As I asked in a previous article, is there any depth to which the British supporters of Brexit will not sink in order to secure the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union? Fake news and fake claims have become the default setting for the Leave lobby in the UK, which is prepared to risk anything and everything in order to secure the country’s retreat into xenophobic isolationism. Including destroying two decades of relative peace in Britain’s contested territory on the island of Ireland. From The Times newspaper in London:
Nigel Farage has claimed that Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, “would like the IRA to become active again”.
The former Ukip leader also accuses the former French foreign minister of “almost encouraging Republican terrorism”…
This knowing falsehood is not a new strategy by the Brexiteers. It is a long-standing and purposefully created conspiracy theory. One which was lent a degree of respectability by our own press when the Irish Times published an opinion piece from two anti-EU academics in Britain who had previously suggested a military response to any EU “recruited” opposition to a Brexit-imposed “hard border” around the UK occupied Six Counties:
Behind the intransigence of Michel Barnier and Leo Varadkar we find potential threats from diehard republican grouplets, effectively recruited as the armed wing of the European Union. In London, we find a British political class that has been willing to send its armies on bloody adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, but is unwilling to face down even the slightest hint of violence closer to home…
As far as one can see, the only politicians in Europe predicting or threatening violence if the UK fails to leave the EU under the extortionate terms the UK demands are the Brexit extremists in the faction-ridden Conservative Party, the far-right Democratic Unionist Party and the ultra-nationalist United Kingdom Independence Party. And they are quite open about it, with the propagandist Express newspaper in Britain eager to support their campaign of intimidation:
Sir Gerald Howarth, the Tory MP for Aldershot since 1997 has said any plans to hold back the will of the majority by going by preventing triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty could be met by angry opposition on British streets.
“There will be a real anger across the country if unelected peers seek to do that. The risk is very angry protests that could lead to violence.”
Previously Stephen Raven, a Ukip borough councillor in Boston, the town which recorded the UK’s biggest Brexit vote, warned if Leave was blocked: “Eventually we are going to have a civil riot. That’s my honest opinion. You have got 17 million people [who voted Brexit] who are not going to be very happy at all if the decision gets overturned.
“If Brexit doesn’t go ahead, you are going to get civil uproar. It’s not a word I use lightly, but there is going to be a revolution. There will be a revolution.”
Increasingly, the United Kingdom looks like a swaggering street bully, looming over its neighbour, Ireland, and commenting, “Nice peace process there, mate. Pity if it got broken…“
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
Explained Irish history to a Russian academic, he asked me “So you tried political methods to free Ireland ?
so using armed struggle did work., the political struggle was just wallpaper then “
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Well far be it for me to defend Farage, but it was the remain side that that has suggested that the GFA etc etc could be threatened if there’s a brexit. And the EU Chiefs have agreed with them more or less. So if somehow some militant group started a bit of bombing and shooting do you not think the pro euro cheerleaders would use that as further evidence as to how bad a decision it was to vote brexit? If you don’t you are deluded.
Btw, seeing as this brexit decision has pushed talk of Irish unification onto the top table, should one not be hoping and encouraging brexit to happen? For as sure as night follows day, all the talk of unification will evaporate like a fart in the wind if brexit is,imho, inevitably reversed.
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Up to a point, if there’s no means of actually leveraging the situation towards unification – and a hard Brexit would seem to me to lock NI into the UK for at least a generation, then for all the positivity of the unity case being made more forcefully it may only have cosmetic impact (indeed arguably it might be more likely in the context of a soft Brexit which allows for continuing links to the EU).
But there’s a bit of a contradiction here, because some on the No side in the UK have raised the spectre of civil unrest in the event of a new referendum or a remain (neither of which I personally would support even taking into account the sense that the original referendum was flawed – I’m in favour of a soft Brexit, but believe that the referendum does have democratic legitimacy for that option rather than either remain or a hard Brexit). Yet they dismiss the idea of civil unrest in the North in the context of a polity where a majority voted for remain.
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If folk don’t like that they are being dragged out of the EU or being ‘dictated to by London’ etc etc then those folk should do something about it. I.e demand unification. Problem solved. Reversing brexit will put the genie back in the bottle and Irish unity will be declared just another ‘pipe dream’ by the status quo people.
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Unification does not depend solely on Brexit. Sure, it helps, but NI is an economic basket case and Unification is the only way to sort that. Plus the demographics of NI are leading inevitably to unification. It’s inevitable.
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Yes indeed, for all those passionate for a United Ireland the words of the day might be, ’carpe opportunitas.’
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one more for the series “England’s difficulty is ireland’s opportunity!
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As an Irish republican I cannot get my head around people attacking Brexit as xenophobia. People here in Ireland have fought for hundreds of years for the Irish people to be independent and the EU and Irish government wants to flood the country with foreigners, which if Project 2040 succeeds will effectively wipe out the Irish race. You can’t be independent if you are subject to the EU. If Britain wants independence let them. It’s about time Ireland got its independence…and I’m not just refering to reunification
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Don’t see any comments made that say “there WILL be revolution. It said
there Could be . Different meaning altogether . Same as when project fear say there COULD’ be food price rises. There COULD be medicine shortage. We COULD fall off the precipice.EFC ETC THEYNever say “WILL BE . “So if you want ti convince people to agree with you ? have conviction in what you say .
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OK – there WILL be food price rises and medicine shortages, and we Will fall off a precipice. Plus, if J. Reece-Mogg gets his way, you WILL have personal inspections on the border.
“There would be our ability, as we had during the Troubles, to have people inspected,” said the leading hard Brexiteer
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The author of this article uses the very same natrative and choice of words that the UK Remoaners and EU unelected bureaucrats employ to label anyone who advocates the idea of a single State democracy rather than blindly relinquish control of one’s country to the dictates of the undemocratic EU institutions who are funded and controlled to a very large extent by George Soros.
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I think one can oppose European federalism, and personally I would be uncomfortable with the EU moving much more towards centralisation, while still supporting the basic idea of a European Union. A commonwealth of sovereign nation-states. This is how the vast majority of Europeans view the EU. Genuine federalists are few and far between, and those that are, in France or Germany, are usually federalist for their own national interests. Macron, for instance, clearly wishes to see France take the lead in a more centralised and concentric Europe. Not out of wish-washy notions of European federalism with equality but because he wants Paris in the driving seat of such an arrangement.
As for Soros: don’t believe the hype!
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