Judging by the more informed speculation in the Irish and international press it seems that after two years of prevaricating the United Kingdom is now prepared to offer a “compromise” Withdrawal Agreement between the UK and the European Union so close to the original as to be almost identical. Indeed, the rumoured proposals discussed by the British premier Boris Johnson and Leo Varadkar apparently take us back to the end of 2017 and the agreement reached by Theresa May with her European counterparts and promptly scuppered by the Democratic Unionist Party and its hard-right allies in Westminster because the remit of the Backstop Protocol was confined to the north of Ireland only. London subsequently requested a change to the stalled treaty so that it could apply to the UK as a whole and now May’s successor is in the process of asking for a return to a slightly tweaked version of the Six Counties-only backstop. It is a bizarre situation but such is the nature of contemporary British politics.
Meanwhile the DUP is moving from a period of uncharacteristic silence in the face of media speculation to murmurs of unease at the rumoured plans being put forward by their erstwhile parliamentary allies in Westminster. Not unrelated to this is the sudden reappearance of threats of violence by pro-UK terror groups – or “paramilitaries” as the British press prefers to call them in contrast to Irish “terrorists” – should a compromise deal be reached between the UK and the EU. Which brings to mind the attempts to revive the peace-brokered regional administration in Belfast during early 2018, which fell apart after the blunt intervention of loyalist terror bosses in concert with the extremist core of the DUP, humiliating the then Conservative Party premier in London, Theresa May, who had staked much of her dwindling political capital on reestablishing Stormont. Which makes one wonder what sort of Brexiteer-unionist electoral front might emerge should a UK general election take place in the coming weeks, as predicted.
Meanwhile the people of Ireland remain as observers as the Brexit madness continues to twist and contort the politics and culture of Britain. As Bill Neely, the Antrim-born correspondent for NBC News in the United States, notes:
Brexit conjures up old fears in Ireland of an English ruling class that will happily sacrifice the Irish on the altar of its own nationalist ambitions.
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
The sad fact is the UDA/UFV still has plenty of the South African guns they got courtesy of MI5 back in the end of the ’80s and early ’90s…
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Here are episodes 4 and 5 of the BBC Hidden troubles series, discussing Ulster Resistance and the South African gun-running.
https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2019/10/12/uk-licence-to-kill-a-secret-history-of-the-troubles-episodes-4-and-5/
Unfortunately for the UDA/UVF it’s no longer 1912 or even the 1980s.The UK no longer has free rein to rampage around, colluding with Loyalist paramilitaries
Since NI is no longer the most industrialised and prosperous part of ireland, the Orange Card seems to be the deuce of Spades rather than the Ace of Diamonds.
The Brits hardly consider Loyalists as the Ace of Hearts
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I’m not surprised Johnson is talking about this deal agreement-labelled as a compromise to save face.
It seems likely to be that some of the hard Brexiteers might have believed The EU would “cave in” at the last minute. Now they’ve finally realized they were wrong, and they are trying to accept the deal in a way that let’s them save face.
The good news is that this could mean there IS some corrective element here and The Brexiteers might not be crazy enough to run their country off a cliff after all.
Much of what looked like the mentality of The Jonestown leadership (willingness to force national suicide on everyone) might have just been a giant bluff all along.
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RHI report is apparently set to be released in November. Curious to see if the Tories use it as leverage to keep the DUP onside or if it is released before the election.
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If there is a deal, then one would suspect that it is the same one that Theresa Mays officials negotiated with the EU before it was then rejected by the Westminster parliament.
It is difficult to imagine that the EU will have caved in to the mighty British and their imperial rightfulness to dictate how it will be. Any withdrawal from the EU will however be a retrograde step, at least for the occupants of “ mainland “ Britain. Eternally dominated by a right wing Conservative Government the outlook for the serfs look increasingly bleak.
With ‘ foreigners ‘ already subject to the hostile environment one can only imagine how more pleasant it will be for those deserving of the treatment.
And who will these foreigners be, and who will decide their fate to have, before possible incarceration and ultimate removal, their access to banking, housing and healthcare closed down,
( Barclaycard just wrote to me yesterday to advise me that they were universally revising my terms and conditions so that they could close down my account and require immediate repayment if the Home Office were to tell them that I’d become a ‘ disqualified person ‘ with that following an incident a couple of years ago when changing GP practices the health centre told me that unless I agreed to my data being shared with the Home Office, the Border Agency, HMRC and another bunch of quasi governmental bodies that I would be denied health care – end of story)
I don’t think the Irish will be the first in the line for the gold star and the hostile treatment. But out of the EU, to whatever extent, it ain’t going to get any better, at least over here.
But maybe, maybe just it may be that ASF’s corner of the island of Ireland might be moving towards a United Ireland. But again that depends on how the UK manage their proxy paramilitaries and their political leaders.
Ah well the Irish knew how to be peasant in their own land, as did the Scots who similarly were subject to the policies. Under Johnson and his ilk and ilk to come, 21st century serfdom is already returning to great swathes of England with an apparatus of control that 1930s Germany would have been proud of.
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A 32 Ireland 🇮🇪 is the only way out give back to the Irish ☘️ what’s is belong to them all of Ireland to the Irish ppl in a nut shell what do englnad want it for anyway Ireland never did nothing to them only them to Ireland back in the day the name is Ireland 🇮🇪 not englnad here thanks for letting me have my say yours dermot walsh
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Well said Dermot Walsh !
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Don’t worry about the UVF, they are so inept they had to get An Garda Siochana/Geisha Sayonara to collude in the Eddie Fullerton assassination.
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All the talk of the Irish border. There is no Irish border, only an English border in Ireland, imposed on behalf of protestants in the north of Ireland and these so called Christian protestants misruled the north with a sectarian hand. No jobs, housing or vote for nationalists. They have brought this on themselves. If they had only played fair with the Catholics, Republicans, Nationalist, but no, their hatred of their fellow country men was and still deep in their hearts & blood.
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