The Irish protocol.

I think almost all unionists are frustrated at the incompetence of the British brexit negotiating team and the creating of additional checks at Larne. They appear to have had their eye wiped by EU and talk of republican violence.

having said all that, the current moves may highlight that it was the Eu negotiating team who were incompetent. Seems it will take years for Eu to challenge Uk for invoking art 16. So it could be years without checks which will inevitably require temporary common sense to be applied by all to protect the single market. These common sense measures will likely work and become the basis for the new arrangements.

now that would get us to the dream position in ni. Way beyond what I expected us to achieve, and securing the attractiveness of ni without us feeling outside our Uk nation.

this may not be the outcome but it looks increasingly possible

I have said before, I think there is little risk of us losing the good stuff. Ironically thanks to Leo etc talking up ira violence. There is no way back for Leo and the Eu after all their promises, whether for honourable reasons or otherwise. OWC is not about to be cut out of some special arrangements. I honestly believe the deal can only get better for us by further opening up access from gb to ni.

I get it. We are a pain in the arse to everyone at the minute, but we are about to become a more serious pain in the arse for the Eu, mainly of their own doing by trying to be too smart and use us to get at the Uk

I honestly think that if the shoe was in the other foot and Ireland had been the nation voting to leave the Eu, the Uk would have done everything in its power to be supportive, helpful and problem solving. Would you agree? In which case maybe some on here need to consider the actions and attitudes of their own people and parliament rather than spout old anti-English inferiority-complex nonsense

I agree with what you are saying about dup here except I don’t agree with this line that they done it to create a hard border. Maybe some tiny extreme edge of the party but not the mainstream.

a large section of the dup (like the shinners, etc) think in black and white terms eg we are right you are wrong, we were the victims you were the perpetrators, etc. They applied the same thinking to brexit. I completely disagree with this position, just as I also disagree with the position that it iscurrent NIP (complete with physical checks) or nothing. Same type of thinking really

hardly a surprise who wrote it but genius by whoever discovered this 😂

of course nothing unusual about someone getting assistance to write a press release and Billy Hutchinson struggles with reading and writing, is not academically educated and in his late sixties, so we should not be mocking the fact he got help. He struggled desperately I thought on the radio interview; painful and embarrassing to listen to.

i haven’t read the press release but it is interesting that seems it was jamie helped him when billy is strongly pro BA agreement and I understand jamie is anti BA agreement