Opinion

Fundamentally, DUP’s vehement support of Brexit has changed everything

It is with insincere regret that I must report the closing chapter in the sorry life of HMS Brexit-means-Brexit. After limping home from Brussels following its last-ditch effort in search of a stay of execution, the shattered vessel docked for the final time on Friday March 22. In the process of dropping anchor the devastated hull could stand no more abuse, lurched downward at the bow, and promptly sank to the bottom of the Thames estuary. (Pause for silent reflection). All hands on board safely abandoned ship, although, as expected, Capt May stubbornly hung on to the ship’s wheel as the wreckage slipped under the muddy waters, only to be rescued at the last gasp by a passing migrant dinghy.

After excoriating the entire crew for thwarting her carefully crafted strategy to blackmail them all into surrender, Wobbly tearfully retreated to her country residence to lick her wounds and plot a final hurrah. Meanwhile, arch-mutineers midshipman Dodds, petty officer Wilson, and not-so-able seaman Foster, fearing arrest and being clamped in irons for treason, have struck back by shamelessly blaming the captain for capitulating far too easily to the EU high command. If they had overseen the negotiations, they maintain, they would have walked away from an honourable deal far earlier – a strategy they argue has always worked for them before.


With dreams of becoming Sir Nigel and Dame Arlene in the next birthday honours list fast evaporating, the Dupers are scurrying for cover to avoid any blame for their part in the unmitigated Brexit disaster.

Back at Chequers, Wobbly has finally taken leave of what little sense she has remaining.  She has now deigned to cut off her nose to spite her face by threatening not to hold a third meaningful vote after all – despite being told by Lt Bercow that she couldn’t anyway.  In addition, she has decided that political suicide is preferable to her own Ides of March by booking Pickford removals for April 12, the day she calculates the ERG/DUP diabolic alliance hope at last to secure their prized no-deal crash-out. Overheard by the long-suffering Philip manically muttering to herself in the bathroom, Wobbly knows her days are numbered but is determined to go down fighting by securing the longest extension possible to Article 50, thereby perhaps spiking the Brexiteers’ guns for good.

Closer to home, after ignoring it for two years, the Dupers now appear keen again to resurrect Stormont in the hope that, via the Petition of Concern, they can exercise a veto over the backstop should it in fact be foisted on them. They must calculate that Martin McGuinness was only joking when he vowed there would be no return to the status quo. Afraid not. Whatever else it has done – and will do – Brexit and the DUP’s vehement support of it has changed everything fundamentally. 


The status quo is gone for good, and the clamour for a new and re-united Ireland within the EU grows louder by the day.

EO CASSIDY


Omagh, Co Tyrone

Arrangements for seamless transition to united Ireland

As we approach the transition to a united Ireland, Sinn Féin has suggested that conversations need to take place to manage any transition. This is code for delay.  However, I accept that in order for a seamless transition to take place, certain arrangements have to be put in place. Chief among them would be around ensuring adequate safeguards exist for a peaceful transition.


The Free State army is used chiefly to safeguard the civil arrangement in the 26 counties and participation in UN missions is largely symbolic.


Its strength post conflict in the six counties has seen its strength almost halved which indicates where its priority lay.

The defence forces budget in the free state is 0.3 per cent of GDP – smallest in the EU. By raising it to 1 per cent would enable it to double its strength and increase its effective armaments including, for example, a fleet of Apache helicopters. New barracks need to be built close to the border.


The Gardaí is currently twice the size of the army but by increasing it by a further 6,000 personnel with a brief to familiarise it with the geography of the six counties would go a long way to ensuring that any transition is managed effectively. Those managed arrangements need also to focus on the disarmament of previously armed forces of the crown including RUC/PSNI.

SEAN O'FIACH


Belfast BT11

Voting options for second referendum

A final consensus on Brexit would appear to be beyond the limited abilities of our elected representatives in parliament. 

I would suggest once we have all the relevant facts previously denied us by misleading reports, we could come to a final decision on this matter by a second referendum. The following could make up the voting options: Leave with no deal; Leave with a customs union in place and no voting rights; Remain.

Two are straightforward but the one about having no voting rights, within a customs union, needs some clarification. If we accept a customs union without representation, we must surely pay substantially less for this downgrade in membership.

The reason I mention this is because Boris Johnson and chums, during the referendum, were making speeches in front of a bus featuring the logo – ‘We send the EU £350,000,000 sterling a week; let’s fund our NHS instead’. It is also curious that we are now getting information on major queries that people have over problems that will inevitably arise on our leaving the EU. 

EDWARD MURPHY


Ballycastle, Co Antrim

Stormont Lock is high price to pay

The so-called Stormont Lock, a mechanism giving MLAs a veto over the border backstop, could be a curate’s egg. The good bits may well be a reason to get the assembly back to work. It could give the assembly ownership of a process which ultimately directly impacts on Northern Ireland. The bad bits give credence to the pernicious backstop permanently hovering over our heads . It does nothing to remove the fear of the EU turning Northern Ireland into an EU colony tied into an EU-simulated united Ireland. The DUP must think carefully about getting sucked into a Stormont Lock as a high price to pay for deciding to support the May Deal next week. The numbers in the assembly are not unionist reliable to ensure that the lock would work as a veto . The risk of the Alliance party and the Greens supporting Sinn Féin and the SDLP in a vote to veto the veto is too great.


The nation should be out of the EU this Friday but for the Irish behaviour over a silly backstop. It is pathetic that leaving the EU could depend on an assembly which is mothballed.

DAVID McNARRY


Strangford, Co Down