GOOD morning readers. Look up at the sky. Is it in the same place as yesterday? Is the earth beneath still there?
Strangely enough, had we left the EU on Friday all those things would still be there.
Leaving the EU is undoubtedly an economic catastrophe. It will damage businesses and there will be job losses but almost everything else will remain. Neighbours will still be neighbours and we will all still share this piece of conflicted space.
More importantly, unionists will be no less British and nationalists will be no less Irish.
Northern Ireland will remain part of the UK.
As ever the constitutional position of Northern Ireland remains as was and only the votes of those who live here can change it.
That was the position on November 16 1985, the day after the Anglo-Irish Agreement was concluded. That was the position on the morning of April 11 1998, the day after the Good Friday Agreement was signed.
That was the position on May 23 1998, the day following the Belfast Agreement referendum result. That was also the position on June 24 2016 - the day after the EU referendum.
If and when we ever leave the EU, Northern Ireland will remain as part of the UK. Fact. Only a plebiscite will change that.
Politicians peddling fears about an imminent united Ireland or dilution or loss of UK membership are self-serving, disingenuous and manipulative.
This whole Brexit process is about them; their jobs and their political longevity. Their actions have nothing to do with the well being and economic prosperity of their constituents.
It couldn’t have - as those who actually create employment whether in Derry, Craigavon, Newry, Antrim or Belfast have bluntly told them that a no deal Brexit is not good for Northern Ireland.
And yet in their arrogance and belligerence these politicians persist in a policy named to ‘hell in a handcart’.
It is beyond all comprehension that we actually have public representatives in Northern Ireland who are the political equivalent of kamikaze pilots. They want us to crash and burn together.
It’s a scorched earth approach which is as reckless as is economically disastrous. In this they make Oliver Cromwell’s Irish policy look like Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Unfortunately we are stuck with them.
Having successfully herded the majority within both communities into holding pens for either Catholic/nationalist sheep or Protestant/unionist goats, both the DUP and Sinn Féin have ensured the goats and sheep don’t fraternise.
The lack of electoral consequence for political actions is rather unique to Northern Ireland. Politicians here can do policy u-turns that would embarrass Donald Trump and yet still win at the polls.
They can use public funds with the spending abandon of Imelda Marcos and yet be feted like minor royals. They can be sanctioned by independent oversight but continue in office by popular acclaim.
In fairness, one can’t blame them. After all it is we the voting public that acts like the serpent in the garden of Eden. At the polls we continue to assure them of no censure or consequence for errant behaviour.
It was Charles Haughey who infamously said that Northern Ireland was a failed political entity. I disagree. It is certainly electorally bankrupt.
Charlie Haughey was turfed out of office. The normal cycle of politics ensures turnover. But there is nothing normal about politics in Northern Ireland. There is more chance of regime change in Moscow or Beijing than Belfast.
Northern Ireland has been time locked into 10 years of failed politics. Political motivation at the polls is about being against ‘them'uns’.
Want proof? Look what the local government election arguments are about. Sinn Féin say it's about equality, Irish language and unity. The DUP claim its about their influence at Westminster.
These are local government elections about planning issues, lifting bins, burials, dog poop, tourism, clean streets and local amenities.
They are also about competence in managing public funds - which party is talking about that?
Foster accuses O’Neill of prioritising border polls over health. Yet the DUP is prioritising an imaginary threat to the union over a very real threat to the economy. It’s Groundhog Day on steroids.
A recent poll suggested that only a third of voters in Britain felt strongly about Northern Ireland staying within the UK. Maybe British voters are starting to realise it takes an annual £11 billion bung to keep an orange mist hanging over this provincial backwater.
Perhaps more of Team GB to come?
