We will not stand for Ireland being collateral damage to
Johnson’s Brexit BY MARK MULLAN The takeover of the Tory government by hard right Brexiteers led by Boris Johnson has deepened both the Brexit impasse and the difficulties in restoring the Executive and Assembly in the Six Counties. The new regime was only a few days in office when there was talk of full direct rule being imposed in the event of a no-deal Brexit, a development that would fundamentally undermine the Good Friday Agreement. It is the Irish people who will bear the brunt of Johnson’s disastrous Brexit agenda if it is implemented. That is the message which the Sinn Féin leadership delivered to Julian Smith, the new British Secretary of State for the North, when they met him at the end of July. They told Julian Smith that Brexit is not acceptable to the vast majority of people in the North. They voted to Remain and their wishes should be respected not trampled over.
There is no good Brexit for these islands but the ‘no-deal’ crash that Johnson seems to be pursuing will be a catastrophic and unforgivable act of political vandalism There is no good Brexit for these islands but the ‘nodeal’ crash that Johnson seems to be pursuing will be a catastrophic and unforgivable act of political vandalism that future generations will pay a heavy price for. Sinn Féin also made it clear that the political talks in Belfast have so far failed to face up to the core issues at the heart of the political impasse in the North. These issues are essentially about the rights and equality agenda at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement. Despite overwhelming public and political support for equal rights for women, Irish speakers, victims of the conflict and the LGBT community, the DUP continues to veto the implementation of these rights. As a consequence, the people of the North are still without a power-sharing government two and half years since Martin McGuinness resigned in order to bring a halt to the DUP’s discrimination and alleged corruption. The British Government has been complicit in this democratic deficit through its repeated failure 16
to implement agreements or to confront a denial of rights to citizens here that it would never tolerate in its own country. Shamefully and selfishly, it has acquiesced to the DUP’s discrimination as the price to be paid for the Confidence and Supply deal with that party. In so doing, the rigorous impartiality demanded by the Good Friday Agreement has been abandoned and the responsibility to ensure the equality of treatment for all citizens has been set ISSUE NUMBER 3 – 2019 - UIMHIR EISIÚNA 3 anphoblacht
