DSC
Superstar
Sigh!I usually open a few tabs to read the threads.
Until the last 2 letters, I swear you were talking about Trudeau.
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Sigh!I usually open a few tabs to read the threads.
Until the last 2 letters, I swear you were talking about Trudeau.
I usually open a few tabs to read the threads.
Until the last 2 letters, I swear you were talking about Trudeau.
I largely agree with your sentiment but do note that only Northern Ireland is part of the UK. Also, Wales voted in favour of Brexit.I am expecting the UK to crash out of the EU and break up in the process....
I largely agree with your sentiment but do note that only Northern Ireland is part of the UK. Also, Wales voted in favour of Brexit.
Membership in the EU and its ancillary agreements is astonishingly complex, involving the movement of goods and people, standards, employment and on and on. I would hazard a guess that most of the people who voted in the referendum considered almost none of it. A lot of the anti-EU anger was centred around people with continental citizenship, particular eastern European and those from former colonies, taking jobs on the island.
The EU/Ireland/Northern Ireland situation is certainly complicated. The majority of the population of NI voted against Brexit but the largest party (the Democratic Unionists) are strongly in favour of it and even stronger in favour of being exactly the same as the rest of the UK. In their eyes, any difference between NI and 'the rest' is a move towards a united Ireland. Before the EU there were border check-points but since both Ireland and UK joined there have been almost none and many 'unapproved roads' were re-opened. This is a very convoluted border with roads moving between one country and another. In total, there are somewhere between 208 and 275 public border crossing across the 499 km (310 mi) border - when there was a 'real border' - pre EU - many were blocked and 'unapproved'.. The EU has very strict rules about the free movement of citizens, health, safety, (particularly of food) and will insist on strict checks and that will make the current (free and easy) movement of things and people across this border impossible. There will certainly need to be border checks (on both sides) and this is likely to lead to a return to the violence of the 1970s. The simplest answer would be for Northern Ireland to remain in EU while retaining its (currently frozen) Assembly and belong to UK and put the "EU border" in the middle of the Irish Sea but the Democratic Unionists (and probably others) would certainly see this as the thin edge of a large wedge!The weird part is that those in Northern Ireland enjoy the EU because essentially it unified Ireland without actually merging the two. That being said after the UK leaves the EU it will be a different ballgame. The EU will insist on border checks and as a result there will be calls to unify,