Five Eighth wrote: » As somebody who has only ever spent fleeting visits to Northern Ireland , I give way to your understanding of the Ulster-Scots people in the North-East of this island. My questions are how come they seem to honestly believe that their contrived majority in the six-counties is democratic? Also, they don't seem, at least to me, to accept that the Northern Ireland State was created by the threat of violence which emanated from Unionists headed by Carson and Craig. They vote in vast numbers for the DUP who canvassed for the hardest Brexit possible with the intention of distancing NI from Ireland. Having lived amongst the Unionist/Loyalist community do you honestly believe that they can be reasoned with on a practical level? Are they not, in essence, a different people to the Irish? Is the other poster (yagan) just calling it as it is?
Fionn1952 wrote: » There are nutters on both sides alright, but honestly most people just want to get on with their lives and the caricatured portrait doesn't help; ultimately that is a million people we want to be part of our country.
yagan wrote: » One wants NI to join a secular democracy, the other doesn't.
yagan wrote: » We've have arrest of documentary makers uncovering collusion in the last few years. The DUP oppose the GFA and the paras they engaged have now withdrawn from the peace process. The DUP are voted in and their supporters know the DUP stance towards the democratic peace process. It's an absolute fantasy to believe that the core of the unionist voter wants democracy. For them elections are just headcounts.
ancapailldorcha wrote: » Do you have anything constructive to add or is it just going to be baseless generalisations?
FrancieBrady wrote: » In fairness there is nothing baseless in saying the DUP do not want a secular society. Their religious fundamentalism drives much of their policy.
ancapailldorcha wrote: » In fairness, he's been making snide and baseless generalisations about Unionists for the last few pages of this thread. On the same basis, I could pretend that Nationalists are pie-in-the-sky, Armalite-carrying thugs.
yagan wrote: » Fact. The main unionist political party never signed up the Belfast agreement. Do you contest that? Fact. The paramilitary wing of unionism after consultation with the DUP declared last week that it was withdrawing from the Belfast Agreement. Do you contest that?
FrancieBrady wrote: » You could, but can you 'pretend' that the DUP insist on their religious and cultural views informing public policy in a way that NO other party does? I get the over generalising vagan is doing but he/she isn't wholly wrong.
BonnieSituation wrote: » He's been fairly "snide" about belligerent unionists and DUPers. They were certainly not baseless though. Let's not forget that the DUP met with the LCC just last week and then that very same organisation withdrew their support for the GFA later on and not a peep out of most. DUP supporters are okay with voting for religious fundamentalists, but they can't complain when they are called out on it. There is a choice available. That they are standing with bigots and religious fundamentalists is on them no one else and certainly not yagan for criticising them for that.
ancapailldorcha wrote: » I have no interest in defending the DUP but deciding to incorporate an ethnic minority against their will while making snide generalisations along the way seems like a bad idea IMO.
FrancieBrady wrote: » 'Silence' is a form of defending. Voices need to be heard here, it isn't a time for silence.
ancapailldorcha wrote: » Your posts were about Unionism and Unionists. Some evidence would be nice instead of the hysterics.
yagan wrote: » YOu talk as if the DUP and it actions have nothing to do with Unionism in Northern Ireland. There's way too much projecting onto them and not enough actually listening to what they say and do.
ancapailldorcha wrote: » That's a strawman. The DUP get elected by an unrepresentative voting system so that, in Westminster they end up as the main NI party.
yagan wrote: » I think you're not reading what I haven't written. Point out where I was only talking about Westminster elections? The largest unionist party in both the STV PR Stormont assembly, and the FPTP Westminster poll is the DUP. Dismissing their voter base and what they say and do is disingenuous to discussing Northern Ireland. I don't dismiss that there is a drift to the Alliance, but there's also a hardening with a drift to the TUV.
ancapailldorcha wrote: » I'll do so once you provide some evidence for your assertions about Unionists. Otherwise, there's no point in continuing this.
ancapailldorcha wrote: » Are you calling out each and every death in Yemen? If not, why are you defending the Saudis?
FrancieBrady wrote: » How disingenuous is that post? We are discussing Ireland in Ireland and the actions or non actions of Irish politicians with responsibilities. Typical look over there deflection in fairness.
ancapailldorcha wrote: » So silence equating to defence only applies to Unionists. Seems unfair to hold one demographic to a higher standard than others. That's what's disingenuous.
Fionn1952 wrote: » You did state that the majority of Unionists did not support the Good Friday Agreement on the basis that they vote for the DUP, somehow managing to discount the fact that the majority of Unionists did in fact vote for the GFA. You've also stated that people will vote for Unification to get away from sectarianism, while accusing the Tanaiste of sectarianism in the very same sentence. I've no issue criticising political Unionism, and no problem disagreeing with Unionists on the matter of NI's constitutional future...but your caricatured picture of Unionists and confused logic certainly aren't going to help convince anyone. It reads almost like someone who has never actually met anyone from the Unionist community and only read about them in a book.
The post-Brexit trade arrangements have also disrupted supplies of specialist cricket soil known as loam from Great Britain. Extra paperwork has caused a series of bureaucratic obstacles since the end of the post-Brexit transition period. Northern Ireland has a small Jewish community centred around north Belfast and a central part of the Passover meal is lamb.
Meanwhile, UUP MLA and keen weekend cricketer John Stewart has said confirmation that bringing in specialist cricket pitch soil – “loam” – from England is banned because of the protocol is farcical. He added: “Here we have another example of the EU using a sledgehammer to crack a non-existent nut. “There is no threat to the European single market or EU plant health standards by continuing the age-old tradition of bringing in ‘loam’ to create, build and maintain cricket pitches throughout Northern Ireland, and the Republic for that matter. “Groundsmen across the country have been told that it is currently prohibited and it is not an exaggeration to say that this prohibition could threaten the future of cricket here.”
political analyst wrote: » https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/jewish-community-and-cricketers-latest-to-be-hit-by-ni-protocol-rules-3158723?r=9537 If the lamb and the soil in Britain were OK by EU standards before Brexit then why does Brexit make those products unsuitable for a place in which the EU's single-market rules for goods apply? Does the European Commission (EC) really think that safety standards in Britain were watered down overnight when the application of EU rules in Britain ceased?
