Meanwhile in the “Crimea-of-the-West” militants from the British separatist minority in the north-east of Ireland have staged another of their weekly demonstrations at the so-called Twaddle Twaddell Protest Camp in the city of Belfast. Several marching-bands carrying British military and terrorist banners gathered on the Crumlin Road to take part in a parade headed by military-style jeeps driven by militants wearing masks and British-issue combat uniforms. Amongst the marchers were bands from the Orange Order, a once-powerful British and Protestant fundamentalist organisation associated with sectarian and racist views. Accompanied by calls for weapons to be produced or displayed the gathering moved up to the line of officers from the PSNI, the British paramilitary police force in the north of Ireland, where they were halted. Despite the conspicuous presence of paramilitary uniforms, masks and flags, all of which are illegal in the north-east of the country, no effort was made by the PSNI to detain or arrest any of the participants. Though several prominent politicians from the British Unionist minority have attended demonstrations in the past none were present last night, the role falling to members of more extreme Unionist parties like the PUP whose leader, Billy Hutchinson, recently claimed in a newspaper interview that his participation in the murders of two “Catholic” civilians in the 1970s helped prevent the reunification of Ireland.
So ends another night in Britain’s micro-colony on the edge of north-western Europe. Vladimir Putin couldn’t have done any better.
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
So, the comic opera, neo-banana-republic/Ruritania hybrid Northern Statelet trundles sadly onwards.The old saying of history repeating itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as (Black) comedy, is still holding true. The only good thing about the present “Statelet” is the way it forced the Loyalist community to more or less behave themselves in public, (most of the time) except for comic-opera incidents like this, when they re-enact the historical relics of their now increasingly frayed and tattered past. Their hegemony has finally been broken, they are clinging to the past for self-comfort, and apart from that, they have to share the administration of the North with the detested Fenians and assorted minor parties from population. For anyone who remembers the North in 1968, they are truly a sad relic of what the were. Moreover, there is one small and inconvenient truth, that now nags at them like a bad tooth. They are no longer the majority community. They are now a minority within the statelet. inexorably, history and the growth of the Nationalist community are marginalizing them in both political power and control of resources. At the next elections, we might well see that Orange nightmare, a Nationalist community first minister. There is absolutely nothing they can do about it. Most of the UK mainland population detest them, are frightened of them, and want them to just go and disappear. History has stranded them. it has aalso left them marooned on an Island where the rest of the population regard them with various degrees of horror and revulsion, or complete indifference. Their present lot is not a happy one. But there is one great gain: The war in the North has been stopped, a political space opened up, and history in the North can move on. That move, inexorably, is to a Scottish style referendum, on reunification. This is now inevitable. Time is not on their side. It might take 20 more years, but it will happen. In the circumstances, intelligent Republicans adapt themselves to the politics of the time. Radical politics, rethink on what kind of Ireland everyone should be living in, and a steady campaign for reunification, are the way forwards. Armed violence is pointless, worse, it is counter-productive. Brains, not bullets, are what count now. Be assured, “Our Day Will Come”…..
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Agree absolutely, Graham. Brains not bullets. Personally I have no problem with a regional legislature and executive in Belfast along with a regional police service courts and specific constitutional protections if it all takes place under the aegis of a reunited Ireland. That includes the British government acting as a legal guarantor for the foreseeable future on behalf of the Unionist minority community. If generosity ensures long term peace, stability and prosperity then any reasonable demands should be met. The future is ours to write 🙂
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Seamas I agree with you. It is the only decent solution. It has taken a 100 years for the Irish nightmare to almost reach the finishing line. It will be 98 years, this Easter, from the date of the rising. We have to think, and think big…we need aa settlement thaat will last at least as long, and evolve into a new kind of Ireland.
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