The Irish protocol.

In fairness DC yes it is the protocol or nothing. The reason being that this was negotiated and signed by the British PM and his team who then presented it to the people of the UK as an "oven ready deal". Some people may be dumb enough to believe that the British government were manipulated and tricked into signing this by the evil EU but most people don't accept that. This was the deal agreed and you don't get to change it by pretending you were too thick to understand what you were signing.

Any chance you could share a list of those "terms" with us?

Are they normal terms like prosperity, stability, improvements in infrastructure/ education/ health/ trade/ standard of living ??

None of those things were taken into account when Unionist politicians pushed for a "Leave" vote. As usual (as with everything from street signs to Covid restrictions to what historical murder to tweet about) there was only 1 consideration.

I'd be interested in any other considerations that would make Brexit palatable to a reasonable person in the North. (I'll work on the presumption that you are that person)

Your quote was that “Republicans have had 100 years to convince “the people of Northern Ireland” “. So, given that many of those people are very much convinced of the merits of a United Ireland (not a majority I’ll grant you, but you didn’t say you were speaking for the majority) you very much are conflating “the people” with the Unionist people. If you had said the majority, then fine, but you didn’t. You want to ignore those people who have a different view.

It's also ok to pick and choose freedoms available to all in the rest of the UK. Selective and hypocritical.

Absolutely, and issues such as Brexit, a process undertaken at Westminster, must apply equally to NI as it does the rest of GB, even if the people of NI have explicitly stated that they don't want it, because to do otherwise "damages our relationship with the United Kingdom".

However, Westminster mandating on bringing NI into line with the rest of GB regarding issues such as same-sex marriage risks "undermining the political institutions of Northern Ireland" because " the purpose of devolution is to allow the different parts of the UK to make laws that are appropriate for that part of the country."

Both quotes above attributable to one Sir Jeffrey Donaldson...

'Our Wee County'

Agreed, but there does seem to be a contingent within the unionists and some Tories to torpedo the GFA.

Thus torpedoing the possibility of a UI along with it.

Seems even you are happy with a devolved NI.

No. I'll be happy when UK jurisdiction in Ireland is ended permanently. The GFA is the mechanism for that, devolution is a holding pattern.

Hard to know if the protests are growing in size. Tonight's one.

Well, I’d query if that is the case. You think the majority in favour of the union is as big as it was 30/40/50 years ago ? I really doubt that. On the other issue, my point was simply that you can’t baldly state “the people of Northern Ireland” haven’t been convinced of the merits of a UI, when clearly quite a lot of them have., I.e you can’t speak for all the people. You can say you speak for the majority, which is fair enough. How big that majority is now is open to debate I’d suggest.

Yeah that’s not quite how it happened is it ? It was a done deal by the time the Northern parliament (which had already been established by the UK Govt don’t forget) took their vote. And yes, you can say the Treaty was accepted by the Irish negotiators, but they were hardly bargaining from a position of strength. It’s been stated before what Lloyd George’s alternative was.