The Irish protocol.

Thanks DC. I appreciate the sincerity here.

The answer IMHO is yes, there is an element of insincerity in your posts. For example there are several moments when you claim not to know an Irish politician and then post about him or her in detail in another post. There is no need for this insincerity. Other threads and posts you change your allegiances in some cases from DUP, to less extreme unionist parties and occasionally mention that you have given the SDLP a vote. When this is routinely presented to you, you retort with "can you prove this" only for people to repost your posts. It gets tiresome.

I also fail to believe it's an "honest" question.

I did like the sincerity of the claim that green was more associated with unionism than orange.

But all of this adds to my conviction that the Northern Ireland protocol is here to stay. The only one on this thread that is arguing against it is a self proclaimed unionist who does/doesn't know any Irish politicians depending on the thread, changes political allegiance from loyalist to moderate unionist to sometimes SDLP and then holds pretend polls in his/her head to pretend there's more opposition to the protocol. This tells me that the protocol is here to stay.

"I'm not insincere, you are."

That's about your strength and typical of your replies to anything you find 'difficult'.

Let's help you here...but you will have to answer a question first. This is the post you claimed was 'twisting' and being 'insincere'.

Can you pinpoint what is 'twisted' in this post and what is 'insincere'?

Please bear in mind that later on after that post, I posted a tweet from a prominent Unionist claiming exactly what I said was being claimed by Unionists. Please don't pivot off to something else...tell me what was in this post that is 'twisted'

Ironic, really, that even as they criticize Ahern they manage to reinforce the very characterisation that they are objecting to - namely, that loyalists don't have a clue about the Protocol. They accuse Irish government officials of having created it. Either they really still don't know, or they are anxious to create the impression that they don't know, who came up with the Protocol, and who rejected the already-negotiated Brexit terms and insisted on renegotiating them so as to include the Protocol.

Similarly, they accuse the Irish government of "using the threat of republican violence as political leverage to argue against placing a customs border where it should naturally be". We can leave to one side the obvious unhistorical silliness of treating the partition of Ireland and its consequence as a "natural" occurrence rather than the political construct that it was, and just focus on their presentation of the objective of not restoring a customs border as an Irish government ask. It was a [i]UK[/i] government red line pretty much from the moment that the UK government started adopting red lines. Is Loyalist leadership unaware of this, or are they just trying to distract the attention of Loyalists from this awkward fact?

I know we live in an age of instant reactions but, really, it might have been wiser of Loyalist leaders to spend a little more time crafting a statement that didn't inadvertently confirm the very characterisation they are seeking to reject.

Can you accept the other bit of the equation that goods are being hampered and travel is being made difficult from gb to ni? And the protocol is only fractionally enacted at this point.

Yes. But the practical impact of this hampering, even when the Protocol is fully implemented, is much, much less than would result if restrictions were applied at the land border, because of the different nature and circumstances of the two borders. So I see the Protocol as the least worst way of minimising the harm that hard Brexit inflicts on NI. If there's an even less worse way, I'm very much open to it, but I don't see anyone offering one. And, while I get that Loyalists/Unionists are upset about the Protocol measures, trying to solve the problem by advocating more burdensome measures, but that will affect themmuns, is a complete non-starter.   

The Talk Loyalism statement that you linked to earlier is quite open about preferring restrictions on the land border, not because they would be less burdensome (they wouldn’t) or less destabilising (they wouldn’t be that either) but because in their view that’s the “natural” place for burdensome, destabilising restrictions. That’s a long way from anything that looks like a reasonable contribution to this discussion. If you’re not calling for the border issue to be made less burdensome and less destabilising, then you’re part of the problem afflicting Northern Ireland, not part of the solution that will relieve it. Your position is far more antagonistic to NI than anything Ahern has said.

Will some posters recognise that the campaign is getting movement which they said absolutely would not happen? And stop this nonsense that it was all flexibilities already in the protocol - that’s on my wind up stuff. Coveny said only yesterday that the Eu had made more compromises in this last paper. This would not be happening if we had just accepted it all 6 months ago.

There’s a Brexity pattern here that goes well beyond anything to do with NI and the Protocol, and indeed was established well before the Protocol was thought of. Brexiters dramatize everything; they promise things they can’t deliver; they demand things they can never get; they scream; they thump the table; the accuse the EU of imperialism/naziism/communism; they threaten illegality; they repudiate what they have previously agreed to; they refuse to engage; they lie on the floor yelling, thrashing and drumming their heels. And then, when time is running out, they come to the table; they make a deal pretty much like the one they could probably have got months before, at much less cost to their country’s reputation and credibility; and they claim it as a victory that proves the effectiveness of Tantrum Tactics.

No, I don’t buy it. Neither should you.

And the alternative to a tantrum wasn't "just accepting it all 6 months ago". It was engaging with the issues and using the processes available to mitigate the application of the Protocol, buildiing trust and credibility rather than destroying it. The UK government has been singularly reluctant to do this all along, and unionists have been too afraid to call them out on that.

Would you accept that it is little different if Leo talks about potential unrest due to borders on island and if Beattie talks about potential unrest due to borders on Irish Sea?

What has Beattie said about this? Genuine question.

ps my problem with aherns statement is the sectarian and arrogant nature of it but I think lots of posters can’t see that and see that they are doing it day and daily on here. If Theresa May had said that the Irish in the ghettos of Dublin/Belfast just can’t understand brexit and for them it’s all about their Irish identity - how do you think that would have went down on this thread? Honestly?

Yeah, sure, as reported Ahern’s statement is deeply unhelpful, and I get why unionists would find it offensive and would react badly (though, as already said, I don't think they had to react quite as badly as they have). But I still maintain that Ahern is not unionism’s real problem here, and unionists should not allow this to distract them from problems that matter much, much more - like Johnson and Frost.   

Compromises within the Protocol downcow.

You were told the Protocol would not be renegotiated and try as they might the UK cannot make that happen. The Protocol has gone nowhere and won't.

That is what you were told.

Thats fair enough. Ignore the first quote.

Tthis is the question i asked.

What colour would you say is most associated with Unionists in Northern Ireland?

This is your answer.

as for colours associated with unionism in ni. Very clearly RW&B and green

Based on that you associate green with unionism but do not associate orange. Hence you associate green with unionism more than orange.