Thread by @LiamTheBrewer

Thread.
#ireland #brexi

Having spent an hour tring to explain what's happening here to a #Brexit person in #England I'm now convinced that we are in serious trouble /1

#ireland #gfa

I don't believe that most people who voted leave have any malign intent towards us. I'm not a fan of the EU myself. Still less do I think its an England/Ireland thing, I was born in England, I was schooled there & my partner is English /2

But there is a yawning gap of comprehension about the troubles & what it took to stop it. /3

For people in Britain the Good Friday Agreement was a news event that happened 21 years ago. For us it is the framework upon which our daily life is built & it is the cornerstone of our children's future. /3

The first generation of people graduating from college here without experience of the troubles is a national event for us, a defining generational boundary. In Britain it is not marked, or even remembered. /4

I remember going to vote for the GFA, it was the most important decision I have made, or will ever make in a democratic exercise in my life. That decision defines me. Voting to end our nation's claim to the territory on this island hurt. /5

It hurt because I felt the weight of every person who went before me on my shoulder,. Their struggles, their pain, what they were put through simply for being who they were. I was voting away their birthrigh, not just my own. /6

But I thought about a child born into a unionist or nationalist family in the north that year. Are they my enemy? What life will they have? How can I as someone who claims to be a Christian deny them peace, security, love & happiness? /7

I decided that I loved a child being born into a unionist family in the north, who I may never meet, at least as much, if not more, than I loved my own heritage, my own aspirations for my country's future or perhaps even myself /8

That child, whoever they are, may have graduated this year. They have never known the troubles we knew except by report. The world they grew up in was, microscopically, built by me and millions of others like me. /9

Nothing I did before, and nothing I will ever do can ever match that single act of compassion and love for every person who lives on this island and deserves to live in peace. /10

I thought, as we all did, say 5 years ago, that this was how things were going to be for the rest of our lives. The ancient struggles of identity and land accommodated in a fudge that everyone here could just abut live with /11

But today I tried to explain the above to a Brexit person from England. Instead of listening, trying to understand or trying to accept that they may not be fully cognisant of the situation here, its complexity, the trauma of it with some measure of empathy /12

I was met with accusations of an EU plot, a conspiracy within An Rialtas to stop Britain leaving the EU & a variety of threats about Irish beef farmers & the destruction of the Irish economy. The phrase 'tail wagging the dog' was regurgitated. /13

So i believe that for us the Good Friday Agreement is a framework around which our daily lives are built, it is the cornersone of our children's future, it is a beacon that leads us from darkness into light. /14

But for many in Britain it is simply a half-remembered news event from 21 years ago. It is not part of their social/cultural/historical DNA. So while it may be regarded in a vague way as 'a good thing' it does not have the profound resonance it does here. /15

That yawning gap of understanding defines our different responses to it. People in Britain do not understand the meaning of the GFA generation. It is that generation who are in power in Dublin. /16

But the problem is that Brexit has altered British politics. Go on any leave/remain thread. Look at the accusations of betrayal & treachery. We have been embroiled in it against our will. /17

We, our government, our country are now impediments to Brexit. We are not a sovereign state, we are not a polity, we are simply on the wrong side in an English civil war. It was ever thus. /18

The ferocity of the abuse, accusations of plotting against Britain, calls for us to dissolve our country and join the UK, personalisation of the issue onto Varadkar & threats against our economy took me aback ./19

But the most profoundly depressing thing was the complete lack of empathy, the utter disregard for the welfare of people in NI, from whichever community .. / 20

... and the almost sociopathic demands that everything in our personal lives and national life be re-ordered to accommodate the irrational & conflicting demands of angry, incoherent English nationalism. /21

I was born in England, my partner is English, but I struggle to reconcile the demented demands of the current political class in England against the place I remember /22

Ireland did not create #Brexit. Ireland struggled to mitigate its effects by proposing the NI-only backstop. Britain demanded the UK-wide backstop. Britain rejected both versions of the backstop after agreeing to them. /23

There is no other way to accommodate Britain's legion and conflicting demands. Most people in Northern Ireland support the backstop.

We cannot & will not give in to any more threats or bribes from Britain. And shame on them for putting us in this position /ENDS

#ireland #Brexit