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With all the chat over about a return to the Troubles in Northern Ireland, it’s easy to assume that the EU has something of a track record as a peacemaker in Europe. It really doesn’t. 1/
There’s little doubt that the EU has been instrumental in promoting ever-closer relationships between member nations, but when the shit hits the fan and the men of violence do their thing, the EU’s record is actually pretty terrible. 2/
Take your pick. Northern Ireland. The Basque Conflict. Georgia. Croatia. Bosnia. Kosovo, Ukraine. Even the military occupation in Cyprus, an EU member state. Europe hasn’t made a decisive intervention to prevent or resolve any single conflict on the European continent. 3/
If violence *were* to erupt in Northern Ireland once again, on past performance you wouldn’t back the EU to prevent it escalating, let alone get the combatants to beat their swords into ploughshares. 4/
If it’s wrong to overstate the EU’s role as a peacekeeper and/or peacemaker, it verges on the wildly irresponsible to identify the NI border as a potential casus belli and actively amplify that narrative to create leverage during the Brexit end game. 6/
The border didn’t trigger the Troubles. They were the product of gross civil rights abuses endured by the largely Catholic nationalist minority. The Good Friday Agreement ended the conflict by resolving those injustices, not the border. The border still exists, enforced or not 7/
The real danger of Brexit is that in using the border as a bargaining chip, we are legitimising the idea of a return to conflict if an agreement falls anywhere short of an open border. And - note to selves - those balaclava wearing bastards require very little encouragement. 8/
The odds on a post-Brexit bomb are already too short. And the likelihood that the EU, or a British govt propped up by the infernal DUP will be able to clear up the mess afterwards are somewhere close to zero. These are bad times and this sort of bullshit only makes them worse. 9/
.@mcbolshy, the EU is apparently mediating some “peaceful ethnic cleansing” between Kosovo and Serbia. What could possibly go wrong?!?
