I can only conclude that Corbyn inhabits some fantasy universe (presumably with magic Brexit unicorns aplenty), or perhaps he has been asleep for two years, or perhaps he just doesn not understand the EU and Brexit. He has certainly been asleep at the wheel to come out with this claptrap.
Amongst the other twaddle we have the fact they want “a new and strong relationship with the single market that gives us frictionless trade”.
OK so an FTA would give us tariff-free trade but that has already been discounted as not solving the problem of the Irish border.
Or, maybe they still want a customs union - but they are about to vote against May’s deal precisely because it contains a customs union.
Labour are either self-contradictory or peddling ideas whose time has been and gone in this debate.
This is why a general election would solve nothing.
“ Unlike the Norway-plus option now being canvassed among MPs, our plan would not leave Britain as an across-the-board rule-taker of EU regulations without a say. It’s a plan that can be negotiated with the EU, even at this late stage, with most of the building blocks already in place.”
I think all opposition leaders think they know the answer, very different once you’re in no 10 .
Corbyn would probably solve the backstop by giving Ireland back to the Irish and then we’d have a civil war!
The only good answer for the future of the UK as a prosperous, forward looking nation is to cancel Brexit imo.
I wonder what would happen if there was a referendum in NI on unification (as per the 1922 and Good Friday agreements).
Hitherto the Catholic population (which would obviously tend to vote for reunification) has been smaller than the Protestant population so it was pretty much a given that NI would vote to stay in the Union.
But the populations are closer now, as are the polls - something like 45% for staying in the Union and 42% for a united Ireland.
Not sure I’d like to call that one, and not sure I’d like to guess whether the unionists would meekly accept the result.
I’d like to agree but that brings its own problems, namely stirring up the Leave crowd would would be extremely vociferous in cries of betrayal - you can even see it now with accusations of “parliament stealing Brexit from the people” - the trouble with this sort of rhetoric is that the government and parliament only govern by the consent of the people - and if you start to undermine that consent (which this does) then anarchy results.
I have no love of Churchill Paul…it will take more than one of his quotes to convince me that “the people” should just accept the lies and corruption of government with the proverbial stiff upper lip…
After two years of May and Davis ignoring what Barnier was telling them we now have the Westminster Norway++ brigade ignoring what Norway is telling them.
Northern Ireland is bankrupt, it gets a subvention of 6B a year from Westminster (just topped up in the last budget) plus the CAP and other EU handouts. Much as the DUP likes to portray Dublin as waiting to pounce there is no appetite for a united Ireland amongst a large part of the Irish population. Young people in Ireland in particular see their future in being open and international, not pining after a united Ireland that never really existed and the old nationalist guard are dying out.
I agree with you about the costs, the republic would struggle to integrate NI without UK subsidies. I think though that Ireland was one country until 1922 and partition so to say it was never united seems strange. The fact is the UK should have given the whole country back then and didn’t and it’s too difficult now without a return to violence.
All our meddling across the globe whilst beneficial financially at the time has caused problems in the long term but humans never learn otherwise we would have taken heed of the decline and fall of the Roman empire.
They did didn’t they? With an opt out for Northern Ireland to cede from the Irish Free State, which was immediately triggered by the Parliament of Northern Ireland.
Most West Germans really didn’t want reunification with the East because of the financial cost it would mean to each household but I’m sure that looking back they’re glad that they took the plunge.
No they didn’t. They created NI and Southern Ireland but both to remain part of the uk. It was the Irish war of independence that eventually forced the uk to give up the south and allowed the north(by that time with a unionist majority) to remain part of the uk.
It’s also interesting to note that in May 1974 33 civilians were killed and 300 injured by UVF car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan in a single day( the highest toll in one day during the Troubles) and yet the emphasis is always on the IRA being the terrorists. (which they undoubtedly were) but not the only ones.
