According to a terse official statement issued yesterday by the government in London, during a series of meetings in Belfast the new British premier Boris Johnson informed the leaders of the main political parties in the north-east of the country that his minority administration remained fully committed to the Good Friday Agreement and the maintenance of the delicately balanced peace process between Ireland and the United Kingdom. The press release claimed that the Conservative Party chief had made clear:
…his belief and commitment in the rigorous impartiality set out in the Belfast-Good Friday Agreement, while at the same time reaffirming his determination to strengthen the Union and Northern Ireland’s place within it.
Which begs the question. How on earth can one be “rigorously impartial” on the constitutional status of the Six Counties while seeking to “strengthen” the disputed region’s constitutional position within the UK? No wonder the representatives of the hardline Democratic Unionist Party emerged from Wednesday’s gathering with a smug look on their faces following an earlier meeting between the DUP boss Arlene Foster and Boris Johnson late on Tuesday evening. It seems that Britain’s Irish policies are once again being decided in the DUP headquarters in Dundela Avenue and not in the British prime minster’s residence in Downing Street.
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
feels like a never ending end game, can feel the hysteria rising in the UK, Scotland is getting ready for a fight, but I worry for the people of Northern Ireland.
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I think folks in NI know the way forward.
More than ever had been the case, the unification of Ireland now looks a real possibility.
Unionism is dying. Folks now know they can live together, work together, prosper together.
The bitter divisive Brexiteers will only bring heartache to an island that has learned to live in peace and without a border.
NI needs to grab the future and move forward as part of a united island and part of the EU.
Partition and division as the minority DUP and their Tory pals would have it would be an absolute disaster. The UK have scores to settle, and they’d turn the clock back in an instant.
Time for change. Let the British start wars elsewhere.
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Nah he’s preparing the inevitable election and border sell out that’s gonna happen pretty soon, just practicing the old age of friends close and enemies closer.
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Once again, ponderously, a strange beast sloughs onwards into irish history, bearing all the ills of the past. Cloearly, it cannot no0w be stopped, unles the irish decide that the only choice left is military violence. I think the fascist idiot Johnson, who knows little about Ireland, and cares less, is in for a horrible surprise….The first small military action have started….but once it becomes clear, what The UK PM intends, it will inevitably explode…..I am watching, with fascinated horror, the UK dropping Ireland into yet another war it does not want, just to keep the Unionist facist clique in the North onside. The disgusting smirk on Arlene’s face said it all. Here we go again…
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And even with the DUP the Tory majority is what… two MPs, and possibly falling by one this very week. Do agree though there’s going to be an election sooner rather than later.
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The BoJo bounce seems to have been less than expected and with the Faragists still polling at levels well above UKIP’s at the last general election he must be fearing a repeat of May’s disastrous election.
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BoJo the Bozo? I have to say the guy explodes every stereotype of a British Prime Minister.
Is there a limit on how many times they can sack the sitting PM and have one of these hinky PM elections where only Ruling Party Members (Tovarishchi?) can vote, before just calling a general election?
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If the SDLP had deigned to lower themselves to an electoral pact with SF in North & South Belfast in the 2017 GE there’d be another GE underway today.
That there isn’t a GE underway perhaps speaks to the bravery of the anti-Johson Tory rebels who only recently were quite loud in their denunciations. Surely one of them is willing to trigger a GE. For the good of the country.
Surely there’s at least one?
Right?
*crickets*
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That’s a great point gendjinn re the 2017 GE. And indeed look at who the SDLP was willing to countenance pacts with in the early to mid 2010s!
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I’d forgotten about that, and you are dead right. Apart from Hume they really are the Stoop Down Lows. The FF linkup fits them perfectly.
I’ve noticed that not a one of those promoting this SF self-immolation for the benefit of their detractors is willing to concede one iota of criticism against the SDLP for their 2017 GE decision. They are 100% focused on criticising/attacking SF. Classic scapegoating. Telling ye, ye gotta read up on NPD/BPD – 21st century politics only makes sense in light of raging NPD – of which scapegoating is one of the primary symptoms.
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In the words of General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett, “If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.”
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Policy Exchange think-tank outlining how a massive infrastructure spending programme alongside a cultural renewal in Britain would help protect against the break-up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The cultural ideas including putting Test cricket back on terrestrial TV, making Remembrance Day a bank holiday and bringing in red, white and blue number plates.
Other ideas include allowing regions to levy a tourist tax that would be ring-fenced for local investment.
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