A Tentative Brits Out Response To Brexit From Official Ireland?

Here’s something I thought I’d never see in my lifetime. Former Labour Party spin-doctor-in-chief Fergus Finlay expressing the frustration and disappointment felt by the Irish political class towards their British peers in the aftermath of last year’s Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom. From a recent opinion piece in the Irish Examiner:

Sooner or later, in these negotiations, someone is going to mention the unmentionable. The British have decided to leave the EU. They’re pretending they can do so without creating a new border between them and the EU, and that that border will have to be situated in their neighbouring island.

That won’t work, and it can’t work. What needs to be said — and I’m surprised to hear myself saying this — is that in deciding to leave the EU, Britain has effectively decided that it is not possible to sustain the union between Northern Ireland and what it likes to call the mainland.

In short, the only logical solution to the issue of borders is for Britain to declare that it will, over time, withdraw from Northern Ireland. That, and that alone, would enable Britain to locate its border with the EU wherever it wants to, without doing untold damage to its nearest neighbour.

So, does that mean tiochfaidh ár lá? I don’t know, and it’s not from that perspective I’m saying it. But…

In voting for Brexit, they effectively voted to leave Ireland. There is no other way forward.

Nothing like a lover scorned, hey?

Meanwhile, in the Irish Independent:

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin has accused Sinn Fein of preventing the people of Northern Ireland from having a voice in the Brexit negotiations.

I think Martin will find that Fianna Fáil is one the national parties preventing the people of the north having a voice in Ireland’s Brexit negotiations with the UK. If he wants to prove otherwise then let FF organise and stand for elections in the north-east of our shared island nation.