NI Dec 22 Assembly Election

Just curious why you're describing MLMD as the 'party leader'? Why the '....'? Are you indicating that she's not really the party leader?

You'll excuse the confusion - we regularly see Michelle O'Neill as the face of SF up north. So we'd be excused for thinking she is the de facto leader of SF in NI and particularly in relation to matters re the protocol and so on. That's been the spin for several years.

Here’s a wee example from bbc radio ulster today. This is what the use of the threat of violence to get checks on Irish Sea a few years ago has brought us to.

https://youtu.be/jLn5nMRRSuU

Just quoting you from a post or two ago.

I haven’t read your links but my understanding is that the customs posts are required for the red lanes ie goods heading into eu countries. I don’t think there is any intention to use them for goods staying in ni. They are still in the wrong place but if we can assist our neighbours by checking their stuff here (and keeping the jobs here) to save them the hassle of doing this on a 300 mile international border then so be it. We have bigger fish to fry

Nasty accusations against me simply because we disagree. That aside, you are dancing on the head of a pin when you blame solely the Uk for any Irish Sea checks. It’s nonsense.

i think you know right well that the additional nonsensical checks would not be introduced if the eu were not demanding them. To suggest the Uk desire to check goods destined from gb to ni, is nonsense and well you know it.

eg you are really trying to tell us that the insistence that my daughters dog must have a rabies vaccine moving from one part of the Uk to another, is because the Uk think it is necessary?? Get real!

It's more than "disagreement" to suggest that Varadkar's comments about violence were made to secure Irish Sea checks, because (a) they were made long before Irish Sea checks were on the agenda, and (b) IRL very much does not want Irish Sea checks. They were made to avoid a hard border. Very much later, English Brexiters decided that the way they wished to avoid a hard border was with Irish Sea checks.

And, no, the EU did not demand them; the UK did. It's a matter of objective historical fact that a WA not incorporating the NI Protocol was negotiated, agreed and signed between the EU and the UK and that it was the UK which changed its mind, repudiated the first version of the WA and asked for the insertion of the NI Protocol. The notion that the EU wanted Irish Sea checks and somehow influenced the hard Brexiters in the UK to follow this course is ludicrous. We know why the hard Brexiters asked for the Protocol; it was not to gratify Ireland or the EU, and I do not believe that you honestly think it was.

As for why the UK thinks your daughter's dog rabies vaccine is necessary — they think it's necessary to achieve their objectives of (a) hard Brexit for the UK but (b) no hard border in Ireland. They prioritise both of these above the GFA/the Union — and they are the only people who do; you cannot blame others for this. The tension between those two objectives, and the direction in which they must lead the UK, was pointed out again and again, pretty much from the get-go, by many different observers, and the warnings were dismissed and derided by the hard Brexiters, who were cheered every step of the way by their useful idiots in Ulster. And when they finally had to confront reality and had to make a choice, Irish Sea checks were the choice they made, because that was the one that reflected their priorities. They weren't pushed into that choice by the EU. We know this because we know what the EU's choice was — it's a matter of public record. And it wasn't that.

You need to stop excusing, enabling and deflecting attention from the abuse of Northern Ireland by the Westminster elites. As long as unionists keep enabling this treatment it will continue, and the damage it does to the peace process will be entrenched and magnified. We are starting to pass the point where this behaviour can credibly be excused as idiocy; it begins to look like something more sinister.

At the end of the day, there has to be a border somewhere between the EU and a non-EU country. Things couldn't carry on as they were before the UK left the EU. It's either in the Irish Sea or on the land border; neither of which will satisfy both communities.

The mask is slipping on this one. The expectations are that an agreement will soon determine that there are red lanes and green lanes. So stiff heading for the south will be checked in Belfast in the red lane. Goods solely for NI will go through the green lanes unchecked.

now here is where the mask slips. We will have loads of gb produced goods in ni and the eu will trust that companies don’t move them into eu, there will be zero checking and no border to prevent them moving into roi. So why can’t the eu apply the same trust at the Irish Sea.

And of course we know that newry etc will be awash with southern shoppers.

Which of the stages of grief does this map to? Trying to explain away the border in the Irish Sea being very very real, the protocol staying and the DUP going under the Wrightbus for another set of tyre tracks.

Still waiting for someone to tell me what the mistakes were that Leo made and examples of implementation that has already gone too far?

There hasn't been any EU caving, nor will there be to get the DUP back in Stormont. The UK Government, on the other hand, are the one backing down from their ridiculous position.

The Irish Sea border exists, and will remain - the DUP can accept that or continue to act like children. Very stupid children who don't realise they've never got what they wanted; except that time they forced the situation that created the protocol.

Folks you are answering questions that know one is asking which of course is a classic politicians tactic.

let me repeat the above

”Still waiting for someone to tell me what the mistakes were that Leo made and examples of implementation that has already gone too far?”