Mary Lou McDonald says her meeting with the Prime Minister this morning was nothing short of challenging. More coming up on @qnewsdesk pic.twitter.com/zNVpoQuA5R
— Gráinne Connolly (@grainne555) July 20, 2018
This morning.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald (centre) met with Britian’s Prime Minister Theresa May (top ) ahead of Ms May giving a speech in Belfast this morning about Brexit.
Ms McDonald spoke to Philip Boucher Hayes on RTÉ Radio One after they met.
From the interview…
Mary Lou McDonald: “It seems to me that she has come to Ireland to deliver a speech that really represents picking a fight with Ireland and picking a fight with the EU. I have put it to her that the rhetoric around protecting the Good Friday Agreement, in all of its parts, the rhetoric around preventing any hardening of the border is just that – it’s rhetoric. And it superseded entirely by her instinct, her desire to play to the Brexiteer gallery back in Britain and within he DUP. So it was a firm meeting a very challenging meeting. I said to her, umpteen times and I reiterated it again – a) that Ireland cannot and will not be the collateral damage of the Tory/Brexit. I have to tell you Philip I came away from that meeting with no sense of reassurance…
Philip Boucher Hayes: “Let’s break it down bit by bit Mary Lou. What was her reaction to your suggestion that Britain was picking a fight with Ireland?”
Mary Lou McDonald: “Of course she rejects that. I think you will see and you will hear when the, when her speech is delivered shortly that it is very much posited as a Unionist speech. I mean, there’s no great surprise in that. Theresa May is a Unionist and that’s fair enough.
“But she is particularly tone deaf to politics here in this part of Ireland. She doesn’t seem to have any deep appreciation of the fact that some 50% of the population would not ascribe to themselves the definition or the identity of Unionist. She seems to have only a very superficial understanding that the north of Ireland is a place apart…this place isn’t as British essentially, things are different here. And Ireland, the island, the North, in particular, but the island as a whole, because of the particularities here, requires a bespoke solution and absolutely needs a worst case scenario contingency plan – the backstop as it’s called…”
Listen back in full here
Pic: Paul Reilly
UPDATE:
WATCH LIVE: PM @Theresa_May speaks about the Union and Brexit in Belfast https://t.co/wvVlwnMKEg
— UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) July 20, 2018
UPDATE:
David Blevins (Sky News): “Prime Minister, you said the EU backstop would be a breach of the Good Friday Agreement because the majority of people here wish to remain in the UK. But the majority of people here have also voted to remain in the EU. So are you not now in breach of the Good Friday Agreement?”
Theresa May: “I think, if we look at what happened in the referendum. A decision was taken that, across the United Kingdom, people would be asked their view on whether or not to leave the European Union. And parliament said and Government said that it would accept that collective view that was taken across the United Kingdom and that is exactly what we are doing. And within the UK there were different votes in different parts of the UK but, overall, the result was that people wanted to leave the EU and we’re delivering on that and I believe that it’s an important part of our, of people’s trust in politics, given that parliament said it was the overall choice of the people of the UK, that we respect that overall choice that they took.”
I’m hardwired to dislike Sinn Féin but she’s the right woman to take on that numpty.
in fairness to May, she knows full well that she’s standing knee-deep in a bucket of excrement. there’s nothing she can do about it. might as well just sit tight in the big job for as long as she can. it’s not her mess.
The constant dithering, u-turning and total lack of leadership as she attempts to deliver Schrodinger’s Sasamach is how she’ll be remembered though.
true
but there’s nothing to deliver – and no way of delivering whatever self-defeating compromise exists
i think May is reasonable and competent- and could resolve this if she was allowed the space and authority to do it. but she’s surrounded by boorish dunderheads on all sides.
What is it about the Irish and women ?
Frau Merkel’s jackboot up your jacksie got you in line over Lisbon and the bailout.
And now you’re in love with the worst British prime minister in living memory.
Is it a mammy thing ?
Accepting she has a hard job managing the toddlers in government is not confessing to a deep an abiding love for Teresa May.
You’re a great one for the hyperbole though. Almost as good as teenager girls. It’s very amusing
*teenaged.
Pardon my thumbs.
she has terrific legs though
And great taste in shoes.
she’s a good dresser all round, I think
classy and elegant
Is goading your only trick or can you beg and roll over – play dead too?
Awww,things getting a bit tough for you ?
Get off your knees man.
‘the worst British prime minister in living memory.’
Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg – ‘We’ll take that challenge!’
Nigel Farage: – ‘I resign!’
Agreed.
Hmm. She’s clinging on to power, though. I don’t get it – I don’t see that as admirable.
£££££££
I guess so. I can’t imagine waking up each morning facing into what she has to face, though. Nothing’s worth that.
Agree with you there. Its an unenviable job she’s doing.
I agree 100% with you on this, she ought to call a general election and allow the british people have a say on this debacle. Instead she clings to power by saying whatever the last person she spoke to wants to hear.
She did call an election, remember? “Strong and Stable” was the promise which worked out well for everyone involved.
yep, call an election and let corbyn negotiate a soft brexit and shut that idiot rees-mogg up for good.
Paddy’s dilemma.
Brits on one side and IRA/Sinn Fein on the other.
Heh,heh,heh.
Prods quandary-long deep brutal recession V fastest growing economy in Europe !
As they say in some parts of the north west, the woman hasn’t a bog.
Theresa May I mean in this instance.
I have watched some of May’s speech. Like every other speech I have seen her make, she comes out with motherhood statements and meaningless platitudes. She calls on Europe to come up with some ideas. Wow, I remember when the Brits had leaders who appeared intelligent. They couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. Brexit is a bit more complicated than that.
May: ‘our four great nations…’
She’s calling Northern Ireland a ‘nation’
Bless.
Hopefully Ireland is never unified….absolute horror show if that ever happens
oh its happening !
“Over the last two years annual output (averaged over the four quarters to Quarter 1 2018 compared to the previous four quarters) remained flat (at 0.0%). Although the measures are not produced on a fully equivalent basis, comparisons with the UK over the same period show that the NICEI grew at a slower rate (0.0%) than UK GDP[1] (1.5%). In the UK quarterly growth (0.2%) was also higher than that recorded for NI (-0.3%). ”
NI on it way into a very deep recession,with ROI growing at what +5% !
great piece ….
“For those who would argue in favor of the union, it’s making it more difficult for those arguments to be convincing,” said Graham Walker, a professor who works on Northern Ireland and Scotland at Queen’s University Belfast. “Obviously Brexit revealed a very disunited kingdom.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/united-ireland-after-brexit-reunification-vote/
FYI the Brit bailout off Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and Northern Rock cost the
Irish citizens of NI how much ?
Total cost so far and increasing what with sterling in free fall is 140 BILLION !
Dear Mrs May,
Ok so backstop and no borders. HOW EXACTLY?
Love,
Ireland.
Dear Ireland,
Shhhh, stop being so bogged down in the details. We are grasping back our future from the past as a sovereign nation. Democracy, people’s willies, backstop, Brexit. Trust your former colonial masters.
Kind regards,
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Dear England,
You say you are leaving but you can’t take the child. You can have NI at the weekends but not on school nights.
Regards,
Ireland.
Kramer Vs Kremainer.
That’s the bit they want someone else to figure out. All this blather from Bojo, echoed by Ollie, about the border not really being an issue is a smokescreen for their utter inability to get the GFA square peg in to the Sasamach round hole. It’s the peg’s fault of course and, if not the peg’s, then the fault of those who think the peg matters.
“Taking back control of our borders” they said, oblivious to what that entails.
Incredibly there are people still naïve enough to believe them and blame the EU for not just giving them what they want, even though they themselves don’t know what that is. This is portrayed as the EU punishing them because, again, the fault couldn’t possibly be theirs.
It’s called negotiation you silly billy
Fortunately at least one member of the current Irish government is showing some commonsense.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/ireland-open-to-better-ni-border-backstop-paschal-donohoe-37137617.html
“The Irish government is very clear that the Irish backstop must be retained for any future agreement between the EU and the UK to be put in place,” Paschal Donohoe told RTE radio’s Morning Ireland on Friday.
“The only thing that could replace this current form of a backstop is, No. 1 something which is better; No. 2 something which is agreed and No. 3 something that would be legally operable. This is the view of the Irish government and the European Union.”
He’s repeating exactly what Ireland has been saying from day one.
Nice of you to finally admit the Irish position has been one of common sense all along.
Unionists will say anything as long as they are getting their cash!
When the great Brexit victory is achieved there will be free holidays in Sri Lanka for everyone!
You mean “Unionists will say anything as long as they are getting someone else’s cash”
e.g from the English taxpayer, Aaron Banks, etc, etc.
I should whip your ass with an ash for that sort of comment but, I am actually busy checking which SDLP Co Down members bought land then applied for grants to grow ‘willow’.
Has Northern Ireland joined up with Ireland ?
Nope,didn’t think so.
She absolutely right.
A majority 17.4 million people voted for Brexit in the biggest political mandate in British history.
Northern Ireland is just a small constituency in a much bigger bigger.
Suck it up losers.
A small constituency that has totally derailed the grand Sasamach project.
Suck it up losers.
51.9% = biggest mandate in british history?
little englanders aren’t ones for details
Which one is then ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum_Act_1975#Referendum_result
This one had 67.23%
true, but ‘only’ 17,378,581 Yes votes; versus 17,410,742 ‘Leave’ votes this time.
you could argue that seeing as the brexit referendum wasn’t legally binding, it wasn’t a mandate at all
Democracy – when did the Brits start respecting the democratic will of the Irish? It was sometime after 1918, if it ever happened. What a fine mess the Brits made then and they are making a bigger one, now.
Nah . It’s not gonna happen , I’ve been observing the geo-pols & it;s a case of follow the money again !
May’s been taking too much notice of what the blundering buffoon had to say, in his parting speech. Brexit has turned into a full-on pantomime, one long
line of incompetent imbeciles f*cking around on a daily basis, with ill thought out plans of action. Not one of them is fit to superintend this farcical abomination. Not one.
Brexit is a 100% con. It’ll do more arguably to unify Ireland as a single unit within the EU than anything in the past, fair play to the DUP for taking the bribes to push for a Brexit in absolute opposition to all the economic data and logic in the world and against their own actual interests…
Someone show me 1 benefit to Brexit – I have yet to be shown 1.
Therea May looks the spits of Arsenal’s longtime, recently retired Manager Arsene Wenger in that photo……WENGER OUT!!!
I see Bob Geldof in drag.
Noel Gallagher for me.
Don’t know who Wenger is, but she looks extremely worn out and wrecked looking. She shouldnt be making decisions of this calibre, in such a broken down state of physical being.
Sure Lenihan handled the bailout with one foot in the grave and that turned out fine.
The UK, what a mad place.
So mad that overseas residents made a record 39.2 million visits to the UK in 2017, 4% more than in 2016
So much for Brexit frightening off foreigners.
http://ow.ly/2zdw30l2ucX
Yeah, Dark Tourism is weird.
Last change to see…
Sasamach hasn’t happened yet.
Bad news = all the fault of Brexit
Good news = Brexit hasn’t happened yet.
The language of the Remoaner.
Bad News = Project fear
Good News = Sasamach (which we can’t define and hasn’t happened yet) is a success
The language of the willingly naïve.
Is Brexit really a devious ploy by Whitehall to get rid of the Northern Ireland problem.
The only logical way to achieve a full Brexit (which the majority in the mainland voted for) without a border in Ireland is to sell the North to Ireland. Sell it for a €1.
There are no downsides for the UK in this outcome. Removes the constant recurring threat of a return to terrorism by the republicans. It removes the massive annual subvention cost. There’s no loss of meaningful natural resources. And there’s enough idiots in Ireland who’d vote for it irrespective of the cost.
€1?
No way, they would need to pay us to take it.
“enough idiots who’d vote for it”
i doubt that
Ouch!
https://twitter.com/davemacladd/status/1020286017608220672/video/1