NI Dec 22 Assembly Election

This is interesting. I am genuinely puzzled to know how support for Brexit comes to be regarded as a test of loyalty to the union. Even if there wasn't the tension between Brexit and the health of the union that I have already pointed (and that I think that tension has been plain to see pretty much from day 1) it seems to me that unionism should be in principle neutral about Brexit. If Brexit didn't itself undermine the union, a unionist should be able to support Brexit, or oppose Brexit, according to which policy he thinks will deliver the best results for the UK.

I get that, once the DUP has painted itself into a corner on this, it is difficult for them to face up to having made a mistake, and therefore its support for Brexit becomes entrenched. At that point support for Brexit might be a marker for loyalty to the DUP. But not loyalty to the unionist cause in general, or to the union.

8 polls above the 40% mark. That is pretty incredible given there is no plan/white paper.

Downcow, I have read the article you linked to, in the News letter, by Ben Lowry.

It is the most depressing reading I have viewed for a long time. An editor of a once respected paper doing little more than castigate everyone for giving in to "SF Blackmail over the irish Language" . And wondering if the whole peace process was a mistake

"I do think it is worth considering a parallel universe in which the UK had continued to refuse to negotiate with terror, and wonder if in that scenario the Provisional IRA would long ago have dwindled to little more than the dissidents of today. But there would have been much less of the cross-border political advance of Sinn Fein."

He talks about the big question for unionism being "new divide within unionism is going to be between those who support Stormont and those who think it so bad for the Union that direct rule is better regardless of government threats of an increased say for Dublin".

But the big question for unionist is, and always has been, , "Are unionist willing to share NI with the wider community including nationalist and others, or do they insist on it being their way or no way"

To be honest, Ben Lowry, a once respected commentator, sounds more like a rabid loyalist terrorist, and we have had enough of them in the past

All newspaper readership had dwindled as you say. Even you own An Phoblacht was a formerly weekly, and currently monthly "newspaper" published by Sinn Féin used to be hard copy, now it is only online only I think?

Incidentally the newsletter is the world's oldest English-language general daily newspaper still in publication, having first been printed in 1737. This is despite once being bombed by the PIRA, in 1972. " The paper reported at the time that "two false alarms were phoned in about another bomb just around the corner in Church Street; people were evacuated – towards the real bomb". It detonated at 11.58 am, three minutes after an accurate warning had been given about the bomb's whereabouts. Seven people died, and over 140 were injured (with some staff among the wounded). Nevertheless, the paper came out the next day."

Incredible history we have here in the island of Ireland, but most people are not even aware of half of it.

As someone else said one of the recurring motifs of the News Letter's editorial line today is to remind people of the scale of the paramilitary bloodshed during the Troubles. Not surprised you would prefer An Phoblocht than the Newsletter Francie.

Seeing as you ask, I have lived in Ireland my whole life. Not that it is relevant. I have always condemned all terrorism. The Dublin bombing was caused by extremist Loyalists. I do not believe it was "supported by UK forces" as those same UK forces caught and jailed so many thousands of those Loyalist paramilitaries. Anyway set up a separate thread on same if you want, please do not derail this thread.

I disagree with your analysis that a hard Brexit in which NI is treated in the same way as GB is not politically possible. It was possible just Brexiters weren’t willing to “walk the walk” to back up all their talk.

Unionists do have legitimate grounds to be upset at their treatment by Brexiters since the supposedly sacrosanct referendum result was that the UK would leave the EU, not that GB would leave with a hard Brexit and NI would end up in a Schrödinger’s situation where it’s simultaneously in and/or out of the EU depending on which quantum mechanics situation applies! :-)

Ultimately I suspect no matter what protocol formula is applied, they will all prove inadequate, that they will endanger Ireland’s position within the EU and that our government has been able incredibly shortsighted in the strategy they have pursued as the risk of a failed strategy far outweighs the pleasing fantasy of trying to keep pretending the international frontier on this island isn’t an international frontier.

He is quite possibly right since there were a number of terrorist organisations which sprang up at the end of the 60s/start of the 70s across Europe. Most of them had their heydays in the mid 70s to mid 80s and then gradually petered out. Most of them jacking it all in in the early to mid 90s in the aftermath of the demise of the Soviet Union and it’s east European quasi- empire.

It’s all very well to be fanatical about “the cause” in your mid 20s but roll the clock foward a quarter of a century or more and “being on the run” isn’t going to hold much appeal. At that stage, reaching an agreement to abandon your existing strategy and hanging around long enough to collect your pension is always going to look more attractive.

Yep. Very fair point.

The Dinosaurs Under Protection (DUP) voted for the ice age and then complained when it got too cold.

Apparently, and contrary to popular opinion, there is still one dinosaur wandering the corridors of power in Stormont late at night...

#Theyneversauras

@Francis McM "I have always condemned all terrorism"

Not on boards you haven't. It is a constant stream of anti Irish posts, , equating Ireland and its symbols repeatedly with terrorism

Here are some quotes from you

 suppose not helped by Republicans putting the tricolour on the coffins of IRA bombers who bombed Protestants.

Soldiers song as the National anthem, by the use of the tricolour (same flag as Republicans used on coffins of bombers whose aim was to kill protestants 

Many of those in Fermanagh have been victims of IRA violence and sectarianism, how do you expect them to react. Across Co Fermanagh, 

I do not think the Tricolour is very inclusive of representing northern Protestants, when Republicans used the flag to drape coffins of bombers whose aim was to kill northern Protestants

Can you point to anywhere where you condemned British or Loyalist terrorism?

And don't tell me not to take the thread off topic. As you can see from the quotes above, you are constantly taking it off topic. I am only responding to your own posts. (and that is not to mention your posts over a few pages around Rugby ) . We were discussing Ben Lowry's article in the Newsletter , linked to by downcow. You decided to use that as another opportunity to talk about the PIRA.

I have seen people from both sides killed by terrorist and I condemn it all. But I am not so blinded as to the roles of politicians in encouraging terrorism. Living in Derry in the 60's and being terrorised by your own police force and army is hard to imagine. It is the thing of nightmares. But that is what happened.

True, whether you ever lived in Ireland was irrelevant. But I never met anyone who did live in this country for any length of time to be so unaware of loyalist and British terrorism on this island in the three decades from 1966

It's because Brexiters weren't willing to "walk the walk" and have a crash-out Brexit that a hard Brexit on uniform terms across the UK wasn't politically possible. It was legally possible, but it would have involved the UK paying an economic, political and diplomatic price which no UK government, not even one dependent on hard Brexiters for continuance in office, regarded as acceptable. Even now, it's not legally possible but it is still practically possible — the UK government could repudiate the WA and the TCA and apply the laws in force in England to NI as well — but it's unthinkable that they would do that, for the same reason.

if your proposal is that Ireland should simply have accepted a hard border between NI and IRL — no, that's mad, Ted. One of the few things that was accepted at all times by everyone on all sides who wasn't psychotically deluded was that a hard NI/IRL border wasn't a workable or acceptable model of Brexit.

Probably "true" in so far as that exact wording wasn't used.