Cost of a United Ireland and the GFA

In fairness this is fanciful.

Partition came back to bite Britain massively in the backside. It put parliament and the British political system into turmoil and may have caused lasting damage.

That is not over yet as Brexit has not been fully implemented and we have no clue as to whether Britain will diverge more or not from the EU or what damge coninues to accrue to it's economy and political system.

Negotiating a path back to some sort of stability for Britain would be much much easier without the shackles of partition around their ankles.

Very good points, and the Protocol, if it works, puts to bed any lingering issues for the medium term.

The GFA is in need of change and reform, but the problems with it are mostly internal to Northern Ireland, and neither side is wont to make concessions.

The original backstop concept applied to the whole of the UK, and would have prevented a hard Brexit; that's why it was vociferously rejected. It would not have separated NI from GB.

It was replaced by the NI Protocol which applied to NI only and therefore allowed a much harder Brexit in GB. It was a UK proposal, reflecting the fact that the Tory right gave a higher priority to hard Brexit than they did to protecting NI's place in the union. The Tory right are supposed to be the union's friends in GB; if your friends in GB will do that to you, you can imagine what everyone else would cheerfully do to you.

(This is the reason, incidentally, for the unionists' higher-than-usual levels of neuralgia. They are gripped by existential terror.)

The last time Ireland actually mattered in British politics — meaning, the last time policy with respect to Ireland influenced more than a tiny number of votes in any election in GB — was in the years leading up to the Home Rule Bill of 1914. Unionists realised that their only hope for getting themselves excluded from Irish home rule was to build up support for their cause in Great Britain, and they put a lot of effort into this, with considerable success. Carson spent much of his time campaigning and holding mass rallies in England, and this got a lot of traction.

It's unthinkable that this would happen today or that, if tried, it would succeed in energising people in England in the way it did a hundred years ago. Carson's argument in England a hundred years ago was nakedly sectarian; it's not right to subject loyal Protestants to a Catholic-majority government. There's no similar argument that could be run today,

You say “Just the other day, the PSNI Chief Constable issued an apology to the 14 hooded men who were tortured in 1971 by the British army, and they have been accepted as being tortured by the UK Supreme Court. “

Just to provide a little context.

One of the so-called 'innocent' hooded men Joe Clarke days after getting a hand delivered apology from the Chief Constable Simon Byrne to his hospital bed for his time getting interviewed by the RUC on IRA activities regarding bombings and murder gets an official IRA funeral days later..! Just consider what he done to deserve that?

It should be noted the European Court of Human Rights, which some posters seem to hold in high esteem, ruled that the treatment was not torture.

I am absolutely not defending some of the interviews tactics, but I would be more interested in an apology from sf about the sectarian atrocities of south Armagh brigade rather than a commemoration. Or if the British gov are in the mood for apologising, how about they apologise to the innocent people of ni for not taking out more Ira & Uvf killers earlier

Get a few big red buses out and I can think of a way!

“The IRA apologised for the death of innocents in the conflict in 2002, 4 years after the conflict ended downcow”

And maybe you will tell me who the innocents were? This is just a smokescreen. They went on killing innocents like Paul Quinn, and their poster boy MP patted the guys on the back just last weekend that killed paul.

if the statement has any credibility then why will does our local UKSF MP refuse to condemn the killing of my friends father who was entirely innocent and why does he refuse to debate with him.

SF are the people who keep telling us that victims are all the same and deserve the same. Yet their statement says something quite different.

so don’t duck and dive, and just tell us, who do they include in their innocent tag?

There was no apology worthy of the name.

You are also lying when you say that the IRA as an organisation were not involved in the killing of Paul Quinn. If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck to all intents and purposes.

Finucane's mealy mouthed explanation doesn't hold water, he was celebrating the killers of innocent people.

You really have no idea of how appalling and hurtful the defence of these things is.

Ok, needs clarification.

I accept the IRA apology.

While I cannot itemise who they mean as innocents, I assume they mean non combatants/people not inolved in the conflict.

I can only come to an opinion on events like the Paul Quinn killing based on the verdict of the official monitors - who say the IRA as an organisation was not involved and did not order or sanction the killing. The killing had more to do with criminal activity in the area.

That is their concensus, not mine.

Finucane clearly said at the commemoration that 'there was nothing to celebrate'. I welcome that statement.

I also welcome MLMD's statement that she won't attend these commemorations as Taoiseach, that is a huge gesture IMO. Of course you cannot resist the snide comment when compromise is offered. We keep hearing this snideness when the hand is offered by Republicans, but as yet, I have not seen any internal division in SF (or among the 'troops' as you put it) when they make concilatory gestures like MoN did recently re: the monarchy.

You may need to review how you recieve concilatory gestures.

"While I cannot itemise who they mean as innocents, I assume they mean non combatants/people not inolved in the conflict." Francie

So what does that mean Francie? Why did they talk in riddles that even you, as a republican and a riddle writer, has not the first clue what they mean?

So since you are assuming; would you assume they are sorry for making a human bomb out of patsy Gillespie or are they not sorry for that because he cooked meals for soldiers?

Are they sorry for taking Jean McConville away and murdering her or are they not sorry because she was a protestant and put a young dying soldiers head on a towel?

"The couple, who lived in a small flat, had 10 children before her husband died. Less than a year later the IRA accused her of passing information to the army and she was abducted by a large gang of male and female IRA members. "Four girls dragged her from the bathroom at gunpoint," her daughter, Helen McKendry, recalled. "The twins, who were only six at the time, were clinging to her, screaming to the women to let her go but they took her anyway. The children were terrified and in hysterics. She was never seen alive again. An additional gratuitous cruelty was that the IRA never admitted they murdered her: in fact, stories were circulated locally that she had deserted her family - she had probably, it was said, run away with a soldier."

Are they sorry for orphaning my friend, since they made a statement shortly after that it was a mistaken identity - and yet the MP won't condemn it!

I assume they mean what I said.

The IRA issued warnings to those assisting the British Army, so, IMO as they identified McConville as a spy, and Gillespie as a collaborator they did not see them as innocent.

That is the harsh facts here.

I found what all the players did abhorent and never supported any of it. I do welcome though, apologies and concilatory gestures as peace building.

Question was more do you believe this could cause some internal friction within SF or will the majority accept it wouldn't be appropriate for her to attend ?

Not many left.

when you consider the entirety of the Protestant community looked out for the security forces, provided information on our Ira neighbours and give them sweets or buns or whatever happened to be in our car when they stopped us. That sounds like a greater crime than Patsy serving them food to earn a living. So seems the interpretation of what you are saying is that they apologise for killing any Catholics that didn’t support or interact with the Brits. Would that be a fair interpretation of what you are saying?

Point of correction, while Jean McConville was born to a Protestant family, she converted to Catholicism after marriage and moved to Divis Flats because of threats by Loyalists.

Also, I'm not sure what your source is, but the provos acknowledged their responsibility for her death almost 25 years ago in '99.