Personal Statement is response to Theresa May's Statement

The Prime Minister has just spoken in Downing Street about the status of Brexit after the Salzburg meeting of the EU leaders last night.

This is my personal response and not in connection with my party positions or memberships.

The Prime Minister has continues to ignore the will of the people of Northern Ireland and just now also seems unaware of how the best interests of Northern Ireland people and business can be resolved. She has once again spouted the DUP rhetoric which is the minority opinion both at the time of the referendum and since.


As a result in my opinion Her Majesty's Government does have the concerns of the people of NI to the forefront of their thinking and are listening to a section of little England and not the reality of what her hard Brexit will bring about.

In my opinion now is the time for a poll on the status of Northern Ireland. I call on the Secretary of State to call a poll on the constitution position as set out in the Belfast Agreement before March 2019.

Conservative and Unionist Party ignoring warnings

Research released today has shown the shift in opinion in Northern Ireland since the Brexit referendum. Since the vote when 56% of the people voted to remain in the EU that figure has risen to 69%.

However, the research by Queen's University also shows that 61% of the population of Northern Ireland also favour the whole of the UK staying in the Customs Union and Single Market. The population of Northern Ireland who voted to remain in the EU see that as part of the Brexit that helps keep NI economically active, viable and progressing.

While 59% of people in Scotland feel that Brexit make the break up of the UK more likely this is only beaten by the 60% of Northern Ireland who think the same thing. This is worrying as this would be based on two different scenarios in these two locations both of which voted to remain. Here in Northern Ireland while 63% believe the union will exist in 10 years time only 28% believe it will survive 50 years.

Despite this research and that the people of Northern Ireland clearly favour a Customs Union and Single Market, today Karen Bradley the Secretary of State has said emphatically that Northern Ireland will leave the Customs Union. Ireland and the UK entered the EEC on the same day and before that had trade agreements in common. Leaving is breaking a long history, even though there was a border for security reasons that was economically open. Closing that to come to some new agreement affects businesses, workers, families, health and so much more.

The people of Northern Ireland do not forget how Northern Ireland's economy struggled most under the Tories in the 80s and 90s. The same party now is taking advise from the DUP who are short sighted about how Brexit will affect Northern Ireland. The failed to win the argument here but are using the same argument to convince the Conservatives in Westminster that the people of Northern Ireland will not suffer.

Sammy Wilson may as a substitute teacher have taken me for one term of A'Level economics but since then my degree looked at the EU and the costs and benefits of being in and out at the time with the newly economically emerging Eastern European Economies. Back then I said that by size Russia, Ukraine and possibly Belarus could survive outside of the EU on an economies of scale level but the others would probably over time all look to align with the EU. The same in reverse applies to the UK today, we don't have the economy of scale in much industry to be a world player that people will give favourable terms to.

Today was a day of warning to the Tories and DUP but they are ignoring those warnings. In light of this today my personal vote on any Irish border poll will be for unification.

The Impossibility of the Prime Minster's Answers #Brexit #NorthernIreland

Today the Answers given to some of the Prime Minister's Questions did not seem to be logical however they do cast some idea of the shape that Brexit will take.

Basically Jeremy Corbyn, Ian Blackford, David Simpson, Michael Tomlinson Gregory Campbell, Kenneth Clarke and Simon Hoare asked her in various forms about Northern Ireland, Brexit and the Good Friday Agreement.

From the answers we received today we have learnt the following:

1. She is committed to the Good Friday Agreement
2. She is committed to devolution in all parts of the UK
3. She does not want to see a hard border on the island of Island
4. She does not want to see a customs and regulatory border down the Irish Sea
5. She does not want to undermine the UK common market

A lot of this was in relation to the draft proposal to keep Northern Ireland in the customs union and single market. If as Boris said yesterday it would be possible to control the NI border as easily as between Camden and Islington this would be that easy peasy lemon squeezy option. As there would therefore not be that much of a border on that land border and it could be dealt with in a electronic way.

The problem is that you have the Good Friday Agreement that almost 20 years ago was the settled will of the majority of people North and South in Ireland. A lot of that functionality was based on there not being anything different between the two parts. I mean we were both in the largest trading bloc in the world and surely we wouldn't be foolish enough to throw that into jeopardy for the uncertainly of negotiating with the rest of the world including the rest of the EU. 

Now you are trying to make a frictionless border, but in the words used today the UK clearly wants to divert from the requirements of the customs union and single market as to apply this merely to NI would "undermine the UK common market and threaten the constitutional integrity of the UK".

But surely having devolved powers, which have also been recently promised to be increased post-Brexit, means there is already certain differences between the powers. Scotland has only recently used its tax varying power. The DUP are adamant that on certain areas Northern Ireland should be able to make their own decisions (if only someone was actually sitting in the Assembly able to do so). So how can something affecting one part of the UK therefore threaten the UK common market?

Maybe we have seen something about the post-Brexit situation. May's government wants to move away from the regulations that tie us into the customs union and single market. Some of those regulations are so that we produce compatible products that we can then sell to our largest and closest overseas (or in the case of Ireland down the road) markets. Can the plans really be that radical that it will undermine the UK market if NI remained.

Wow!

Has the PM let the cat out of the bag. Will international business pick up on that. What about British business that exports a large proportion. This does not sound like a great economic promise to them of frictionless trade with the EU.

How is it going to be possible to meet all the objections that the PM has clearly outlined multiple times today? From what she has said today it seems impossible. The UK government clearly has no plan for how to deal with the Irish problem after 20 years of having an answer after centuries of not we look like we are being sacrificed once more.  

Investment Opportunity: My post-Brexit Business Plan

Listening to Boris this morning I have come up with a business plan that will work with the comparability of Brexit with the congestion charge. It my own solution to the obvious issues of the Irish problem afterwards.

I shall set up four Boris Bike Hire Shops. A pair in Newry and Dundalk with the other pair in Derry and Muff. This will allow people to get the train from Belfast either North or South and get off at the station hire a bike and cycle across the border to avoid the congestion charge.

This will be a highly profitable outcome post Brexit and I need to get negotiations the two Foreign Secretaries in the International Trade Ministers soon to get the franchise.

Brexit is no Congestion Charge Boris

On the Today programme this morning Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson tried to compare being outside the EU with being part of different London Boroughs.

Firstly it was clear from his choice of boroughs Camden, Islington and Westminster that Boris has never lived south of the river and had to awkwardness of trying to get a black cab home. When drivers refuse to carry passengers "Sarf of the River". Although I did love the loophole I found of asking a driver to take me to Hampton Wick (North of the River) I could guarantee that the driver would come over Putney Bridge (to go south of the River) and head towards Kingston Bridge but I would ask to get out in Kingston near a taxi rank  to make it home.

Of course the connection Boris was making was about a frictionless congestion charge zone in a built up area to a border through often rural areas. Of course on that rural boundary it will not just be the vehicles crossing it that will need to be looked at but also what they are carrying. Boris after all is one of those advocating that when we leave the EU we also leave the customs union. So he is looking at a rural border where arms have been smuggled in the past as being controllable in the same way that London can read the number plates of every cars that has to go along a defined road in an urban environment.

Maybe Boris is looking at his other great enthusiasm the Olympics and will have a fleet of drones like at the PyeongChang opening ceremony patrolling the border to record every vehicle, person, cow and sheep that crosses the border between the roads.

Also while I joke about the Thames being a border in London in Belfast or Londonderry/Derry there are borders between communities. Belfast has its Peace Walls and the River Foyle is largely a divide with the West bank being predominantly Roman Catholic and nationalist and the East bank being largely Protestant and unionist. So Boris before you dare to compare London to the Irish situation look at a bit more history and present day rather just wiff waff on.

In conclusion to even attempt to compare the London Congestion Charge to Brexit is belittling the issues that the UK as a whole faces, but to seem to wipe out the Border issue in this way even more so. The fact that these comments came from the Foreign Secretary gives me no confidence that Britain's future post Brexit is in safe hands.

Junior makes his own Irish land grab

Yesterday's debate in the House of Commons makes interesting reading at one point:

"Like the hon. Gentleman, who is also a great Unionist committed to the Union, I believe that the same benefits should flow whether in the north of England or the northern part of Ulster. [Interruption.] That includes Donegal; we will get it back into the Union at some point soon."

For these are the words of Ian Paisley in response to an intervention from David Anderson the Labour MP for Blaydon. Anderson has referred to the North of Ireland and it appears that Paisley was pedantically pulling him up that the most Northern point of Ireland is not the off shore part of his North Antrim constituency, Rathlin, but is Malin Head in Donegal.

But he has gone beyond pointing out that fact as has asserted that Donegal will be back in the Union soon. Now Paisley's party the DUP have recently been telling Sinn Féin there colleagues in the Northern Ireland Assembly that there will be no need in the near future for a border poll regarding the status of the six counties of Northern Ireland. So how, if there is to be no border poll, can he claim that Donegal will be back in the Union soon?

Is he suggesting a county by county poll? Results could lead to an interesting patch work across Ireland is certain counties vote to come back/stay in the UK and others vote to leave or remain in the Republic of Ireland.

Or his he going to launch a military strike on some part of another EU member?

Electorally in the last general election it doesn't look like the voters of Donegal are Unionists. Of the six Teachta Dálas elected two were from Sinn Féin one in each seat* and the independent elected for Donegal South West was previously a Sinn Féin councillor.

Now my family has direct roots in Donegal and indeed the neighbouring  county Londonderry. There would be uproar if both of those counties were no longer border regions. The people of Derry couldn't buy their cheap petrol in Euros just over the border an the people of Donegal couldn't buy cheap electronics etc in The Foyleside shopping centre in Derry City.

So just how is Ian Paisley junior planning to get Donegal back into the Union soon?

The answer my friends is simple.

In his (and only his) dreams.

* Indeed in both seats electing under STV Sinn Féin topped the poll. In Donegal North East it was enough to be elected on the first count, in SouthWest it left them 202 votes short of quota.