Sir, – Every day of the week we read and hear about complex, vigorous “negotiations” taking place between the Irish and British governments regarding Brexit. It is like watching two people “negotiating” the price of a house being sold by someone else.
It is a farce designed to persuade the Irish people that “something is being done”. A kind of pantomime horse clopping back and forth upon the political stage to create a reassuring impression of influence and activity.
The decisions on Brexit will be made in Brussels by the major EU members. Everything else is a sideshow. If anything, the Irish Border issue is being used to wind down the clock until Theresa May gets told “There’s your dinner, eat it or go hungry”.
Many times over the past 300 years “Britain’s difficulty has been Ireland’s opportunity”. But Brexit is a disaster for Britain and a disaster for Ireland. Long after the exit treaties and terms of trade are written and decided, the DUP will have to answer to the farmers, businesses and people of Northern Ireland for the destructive, jingoistic, “cut off my nose to spite my face” approach it has taken to Brexit.
If the British government has a grain of sense , it will put the question to their people afresh – for the simple reason that their people were so obviously duped and misled by the false assurances and misinformation peddled by the likes of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove to procure their votes.
Ireland (North and South) is like the story about the two fellows at sea in a small boat. The boat springs a leak and one fellow starts bailing out the water as fast as he can with a bucket. The other fellow sits there with his arms folded. The fellow with the bucket says, “What are you doing just sitting there, we’re sinking?” The man with the arms folded says, “Ah well now, ’tis not my boat”.
The DUP has its arms folded. Its people will in due course be asking why the boat sank. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL DEASY,
Carrigart,
Co Donegal.