DUP duped....again
I might have more sympathy for the DUP if it admitted to the obvious fact that supporting Brexit was about the stupidest thing it could have done. You might think they would have noticed by now that they have been hoist by their own petard, not once but many times. The latest when Westminster made it clear it would pass a NI language bill if Stormont wouldn’t or couldn’t. Some Brexit supporters are even willing to see NI leave the UK, as the latest in a long line of prices worth paying for Brexit.
Of all the groups promised the earth by the Brexiteers and then abandoned, the DUP and the good people of Ulster are the largest and most obvious. The consequences are truly terrifying but the most frightening thing is that the Brexiteers don’t care.
There is an obvious answer to all these issues however, the UK could rejoin the EU’s veterinary standards regime and 80% of the checks disappear. Then the DUP can join a foreign round the world trip promoting Northern Ireland as the best of both worlds, in the UK and the Single Market. The money, jobs and investment would flood in.
What are the chances of that? About zero, the UK government is too stupid to compromise on veterinary standards, the DUP is too stupid to see the way ahead. Both are stuck in fantasy cults, where reality and facts are as nothing to the purity of the cause.
https://jonty.substack.com/
The DUP grubbily lined their pockets (as they often do - RHI, NAMA, Sri Lanka among others) by advertising on behalf of the Brexit campaign, likely under the assumption that it would lose, and they could continue to say to their base that they flew the flag for Britain against the traitors.
They also opposed the Good Friday Agreement to such an extent that Arlene Forster and the presumed next leader Jeffrey Donaldson defected from the Ulster Unionists because of that party's support of it, so them crying foul over it's implementation is particularly galling. They routinely renege on agreements (the Irish language act was promised in said Good Friday Agreement, and the upgrade of the A5 road corridor - the main arterial route from Dublin to Derry and Letterkenny - has been agreed *and paid for* for over two decades, yet it's still a death trap two-lane road & the money fritters away into lawyers pockets - many of whom are, naturally, DUP members).
I would advise you withhold your sympathy even if they do eventually admit their mistake.