An interactive map of every border crossing between the north of Ireland (UK) and Ireland.
Dating back to when the executive just might personally come barging in with troops: https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/parliamentary-archives/explore-guides-to-documentary-archive-/archives-highlights/archives-speakerlenthall/
It’s frankly insane how little attention the Irish border, and the effects leaving the EU could have on it got in the UK during the referendum build up. Bendy bananas and passport colours got more airtime.
Not sure how much it would have mattered to most folk in England who voted Brexit if it had been highlighted but it is odd to me that the Remain side didn’t make abundantly clear that things like seamless sun holidays might become a thing of the past, post-Brexit. The 100,000s of British living on the Med and the 1,000,000s that holiday there yearly seem to have not been clear as to the likely consequences of voting for Brexit.
In October I crossed the border by kayak, just by paddling around Lough Ross. I also paddled up a very minor stream (the River Fane) where the left bank was in the UK and the right bank in the Republic. From that perspective, the idea of a hard border seems quite absurd.
In fairness, in 2016 nobody would have thought that that was a remotely likely outcome in practice. The colossal imcompetence of the British government and of the Brexit movement when it came to turning the referendum result into a practical political project was not readily forseeable.
Can someone clarify for me what the DUP’s play here is? They voted against the WA because of the backstop. But they’re going to support the government in the vote of no confidence? I realize that they hate Jeremy Corbyn because he has an affinity for Sinn Fein. But leaving the current group in power is very likely to result in no-deal Brexit, either willfully or through sheer incompetence and inertia. And the last LucidTalk polling data I saw suggested that support in NI for a united Ireland surges to something like 57-43 in that scenario. Sinn Fein isn’t agitating now because the timing is unhelpful but on March 30th they will be screaming for a border poll and they will have a point. So the DUP are going to possibly run themselves off a cliff and watch their greatest fear come to pass because they can’t abide Corbyn? What are they hoping will happen here?
I don’t think the arithmetic’s quite there, unless either the DUP (won’t happen) or enough rebel Tories join in (and they rebel only on the Brexit issue, get them on to tax-and-spend and they’re much the same as most of their party):
Tories 317
Labour 262
SNP 35
Lib Dems 12
Plaid Cymru 4
Green 1
Independent 1
= 315 (and that’s if they’re all singing from the same hymn-sheet)
DUP 10
(Sinn Fein and Speaker don’t participate)
Search me. Forward thinking and a broader vision were never exactly their strong suit.
They’re probably thinking that the arrangement they have right now gives them the most influence they’ve ever had in Westminster, whereas if the Government falls they’ll get cast into the Outer Darkness of “noisy regional partydom” again, forced to play second banana to the SNP once more. It’s a shortsighted policy but that’s the DUrP for you.
It was certainly a discussion point among my friend circle from the time the referendum was announced. At the time of the vote I was working in a UK airport, and staff there were also all extremely concerned about what effect it was likely to have on the future holiday trade, as well as the fact that half of them were non British EU citizens who were worried their residency was going to become a negotiation lever.
Stopping free movement was the major reason put forwards for the vote in the first place. There has never been any reason to think there’d be an option for Brits to have free movement but not for everyone else, except in the mind of those who still think Britannia rules the waves and Johnny foreigner’s just going to have to lump it.
And there’s the majority of hardcore Brexiteers for you right there.
I’m not sure that’s true. There was an interesting article in the Guardian a few days ago that gives a different and more plausible reason why people voted for Brexit.
I’m a remainer. So why do I feel more and more sympathy for leave voters?
It’s worth reading.
The bit you quoted was about the general principle of how the 14-day grace period might lead to a Leader of the Opposition becoming PM; I agree that in the current situation the idea of Corbyn winning over the DUP or Tory rebels is beyond laughable. But I can see how theoretically a more centre-leaning LOTO could win over center-leaning opponents for long enough to pass some emergency legislation.
(And thanks for posting the numbers - a useful reference.)
There’s a big difference between “people who voted for Brexit” and “hardcore Brexiters”, though.
Yeah of all the people doing stuff that appears to be against the direct self interest in this whole affair, the DUP win the prize for the most short-sighted self foot shooting.
I get Corbyn was chummy with the IRA back in the day, and (as the closest to the US religious right you get in the UK) they are not fan of godless socialists. But seriously “unionist” is right there in their name, preserving the union is their literal raison d’etre, and Brexit is the biggest threat to the union in its history. Brexit has a far far higher chance of breaking Northern Ireland away from the UK than all the actions of the IRA ever could, by an order of magnitude. That they are aren’t the most extreme anti-brexiteers out there is mind blowing to me.
In understanding the motives of the DUP, never forget May’s bribe of an extra £1 billion in funding for Northern Ireland, with the DUP in charge of spending it.
Effectively she bought 10 votes at £100 million per vote.
Without that bribe she would have lost the vote of no confidence.
May’s Government survives the no-confidence vote: May's government survives no-confidence vote - BBC News
Only the Provos, the Officials were quite thoroughly Marxist. And even the group that mainly links Corbyn to the Provos was far Left - I mean, they *were *called Red Action.
And because of this and regularly stoked fear of a Fenian future, the DUP’s base will continue to vote for them, despite the majority of the population in the North being against Brexit in the first instance.