI/NI border, which is a bilateral concern over which they have a legitimate and recognised interest, than they are to avert border checks at the GB/NI border, which is first and foremost an internal UK matter. We can only protect you from some of the consequences of the Brexit inflicted on you by your government against your interests and your expressed wishes; not from all of them.

The only way to ensure that there are no border controls either at Newry or at Larne is to have a softer Brexit. This is not within the power or procurement of either Ireland or the EU and we cannot be blamed for not achieving it.

Do you not think it's even more in the gift of the UK to make a similar statement? Yet, far from doing so, they seem bent on making more and more decisions to exacerbate the differences between GB and NI and so exacerbate the impact of the checks, and on finding more and more reasons to object to the Protocol that they demanded and that they negotiated and signed - reasons that never bothered them at the time, but that it is now politically convenient to pretend to care about.

We look in vain for your outrage at the major part played by your own government in creating and inflaming these tensions. And, until we see it, the impact of your outrage against others who failed to avert them is greatly diluted.

Perfect example of Unionist victimhood. Accepts they were shafted by the British. Expected the the Brtish to get a win and so beat themums.

And cannot see that since the British shafted them that Unionism's political representation is looking to blame anyone but themselves. And they are lying to do it, including the 'woe is me' misrepresentation of threatening violence to get gains, and now that there is a secret agenda on behalf of 'themuns'.

Bitterness, paranoia and supremacy all rolled into one.

Because the first time round they were trying to influence the British government through mobilising public opinion; the second time round they were seeking to influence the EU. We don't need to resort to newspaper columns and interviews and calling repeated attention to the bleeding obvious to influence the Eu. Recall that we're members of the EU; we have effective ways of bringing our concerns to their attention and having them taken into account, and we don't have to break through the wall of ignorance and disdain with which the British political establishment insulates itself from anything Irish (north or south).

The dominant opinion in Great Britain is that a hard border is needed to avoid a return to violence. In fact, as you and I both know, that is not the only issue; there are other weighty reasons why a hard border should be avoided. But "return to violence" is the only consideration that finds any traction in Britain, where the only thing about Ireland that interests them in even the smallest degree is the possibility of violence. If Varadkar pointed publicly to the (entirely real) risk of violence that the UK government's choices were creating, that was because only that would persuade the UK government to pay any attention to this issue.

What is also missed was that Dublin's fear was not just republican violence...it was a fear of a return to conflict, which as we know takes two sides to engage in. He wasn't wrong about Loyalism trying to up the violence stakes and provoke reactions.