NI Dec 22 Assembly Election

The name of the state whose capital is Dublin and whose jurisdiction extends to the 26 counties and that has a land border with Northern Ireland is "Ireland" in English and "Éire" in Irish. Not "Southern Ireland" or "Republic of Ireland" or "Irish Republic" or anything else; Ireland. It enjoys international recognition under that name, and is a member of the UN, the EU, etc, under that name. It is a republic, and may be described as the Republic of Ireland, but its name is Ireland. It is named from the island on which its territory lies.

I'm astonished that Furze99 didn't know this before, but he knows it now.

We return you now to normal programming.

‘Your’??

I don’t ‘own’ Ireland, I co- live here along with everyone else as a citizen of a democracy.

Did I say you did somewhere?

You live, like the rest of the Irish, on the island of Ireland which was partitioned into two jurisdictions. You choose to identify as British which is and always will be, your right, as far as I am concerned.

There's nothing in the Constitution stopping people insisting they are right when they are wrong I suppose, so work away.

That sounds like an embarrassing ‘no’. So we do agree on something I don’t live ‘in’ Ireland, I live ‘on’ Ireland.

it just took you about a year to come around to that position. I’m not good at searching or I would find you the posts.

There is only one party not 'respecting' the outcome of the election currently.

Irelevant and another attempt to divert the thread, which is about the outcome of the Dec 22 Assembly election. .

What I believe has nothing to do with a discussion on elections. And I am not sure which 'Nationalist Republicans' don't recognise it either, the ones who are elected to it, take their seats.

As a citizen of 'Ireland' I agreed with and voted for this, so make of that what you will.

There is a 'culture' of bringing down governments everywhere by walking out. I think your Green Party have done it, have they not?

The fact is, the last time Stormont was brought down it was over a devolved matter, i.e. an issue that Stormont could resolve itself.

This time it isn't, it is about holding the people of NI to ransom to try and force the EU and Dublin and the UK government to capitulate on a matter that Stormont can do nothing about.

The DUP.

They have consistently lied to their electorate about the effects of the Protocol and that Stormont can do something about it.

Their 'issue' is with those who orginated, agreed and signed off on the Protocol and that is not Stormont or the people of NI. Neither is it Dublin. They themselves welcomed the Protocol (evidence available if required)

Whether Stormont sits or not is moot as far as the Protocol is concerned.

See above...it's pretty straight forward. They are holding NI to ransom over an issue that Stormont is powerless on.

More bizarre lies today as Sammy, whose party is trying to use Stormont as leverage complained in Parliament that they (the DUP) were being used as leverage. 😁

Meanwhile people in NI have no Assembly and are suffering.

They lied to their electorate and those who are going to vote for them.

Their gullibility does not paper over the facts that the Protocol has nothing to do with Stormont. The Protocol exists because before she died, Elizabeth signed it into law as an international agreement between the EU and The UK.

Staying out of Stormont is holding NI ransom and that disrespects the results of the election which saw a majority returned who support the Protocol.

The Dup (in an election which they were punished by electorate for not standing strong enough against the protocol) they took 28% of the seats. I believe that is a stronger mandate than any party in the roi government, and certainly more than SFs 23%.

so if they do not have a mandate to fight the protocol democratically and stay out of stormont then I don’t know who does have in mandate in Ireland.

and of course polls are showing that mandate is strengthening more than any other party in NI since the election.

I won’t accuse you of disrespect the results as francie has accused some of, but I would encourage you to think again what gives a party a mandate.

Who does have a mandate to fight the Protocol in Ireland? Well, nobody. The Protocol is acceptable to the majority in the Republic, and the mandate conferred by the the voters in NI (which the DUP ignored) was a mandate to oppose Brexit. If they must have Brexit, and if must be hard Brexit, then a majority of voters in NI want some version of the Protocol in order to mitigate harm to NI (including but not limited to the harm of a hard border with IRL).

Nobody's actually happy about the Protocol, but a clear majority see it as the least worst response to hard Brexit. It could be improved upon, if the UK government were more flexible, but until that happens we are where we are.

And it is rank hypocrisy of the DUP to object to the Protocol when they backed, and continue to back, hard Brexit. As I've pointed out before, it's difficult to accept their opposition to the Protocol as being in good faith as long as they refuse to address the factors that necessitate the Protocol. They play right into the hands of those who say that they are just using the Protocol, which they did so much to bring about and are doing so much to sustain, as an excuse for collapsing the institutions in which they no longer have a dominant position.