Boris Johnson, the freshly installed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, has announced that Julian Smith is to become his new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the de facto governor general of the UK’s colonial holdout on this side of the Irish Sea. So the British administration in the Six Counties is moving on from the gormless English politician Karen Bradley, who claimed that the civilian deaths inflicted by Britain’s military and paramilitary forces during the era of the Troubles were “not crimes”, to an English MP with a rather better reputation in London.
Smith was appointed as the Chief Whip of the House of Commons by Theresa May in 2017 and subsequently helped coordinate the government’s Westminster alliance with the Democratic Unionist Party, boasting that he was working with the hard-right grouping to “…ensure that Northern Ireland will never be separated from U.K as we leave EU“. This was emphasised during his star attendance and speech at the DUP’s party conference in November 2017, followed up by repeated assuaging of the DUP’s exorbitant demands including more recent negotiations to maintain its wayward parliamentary support.
As an indicator of Boris Johnson’s thinking on the potentially fatal consequences for the Irish-British peace process if a no-deal or hardline Brexit becomes policy in London, appointing a sympathetic ear for the Democratic Unionists to the supposedly neutral office of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is a worrying sign. If peace comes dropping slow, so does war.
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
Hopefully his first assignment will be to scrap the current baying for abortion reform as pleaded for by our so called Republican Party shame Féin. Mary Lou, the turn coat , and her side kick Michelle will have to return to the mainland ,cap in hand to beg for some more scraps from the masters table.
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Genuflect to the queen and wear the poppy? Then, oh my, we are losing the republican vote – I wonder why? Time to assemble the pikes at the spot by the river well known to you and me….agus feisihg leat, meirican mor.
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feisigh, of course, in anticipation of the litany to follow…
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Lathair tinn?
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Cinnte!
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the days of that old guff are long gone along with the catholic church or whatever crazy cult
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What has the Catholic Church got to do with anything, or are you a new paisley who sees all evil coming from Rome?. He’s not gone away you know. I just don’t believe that murdering the heirs of Eire is the answer to anything. I don’t believe abortion is what bobby sands and his comrades died for. I don’t believe it is what thousands of Irish men and women died for in their struggle for Irish freedom. If this is the price of Irish freedom you can keep it. And as ar an sliabh said feisigh.
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Given this new Cabinet, did we really expect a SOS who wasn’t friends with the DUP?
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True, but one so nakedly in the DUP camp? This is going to be very messy.
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The ending of NI always had the potential to be messy. Another 6 years would have been preferable to maximise the aging out of Unionist terrorists from the Troubles before running the border poll, but Brexit has derailed that peaceful transition.
I was personally hoping a DUP MP would be appointed SoS, this is almost as good. There cannot be any meaningful Stormont resurrection talks chaired by this SoS, and the DUP will not allow anyone else to chair. Stalemate where Unionism desperately needs a functioning Assembly to validate the existence of the colony.
DUP will be under no pressure to compromise on anything or support an ILA, further alienating the demographic tide of young Nationalists sweeping into voting age. When Unionism desperately needs to compromise to hope to fend off the inevitable demographic tide.
DUP will be further emboldened to act out the “crocodiles” & “curry my yoghurt” triumphalism that alienates Nationalism and moderate Unionists.
This SoS forks the so called “agnostic on the border” APNI, makes it so much harder to walk the line between U & N. They are going to have to critique the SoS and risk losing U voters, or not and risk losing N voters.
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That’s very true, there’s a dilemma there for APNI. Not sure they can bridge it. And you’re absolutely right, this guy isn’t exactly tailor made to get talks back up and running.
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were you really hoping for Doddsy as SoS? I was expecting Scottish Orangeman supporter Gove!
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Neither being great alternatives!
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NI would be too much of a step down for Gove & Dodds is far too canny to ever fly too close to the sun – compare the Robinsons’ fate to the Dodds, both families running the exact same income maximizing strategies.
I would have preferred the DUP’s price for continuing to support the Tories be the SoS as it plays into our hands, rather than something else that may not.
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Hard line Unionism is now reinforced under Prime Minister Johnson.
Under his government they will fight hard to reinforce NI’s place in the UK, with the same policy applying in Scotland.
Back to the future I’m afraid where in Scotland they will roll back the powers of the Scottish Parliament, and where in Ireland they will continue to disregard the GFA and construct a border.
Colonies both and so they shall remain.
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So, the rough beast that is the next Irish war, slouches roughly into place. I can even tell you the date. (Its the day after BREXIT, when Johnstons betrayal is very clearly seen. He does not care in the slightest that he is sentencing us to another war, or the consequences. There are already unionist paramilitary raids going on in the “Badlands” across the border from the North. gangs driving across, raiding banks, etc…..nothing about this of course in the UK media. I think the new Pm is in for a huge shock. His arrogant public schoolboy racism, blinds him to the irish situation. The new IRA are going to note all that is happening, and will happen, and will be making their preparations. The horror, the horror. Nobody has the right to inflict another war on the irish people. I despair.
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Catch yourself on. Have you seen the state of nationalism atm never mind republicanism. Any ‘war’ will be at the behest of mi5 and Whitehall. Any clown that plays into their hands is idiotic or worse…an agent. If the Irish people don’t like the lemons they are being given then they should ignore the civic nationalists such as Seamus Mallon, and demand Irish inification. It’s as good a time as any.
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Johnson’s modus operandi is noise and chaos, because nothing matters to him other than that he’s the centre of attention.
He’s a known con-man who, if he is capable of a coherent political strategy (big if), will be called to upon to pull off a number of tricky sales-pitches, some with the DUP.
Whether this will translate into a war with either Iran or in Ireland remains to be seen.
I’d advise everyone to chill until the middle of September and enjoy the summer because little but noise will be available from Brexitannia until then.
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My first reaction to the accompanying photograph was, “Would you buy a used car from any of these gentlemen?”
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The only treaty the Brits ever kept was the Treaty of Waitangi a treaty first signed on 6 February 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and Māori chiefs that handed New Zealand over to them, every other single treaty signed by the UK in any part of the world was broken,Examples, American war of 1812, Ireland 1922 border boundary, now Brexit. The myth of the word of a British gentleman was just that, a myth created by the English.
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