After surviving the night of the blond knives we are now seeing the gradual demise of Boris Johnson. A death by a thousand cuts. British prime minister Theresa May in her survival year was playing the ‘our precious union’ card amid Brexit crises and a gathering leadership challenge. At a hostile Tory conference she promised a Festival of Great Britain in celebration of the creativity and innovation of the UK. A UK in accordance with the Act of Union 1801, revised in 1921 for the partition state of the north of Ireland. A no greater aggressive unionist, Boris Johnson, then British foreign secretary, set off on a tour of what he called the “awesome foursome” UK nations.
Following the European elections held on May 2019, at which the Conservatives failed miserably, Theresa May announced her resignation. Boris Johnson won the Conservative Party leadership and went on to win the 2019 Westminster election, though viewed variously as not genuine, untrustworthy, a political rogue and torch bearer of English nationalism. However, he was seen by Conservatives as the best prospect of getting them re-elected and nothing to do with the advancement of Brexit. Now he had the reins to drive forward with Brexit. Lying in the long grass was the Wee North with its long land border with the Irish Republic and supported by the Belfast Agreement. He had been outspoken in the past about his opposition to the Belfast Agreement. It had been asserted by Theresa May after the referendum that there would be no return to the ‘borders of the past’. Johnson continued to dismiss the idea that the Irish border was a complicated issue. How wrong he was. The north of Ireland is also no longer legally in the EU Customs Union, but remains an entry point into it, creating the Irish Sea border, a de facto customs border down the Irish Sea.
Boris Johnson is struggling to come to terms with the hard divorce from the EU which he so relentlessly pursued. He claims the protocol is causing real problems in the north of Ireland and must be fixed. The British government has now come up with legislation to unilaterally override parts of the north of Ireland Protocol and it has passed its first hurdle in Westminster – in fact a breaking of international law. A deal they had initially signed up too was part of the withdrawal agreement with the EU following Brexit, declaring it a victory for Britannia.
DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson is claiming his party’s pressure has brought about the progress being made on the Bill. Donaldson was never in favour of the Good Friday Agreement and even left the UUP over it. The DUP’s current behaviour is being tolerated by Johnson and his hardline Brexiteers, to be used as their patsy in any future negotiations with the EU.
The British government has basically gone rogue.
JAMES G BARRY
Dublin 6
Continuation of puppet regime
In response to pro-Nato pro-Ukraine anti-Russia media, regarding the G7 Summit questioning if it was capable, as the most powerful military alliance in the world, of stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine – of course not. Nato is the cause of it. From February 22 2014 they toppled the democratic elected government and installed a puppet one to do there bidding and Volodymyr Zelensky is a continuation of this puppet regime. From then the Britain, the US and Nato commenced arming and training Ukraine military with the sole intention of getting at Putin, right on his borders and in Russia’s sphere of influence. There had been a verbal promise that Nato would not expand eastwards towards Russia – no country could accept such warmongers close to them. Putin demanded in writing that Ukraine would never be allowed to join Nato but it was not forthcoming. In truth, from the start Nato was massing its army, navy and air force on Russian borders with the sole intention of provoking war. Now they have got their war, including millions dead and injured, displaced a country in rubble, plus a world shortage of feed, fuel, fertiliser, a cost of living crisis, rampant inflation, hundreds of millions starving worldwide and climate change on hold (need I go on).
Johnson and Biden are determined to supply weapons to add fuel to the fire and increase the bloodshed (not theirs, someone else’s sons and daughters). They will carry on this proxy war so as to draw attention away from their many woes and failings at home and would without a care start World War Three. It is even possible it has already commenced with the promise of 300,000 armed trained troops based around Russia borders.
I could write a book of all the crimes and suffering the above warmongers have caused fellow human beings worldwide. Would it stop them doing so? No it would not. So I’ll have to settle for putting their criminal acts in the public domain. When will they ever learn that violence breeds violence. Was it worth it? Not in my opinion.
PETER McEVOY
Banbridge, Co Down
Life is too short to be serious
An incredible and yet quite unbelievable letter appeared in The Irish News on June 1. One had to read it twice to be certain of its veracity, where its author takes umbrage over the characterisation of a cartoon. The DUP’s Jonathan Buckley, MLA for Upper Bann, who - not content with his party’s ongoing policy of usurping and denying the democratic wishes of the majority in the north of Ireland with their archaic use of the veto, a mechanism incongruous with the present - cries foul and takes exception at Ian Knox, the master of the caricature, for his hilarious depiction of unionist bovver boys.
He bemoans how Mr Knox “has crossed the line of acceptability” and his portrayal of three clumsy and unintelligent cartoon oafs adorned with George crosses on their chests will find no quarter among unionists “who take great offence at such imaginings”.
His failure to recognise the sarcasm suggests an intrinsic lack of understanding of humour and wit. There is also a hint that the clever witticisms of a renowned caricaturist is beyond his comprehension.
He would be better off finding a sense of humour and cease taking cheap shots at the working man for doing his job. It would also be prudent and wise to lighten up – life is too short to be so serious.
KEVIN McCANN
Belfast BT1
Protocol equation will produce opposite result
Claire Hanna claims that the Northern Ireland Protocol gives the province a “competitive advantage” – ‘Tory protocol bill will shred north’s competitive advantage’ (June 24). Well, it is perfectly credible that a company which exports a lot of goods to the EU may find that on balance the protocol is beneficial.
However, the equation will produce an opposite result for the many other companies, and individuals, who do not export goods to the EU but who must still bear the costs of the new EU-mandated restrictions on imports from the rest of the UK. In that sense Northern Ireland now replicates on a smaller scale the position of the whole of the UK when we were in the EU, with about 6 per cent of businesses exporting about 12 per cent of GDP to the EU and sharing the rather small gross benefit of the EU Single Market, about 1 per cent of GDP, but everybody else just getting the costs.
D R COOPER
Maidenhead, England
