Brits and bad neighbours

Last night in Westminster there was a graduation party for a rogue state.

It is now out in the open what of people in the ex-colonies have known for generations:

Perfidious Albion cannot be trusted.

They had started the process of enacting into law the Internal Market Bill.

If it passes through to Royal Ascent as initially drafted, then it will, by the admission of the British Government, break international law.

What this means in practice is that there is a very real prospect of a hard border on the island of Ireland.

Of course, the deal that the Brits agreed and signed last December included the “Northern Ireland Protocol” which dealt with this peace threatening problem.

Now, they’re unilaterally tearing up that agreement.

Here in Donegal, the finest compliment you can pay anyone is “sure; I’d have him for a neighbour”.

The spirit of the Meitheal is still strong in my corner of Dún na nGall.

For the avoidance of doubt, the Brits are bad neighbours.

Given the fact that many of my readers are in Britain then a note on terminology is probably apposite at this point:

When Irish people talk about “the Brits” we are deploying that term as a collective description of the British State and the British ruling class.

Of course, there are poor people in Britain who ideologically ally themselves with the interests of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and his Bullingdon chums.

Publicly associating with the machinations and crimes of the British state apparently gives some ersatz meaning to their bleak lives.

For the avoidance of doubt, they are in dire need of a therapeutic intervention.

The entire Brexit shitshow has turned the UK into the Sevco of Europe, and this embarrassing shambles is about to hit the financial buffers.

When the Brits collide with the brick wall of reality, their neighbours and trading partners will also suffer collateral damage.

However, it will be entirely self-inflicted, and the UK economy will suffer the most.

This might sound familiar…

Despite the embarrassing performance of Boris last night, he chaps in Westminster are not bumbling along without a plan.

They have their eye on a very dodgy prize.

A hard Brexit would allow the London city-state to become a Singapore-on-Thames, a dark star sucking in dark money from the global financial markets.

If you want a footie equivalent, then think of a newly formed football club who had a seed corn investor who was on the Interpol most wanted list.

Of course, that couldn’t possibly happen.

In the end, all analogies fail.

However,  I think that “the Sevco of Europe” is a rather apposite one for the Ukania that Boris and Cummins are planning to create.

This was top class trolling of the Brits by the Irish Embassy in the States.

Maith thú!

Of course, there is no such thing as a Scottish embassy in DC.

Regional assemblies are not afforded those diplomatic rights.

I’m reliably informed by sage observers in Scotland that the SNP will win big in the Holyrood elections next year.

They will then have a strong democratic mandate to hold a second independence referendum.

However, they will have to ask Westminster for permission to do so.

My Scottish buddies tell me that  First Minister Sturgeon is keen to avoid a Catalonia situation.

That saw the Spanish state use violence against voters and imprison democratically elected leaders.

So far the Madrid state still rejects the legitimately expressed will of the Catalonian people.

However, the global village knows that the leaders of that stateless nation are serious.

It is hard to imagine a similar situation unfolding in Scotland.

I have discussed the Scottish situation recently with an old friend who is an SNP stalwart.

Indeed, he is fond of saying that he has been in the party longer than Ms Sturgeon has been on the planet!

I told him that I was going to write this piece on the back of the iScot interview with Kenny MacAskill.

He thought about the entire Westminster, Section 30 conundrum and said in a reflective moment:

“You know I wonder just how many of the SNP folk down there privately love being MPs and wouldn’t want to give it up. The status, the perks, all of it.”

Meanwhile, many people in Fair Caledonia are looking on in embarrassed horror at this shitshow that is happening in their name.

Given the parliamentary arithmetic, their putative representatives can only make niece speeches.

It is impotence as performance art.

As I had recently observed if the SNP MPs turn up there swear the oath to the Saxe Coburg crime crew and take the substantial salary, then they are bought and paid for.

Moreover, by taking part in the degradation ceremony, they are investing legitimacy in the Westminster legislature to rule over Alba.

It is the same for the North East of this country.

Colm Eastwood of the SDLP gave a very nice speech last night about the threat of the Internal Market Bill to the Peace Process.

It was, in fairness,  an awfully nice speech.

Then he sat down.

For the avoidance of doubt, he’s not just on the backbenches; he’s at the back of the bus.

When I watched his speech last night, I thought of my SNP friend and his thoughts on the seductiveness of ” The status, the perks, all of it”.

Unlike Fair Caledonia, the people of the Six Counties have a legally binding escape route out of that failed state.

Back in 2017, it was agreed in the European Union that the day after a unity referendum in Northern Ireland that part of the ancient province of Ulster would automatically be within an EU member state.

Unsurprisingly more and more folk from a unionist background there are starting to think the previously unthinkable.

If the Internal Market Bill is signed into law without any major amendments, then all bets are off with the Brits.

The only feasible long-term way to avoid a hard border here is for the people of the Six Counties to “Think 32”.

Voters in Scotland have their own programme.