Opinion

How can Brexit deal work without a plan, deal or sequence?

As Brexit draws perilously close it is all too apparent that a political and economic Chernobyl is on the horizon. A meltdown of what was for almost half a century into God knows what. The logic of the situation is simple: the United Kingdom made a deal to get in and obviously a deal needs to be made to get out. No-one has high expectations that a deal can be done at this stage with deep scepticism well deserved. Thus – we have the mass recruitment of customs officers and clerks with what is almost certainly a no-deal, tally-ho, buckaroo setup on March 29. British politics has never known a more absurd and unprofessional time in its history hardly. Brexit is not going to work. No-one knows where the pieces will fit. How can Brexit work without a plan, deal, or sequence?


Is it not time to say that British politics is now entering a period of great insanity along with the EU? Is there a hidden confidence that the UK can weather any storm with non-EU economies such as the US and China, which Britain has very strong ties with?


The EU knows full well that the British withdrawal could lead to the breakup of the EU. The cat is certainly among the pigeons. It could bring the house down with the UK aligning itself to the EU as much as it can, while retaining full decision-making power over anything and everything. If this happens, other countries are sure to follow demanding the same level of flexibility – which No 10 has made no secret it wants and not to be tied to EU rules or EU courts. There were early indications that the UK was never going to be committed to the EU in the absence of the single currency and its insistence that any reference to federalism in treaties signed by the EU were removed.


Margaret Thatcher also tried to get money back from the EU and felt Britain was not getting enough in return. These issues have resurfaced and pushed over the cliff by emigration problems. It seems the UK might have being testing the water – albeit for nearly 50 years before it decided to get out and had enough. On a bigger scale the EU is not making great progress as a political force in being a massive bureaucratic machine whose primary focus is still agriculture which takes over two-thirds of its annual budget. One can understand the British decision to get out but where does it go from there –  the abyss just like Stormont?

MAURICE FITZGERALD


Shanbally, Co Cork

Time institutions realised north is party of Ireland

Nothing exposes the folly of partition like the often-used maps amputating, or shading a sickly grey, the six north-eastern counties from the rest of Ireland. 

This ingrained habit amongst certain 26-county institutions has seen an understandable and energised reaction, as Irish citizens who reside in this apparent nothingness (if you go by the maps), take offense at the vacuous state we are depicted in. 

I’m glad to say though that having raised these concerns with Met Éireann, they have acknowledged that their graphics for weather warnings could be much improved and, that it makes practical sense in terms of safety, that their maps would accurately show alert statuses for the entirety of Ireland. 

Weather doesn’t recognise borders – the methods of how we keep people safe during weather events shouldn’t either.

This week I had a most enjoyable and informative visit to the Met Éireann HQ at Glasnevin. I’m encouraged that in a short while this most important and highly regarded Irish institution, who to be fair to them do a great job in terms of forecasting the weather for all of the country, will from now on ensure they accurately reflect weather warnings across all of our country. 

That’s progress on their part and I sincerely thank them for it.

Everyday, intrusive and malign partitionism exists and is visible in our lives – it’s offensive, illogical and at times downright daft. 

So we must challenge it.

Whether it’s the weather or whether it’s excluding northern citizens from taking part in competitions; whether it’s blocking our view of important sporting events on the TV or rarely hearing a northern accent on air, I’m committed to giving voice to the understandable anger at our apparent non-existence on many RTÉ and other institutional depictions of Ireland. 

I’d encourage you to do the same. 

We are Irish. We live in Ireland. 

It’s time RTÉ and other stakeholders woke up to that fact.

Senator NIALL Ó DONNGHAILE


East Belfast 

Jim Allister’s head is buried firmly in the sand

Listening to TUV leader Jim Allister being interviewed by Stephen Nolan (February 22) something caused me to pause in the act of tuning into another station. Stephen Nolan had backed him into a corner on the Irish border issue and he was struggling to extricate himself. 

On this occasion I opted to subject myself to a couple of minutes of mental torture. Some of us never learn. In his usual bumptious manner Mr Allister was waffling on about technology being the solution for a free-flowing, seamless border after Brexit. Nolan for his part was hammering on at him to explain just what sort of technology he meant and how would it work. 

Nothing Mr Allister said made any sense and when he said bar codes were the answer, I could take no more and tuned into a music programme.


Barcodes? Yes that’s what the man said. Was the island of Ireland going to be just one big supermarket? “Would the next trolley, oops sorry, lorry go to checkout number three please.” 

Mr Allister is just another unionist politician with his head stuck in the sand. 

As regards to technology being the solution for the border question, forget about it. That sort of technology simply does not exist. Even Nasa or any of the world’s technological giants would be hard pressed to invent it. 

SEAN MASKEY


Belfast BT15 

Freedom and tolerance

Jesus Christ says: “To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life”.


St Paul tells us that the “free gift of God is eternal life”. If people reject this gift is that God’s fault?


Ian Hoey (February 26) finishes his letter: “Who needs love like that? Not me”.


Ian cites Christopher Hitchens, who apparently asked if life under God might be worse than life in North Korea. North Korea is surely a vision of hell, rather than a metaphor of life under God. Countries which seek to extinguish Christianity often have ghastly human rights records. “Ideas have consequences” is an adage that inverts the primacy of matter and energy spouted by some atheists. Scholars or advocates of the New Atheism may jest about North Korea, but few seem to want to migrate there. Freethinkers are protected by the tolerance and freedoms that have developed in the Christian or post-Christian western nations. Any dog knows better than to bite the hand that feeds it. Should atheists cherish the freedom and tolerance we enjoy in the west? Are these freedoms related directly to our Christian heritage?  

THOMAS HARDY


Belfast BT5

Asylum double standards

Asia Bibi is a Pakistani Christian woman currently in hiding in her deeply Conservative Islamic country and under threat of death from having made alleged blasphemous remarks.

If the grounds for refusing Asia Bibi asylum in the UK is about ‘community relations’, ‘social cohesion’ and ‘potential offence’ being taken by a community or some in a specific ethnic minority group, as stated by the Home Office, then there can be no justification in allowing Shamima Begum, a self-confessed member of Isis to return from Syria to live in the UK after mass public outrage became overwhelming British Citizen or not.

M CAIRNS


Belfast BT15