The Irish protocol.

The EU will use the easements and flexibilities built into the agreement.

We are awaiting downcow (and now yourself) to call that some kind of win for the belligerent Unionists who have been rowing furiously backwards from their 'the Protocol must go' positions for a while now.

Your problem, like them, is that you are too desperate to be right, hence your misrepresentation of your own position, as noted by myself and Fionn and no doubt a few others.

Why then is the UK government not doing the one thing it can do to facilitate the movement of produce to and from NI without the need for additional checks, the same thing other states who enjoy free movement of goods with the single market, have done? The alignment of standards for goods they want to be able to move freely in and out of the single market.

Once more a blatant lie, Blanch.

I see we're going to have to go through this in little baby steps to try and break it down.

So firstly, your opening statement to this conversation was as follows;

To which I responded that a) the vast majority of sausages eaten in NI are produced in bloody Ireland anyway, and there is no significant difference between Irish and British sausages anyway. To try and pretend that this wasn't you saying that Unionists wouldn't eat Irish sausages is demonstrably ridiculous. That is precisely what you said.

As for the extension of the Grace Period; AS PER THE BLOODY SOURCE YOU PROVIDED, WHICH I WAS RESPONDING TO;

So despite what you presented it as, the Chief Executives of the major supermarket brands clearly understand and appreciate the concessions granted by the Northern Ireland Protocol, however the issue was with the short timescale. To paraphrase your own post, I think I'll take the word of all those Chief Executives over some random on the internet.

I'll repeat, the problem according to YOUR source was not with changing to different (though practically identical sausages or sandwiches), or that these things would lead to empty shelves in NI as you've hyperbolically suggested (while ironically ignoring the rapidly emptying shelves in Britain). The issue is with the time frame. Natural solution? .....increase the time frame, which we did.

How the blazes you can read that statement and take from it that somehow the solution to all of Brexit is.....British f*cking sausages....the mind boggles.

Then to continue bloviating and telling ME to put down the shovel.....while preaching to someone FROM NI about what NI is like? It's some sort of industrial scale digger you have out, Blanch. Shovels be damned.

Your blind dislike for SF is clouding your rationality so much that you'll side with whatever their loudest critics suggest just to argue against them. I suspect this is much more responsible for your once more parroting the DUP line rather than actual support for the position. The problem is that SF have sweet FA to do with an agreement come to between the EU and the UK so you're just flaccidly taking digs at them and hoping for whatever outcome might annoy them the most.

Once again, I haven't said that Unionists wouldn't eat Irish sausages, that is a blatant simplistic misrepresentation.

What I have said, and I have been saying is that people like what they are familiar with, they like the food they normally eat, they like the habit of shopping where they are familiar. While they might change that themselves (see how Lidl have built up market-share) over time, they won't like that kind of change forced on them and they will resist it.

As for siding with the loudest critics, the supermarket CEOs are the ones agreeing with me, FrancieBrady is the one agreeing with you.

The 'demographic' you are blindly defending voted for the single biggest 'change' in the modern history of Europe - Brexit.

One of their leaders Nelson McCausland, when warned about what might happen, said 'I don't care what situation I face as long as I am out of Europe'. Another, when asked to specifically broach the danger of empty shelves/food shortages said, 'Let them go to the chippie'.

Once again you put your under researched foot in it with a stupid remark then try and sledgehammer it into something relevant to save your blushes.

Apologies for the downcow quote in there...won't let me delete it for some reason.

You are saying Unionists must be pandered to because you hate SF, and United Sausages of Ireland aren't Good Friday Pork, or some other jambalaya of pure cobbled together balderdash.

I'd suggest reading again. I'll admit that it is guess work and I understand that a significant number in the Unionist community aren't happy with the NI Protocol, and a small number of those may actively resist it (the tiny numbers who have actually shown up to any protest of the NI Protocol would be my source that even this number is tiny).

However the post in question was referring to those who would actively resist it specifically because they can't get access to their chosen brand of sausages (or pre-packaged sandwiches). As the protests have already demonstrated that it is a pretty small number willing to actively resist it overall, one could extrapolate and presume that the number who are willing to actively resist because of sausages is tiny.

As I said, I understand there is Unionist discomfort around the NI Protocol, to my reading of the situation, this is due to the perception that it creates a closer relationship with Ireland and a more distant (symbolic) relationship with the UK, not because they're outraged over a specific brand of sausages.

Out of curiosity, what would the usual brand of sausages purchased in your household be? Any chance the Protocol impacts supply there? Twas Dennys or Halfners in my house the odd time we didn't get them from Doherty's Butchers in Enniskillen.

EU reeling the UK in, 'give 'em enough rope' strategy.

Johnson and Frost failing abjectly to provoke a rash reaction.

Say the Conservative Party wishes to campaign against the border poll, there is nothing in there that prevents them, even if they are in Government. Essentially, all that does is commit the UK government to a process similar to our Referendum Commission, but it doesn't stop individuals or political parties in the UK campaigning any way they want on a border poll.

And your point there caller?

I think of all the people on this thread, it is you that doesn't understand.

And in the interests of transparency, it's Superquinn sausages in my house.