Post Article 50

Crossing The Line

The very fact that the EU have granted extensions to the March 29th deadline for the UK to leave the European Union just shows how poorly the whole sorry mess has been handled. Theresa May has attempted to conduct a negotiation with the EU and quite probably has done a half decent job. I have not read the whole document, I am not even sure it is available for a pleb like me to read!

However she has never been in a position of strength from which to operate. I have said before that she and her government completely screwed the last general election. She managed to reduce her authority in Parliament. Despite this she tried to carry on as though she had won the landslide she dreamt of. The moment she knew that whatever she negotiated had to go through Parliament she was on notice that she must gain some kind of consensus within parliament before she moved forward. Apparently she did not and now she has a negotiated settlement that appeals to no one. After 2 attempts it is still heavily unpopular and just getting Parliament to keep voting on it  is ridiculous and shameful.

But I predicted this. Theresa May did not have any mandate of any kind to negotiate one way or the other. 

I am going to be be controversial now. I think the time is right to ask Northern Ireland (NI) what it wants to do. 

This idea will anger many on the unionist side however this really is the sticking point for the negotiation. The so called back stop for Northern Ireland represents a de facto annexation of NI by the EU. That, thanks to the Good Friday agreement and others the island of Ireland must remain borderless. 

Therefore, if this agreement is to go ahead, the people of Northern Ireland must be asked if they can accept this, there is a government in Stormont if Sinn Fein would allow it. So there is not necessarily a need to reunite the whole of Ireland if the unionists won't allow it. However if NI were to accept the backstop position it could pave the way for the UK to do what it wants and leave the EU.

After all the referendum result in NI was in favour of staying within the EU.