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How did you vote in the great 2016 Folly Daddy?
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drewbhoy
drewbhoy
2543 posts

Re: How did you vote in the great 2016 Folly Daddy?
Nov 24, 2017, 14:12
grufty jim wrote:
I read a funny little idea about some kind of "Federation of Independent Celtic States" which would comprise Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic as three independent EU member states, each with their own national parliament but with even tighter integration between the three than usual (collective electricity grid being the most obvious economic efficiency, but I'm sure there would be others).

And it's a nice thought, but in reality the sheer scale of the practical difficulties involved in Scottish independence alone... well, it makes any talk of future "federations" a bit moot.

Scottish independence -- from a logistical standpoint -- would have been relatively easy when the UK was a member of the EU. Now though, it's a logistical nightmare.

I'm still pro-Independence, but I think the Independence movement has a solid few years work on its hand to work out real answers to the questions of the border, future EU membership, currency and so on -- questions that either didn't necessarily even exist or which have gotten much more difficult with Brexit.

You don't want to find yourselves copying the madness of the tories and proposing a course of action you have no idea how to implement. It's just not good enough to make the decision first and then try and "muddle through". As we in Ireland have been trying to explain to the government in Westminster for 18 months -- vague platitudes and aspirational statements about "no return to the borders of the past" do not a policy make, and when your lack of policy threatens to damage your neighbours? That's just irresponsible and unacceptable.

The problem of how Scotland can leave the UK in a post-Brexit world is not insoluble. But it is a tough one. And right now, nobody has all the answers (or even most of them). That's the challenge facing the Scottish independence movement now.

Just as it's the challenge (albeit with plenty of local variation) in Northern Ireland, and in Ireland in general. Brexit has created a myriad serious problems. And the people who demanded Brexit are now acting like 3 year old children having a tantrum when we ask them how we might solve those problems. It shouldn't be up to the rest of us to work out how to enact a policy we never wanted... but the people who did want Brexit have abrogated all responsibility in actually implementing it.

They are either clueless or else bizarrely acting as though the very thing they demanded is now being foisted upon them against their will!

"We want nothing to do with your stinking institutions", they yell. And then cry foul and talk of "anti-British conspiracies" and "EU spite" when those institutions are relocated from London.

"We want nothing to do with any organisation that would make our cities eligible to be ECOC", they insist. And then claim the EU is acting maliciously when UK cities are no longer eligible to be ECOC.

It's like the UK has had a collective breakdown; and despite the massive number of "Remoaners", it's the brexiteers with their hands on the rudder right now and they are doing a lot of damage. So I'm afraid there's less and less sympathy and more and more apprehension, frustration and concern from Ireland and the rest of Europe.

And as for Corbyn? Don't even get me started!


Once again I agree with all of that. I also read that there had been talks with Iceland and Norway as well.

As for Irish its obvious the Brexit campaign forgot, deliberately?, all about the border and problems that might cause in keeping the peace.
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