“All this clashes with the Remainers’ rainbow-tinted view of the European Union. But their vision was always predicated on a fantasy: everything that is happening across the Channel is not a betrayal of “EU values” - it is an inevitable consequence of the EU’s architecture…”

“It was tempting to laugh at the Republic’s government, last week, as it contorted itself into improbable shapes, over the supposed issue of asylum seekers pouring south from Northern Ireland…”

@leovaradkar Simon Coveney @rishisunak Chris Heaton-Harris MP Rt Hon Steve Baker MP FRSA 🗽

52% of Sinn Fein voters in Ireland demand a hard border with Northern Ireland. Now there’s a poll heading I never thought I’d read on a Sunday morning. Has anyone checked on Mary Lou McDonald? sandieshoes 🇬🇧🇺🇸 Suenews Diana 🇬🇧 Doodle

Good piece from Eilis O'Hanlon in Sunday Independent

“Spurred on by this sneering consensus, @leovaradkar and Simon Coveney made every effort to make life difficult for Brexiteers by going along with the E.U.’s desire to punish Britain…”

The Irish boomerang: “The Govt & all Opposition parties, including Sinn Féin, made an open border between the North & the Republic a red line in Brexit negotiations… But it is not possible to keep an open border and control migration at the same time”.
irishtimes.com/opinion/editor…

Conservatives have to face facts. Not only the local election results themselves, but also the various reactions to them in the Party, show that there's very little chance that any effective corrective action will now be taken in time to stave off the impending disaster.

My…

An open letter: 'Accordingly, we request and require of the two main unionist leaders and parties that they agree united unionist candidates for each parliamentary constituency and that they work as a collective unionist team in the next parliament'.

“Irish elites attacked the prospect of any sort of border between Ireland and Northern Ireland as unconscionable. Even having the odd customs check would be a threat to the Good Friday Agreement and peace in Ireland, they said...” spiked-online.com/2024/05/02/no-…

'the correct course of action is to let the Irish do what they want, noting that this is entirely achievable without fences and border posts. In an ideal world, we would then go on to argue the same could be done for goods and customs arrangements, too'

telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/0…

Frost: 'We currently have a border for people in one place, a border for customs in another place, and both British and Irish governments denying that one or other of them really exists at all. This Schrödinger’s border isn’t going to work. The current arrangements may be…

Very sad news. A true gentleman and a giant of British golf. Ex-Ryder Cup player & Open runner-up Peter Oosterhuis dies bbc.com/sport/golf/art…

Mrs Riddell (Charlotte Cowan) describing Ulster Presbyterians in 'The Earl's Promise' 1873.
She was from Carrickfergus, daughter of High Sheriff of Antrim. She moved to London and became a popular Victorian novelist

Trust Sunak to completely miss the point. Checks on goods never contravened the BA and CTA & neither do checks on migrants. He should be highlighting Irish hypocrisy, not talking nonsense & mangling his arguments. telegraph.co.uk/world-news/202…

“On this issue, the Government parties are treating the public as if they are fools. It is up to the public to decide whether those who rule them are correct in their estimation of public intelligence…”

Spot on from McGuirk: “..what the [Irish] Govt specialises in: A sales job to low information voters. In this, it is being largely facilitated by the media, whose speciality is co-operating with the Govt on sales pitches to low-infomation voters.”
gript.ie/govt-migration…

Leaving aside the glaringly obvious hypocrisy in pointing finger at U.K. ref U.K./Republic relations, how can you blame anyone for the high levels of immigration when the Govt has operated not so much an open border as an open door policy for many many years. ‘We never expected…

‘What do the Irish normally do when they have a problem? They blame the British…’

On the latest #PlanetNormal , Baroness Kate Hoey gives her opinion to Allison Pearson and Liam Halligan on the Ireland migrant border row

playpodca.st/planetnormal

“Many young activists have been turned into self-entitled narcissists by a culture that tells them that society owes them everything, that the world revolves around them, that institutions must change to make them feel more comfortable, that there is such a thing as “their truth”

Meeting with the grandson of one of those commanded by Col Blair 'Paddy' Mayne. Amongst many other amazing WWII artefacts, he showed me the news clipping that his grandpa kept with him all his life, about the untimely death of his former CO. The reverence endured.🙏