General Irish politics discussion thread

Few things are more pointless than the Commonwealth.

Plus, I struggle to believe that Ireland rejoining the Commonwealth would be the key decision to unlocking progress to a successful united Ireland.

But, if we're playing hypotheticals, if rejoining the Commonwealth were the key decision that would unlock progress to a successful united Ireland, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

A bit of pointlessness as the price of a successful united Ireland? That's a no-brainer.

'They' walked into that one 🤣

Except the Queen was not a political party and potential ally.

The poster described the DUP as this:

If you are feteing them and applauding them at your party congress, well you clearly don't have issue with them being the 'worst of the ERG'.

The route the Commonwealth intends to take would have to be very clear. B. Johnson talked about it as a trading alliance to compete with the EU which would make membership for us untenable IMO.

Well he certainly did and so did many of the last few PM's.

Perficious Albion alert when having any dealings with them going forward and we would need the intentions for the Commonwealth to be very clear.

I know what it is, and I also know what a meddlesome UK, intent on a divide and conquer strategy could do with an entity like the CW. It doesn't have to be a useful trade bloc.

Highly debatable to this very day.

The British when they ruled here certainly didn't share and rather shared our resources among themselves, as they did with every colony they had.

Those who identify as British to this day have extreme and notable difficulty 'sharing' on an equal footing.

Those many many British people not born here and who have come to live here have no issues sharing with us and vice versa.

They live quite happily under our existing constitution.

I absolutely believe that concessions will have to be made, but they will be made not on the basis of appeasement or on a false narrative that we are returning some equality and fairness.

It will be a gesture that will have little precedent in the history of our relationship with British/Unionist rule.

Indeed

They invited the leader of a party who represents a large minority in NI and were respectful and open to his opinions.

Not everything boils down to a tiresome narrative about usuns vs themuns.

I hope you aren’t representative of wider SF thought.

There was plenty of comment and without getting into tiresome comment on who is credible it is something we would need to be careful about.

Pre 2016 I didn’t know all the ways The UK could mess with our membership of the EU and that should be warning enough.

Much like, if you are feteing Gemma O'Doherty and appluading her at your party's summer think in, well you clearly don't have an issue with her being.......... everything that Gemma O'Doherty is

It's trying to highlight the fallacy of your claim that listening to someone respectfully is in some way to be interpreted as an endorsement of them.

It was 2014 that she appeared.

And equally well, her appearing doesn't necessarily mean that party share her views or that they "don't have a problem" with her views. It just means they were willing to give her an listen. No different to FG being willing to listen to Donaldson.

Francie seems to have a problem with parties listening to differing voices (unless of course it's SF listening to to the voices of various loony factions, then it's all rosy)

Listening and giving a polite clap afterwards is very different to being "feted and applauded" - but I know that you'd never let that stop you.

Everyone knows just how different a spin you'd put on your own party when the roles are reversed