Tag Archives: Brexit

Screen Shot 2016-06-24 at 14.26.05

Front page of the Irish Times last night

‘Lord Haw Haw’ writes:

The Irish Times called it wrong last night. Their story appeared on the front page for today. “Farage predicted Remain would ‘edge it'”. But now there is no sign of the story on the Irish Times website. Surely they should have kept the story online, for archival purposes if nothing else. The Guardian don’t indulge in this type of nonsense. It’s OK to get it wrong. It’s not OK to cover up….

Meanwhile…

Right so.

Bad day in the Burnaby.

Earlier: ‘Official Ireland Just Got This Totally Wrong’

Previously: IT Online Editor: Why We Removed Kate’s Article From The Irish Times Digital Archive

-2

Taoiseach Enda Kenny

In recent months, the Irish Government has advocated for our belief that the EU would be better with Britain as a leading member and that Britain and Ireland have always worked together very well as equal partners within the European Union.

I’m very sorry that the result of the referendum is for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. However, the British people have spoken clearly and we fully respect their position and their decision.

I want to assure the Irish public that we have prepared, to the greatest extent possible, for this eventuality. There will be no immediate change to the free flow of people, of good and of services between our islands.

We have previously set out our main concerns in the event of Brexit becoming a reality. These relate to the potential impacts for trade and for the economy and for Northern Ireland, for the Common Travel Area and for the European Union itself.

We have engaged in detailed contingency planning for the possibility of this result and this morning, at Government, we agreed to publish a summary of the key actions which we will now take to address the contingencies arising from the decision of the electorate of the United Kingdom.

Our primary objective remains to protect and to advance this country’s interest. I propose to further brief the Opposition leaders of those actions in the afternoon and the Dáil will be recalled on Monday.

The Summer Economic Statement, published earlier this week, includes an assessment of the potential economic impact of a UK vote to leave the European Union. Ireland is a strong, open and competitive economy and our ongoing economic recovery is testament to our resilience.

We will continue to implement policies that prioritise economic stability and growth and job creation and to use the benefits of that growth for our people.

…I want to say that we are acutely aware of the concerns which will be felt by the many thousands of people within the Irish community in Britain. Let me assure them that the Irish Government will also have their interests in our thinking, and very much in our thinking as we approach the forthcoming negotiations.

It is important to remember that the position of Irish citizens within the European Union will be unaffected. The other concern that the Government has expressed is about a British departure from the European Union relates to the impact on the European Union itself.

Ireland will, of course, remain a member of the European Union. This is profoundly in our national interest. After more than 40 years of membership, we have built up strong bonds of partnership with all the other member states and with the European institutions and that will continue to serve us well in the time ahead.

We must now, however, being a period of reflection and debate on how we can renew the union of 27 and equip it for the many challenges that lie ahead. There will be a discussion of the next steps at a meeting of the European Council next week.

I will set out, very clearly, our national position at that meeting and I will ensure that our particular national interests are fully respected as we prepare to enter the next phase of negotiations.

From Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s speech delivered earlier following the Brexit vote.

Pic: Rollingnews

mcw

David McWilliams

Amid a tragic parade of gloomy Europhile pundits [John Bruton, Pat Cox, Alan Dukes and Noel Whelan to name but four] on Today with Seán O’Rourke on RTE Radio 1 this morning, David McWilliams took a more cheerful stance on the Brexit vote.

G’wan McDreamy.

Seán O’Rourke: “I want to go now to David McWilliams, on the line, the economist. David you dissent from a widely held view, among economists, that this is very bad for Britain, very bad for Ireland economically. Just looking at one of the headlines on something you wrote in the [Irish] Independent recently. ‘We will do just fine if there’s a Brexit‘ – how so?

David McWilliams: “The most important thing was to get the result right, OK. There’s no point in analysing the wrong result. So I always believed the British would leave and that was an unusual position in Ireland but not an unusual position if you spent any time working or living in England.

So I think what happened, it wasn’t that I dissented, Sean, in actual fact I believe Official Ireland just got this totally wrong – underestimated the feeling, overestimated their use of propaganda when they deployed it. And, ultimately now, have got to pick up the pieces.

I couldn’t understand why Ireland bet so ubiquitously, Official Ireland that is, Sean, on one result in a two-horse race that we knew was going to go down to the line. We have to have a plan B and Official Ireland had no plan B so..”

O’Rourke: [audible sigh] “Well, we’ll see now…”

McWilliams: “But it’s very important to listen to that Sean. And it’s very important that your listeners are told this: That we had a two-horse race. For whatever reason, Cameron decided go for it, he did. When it became apparent that this was going to be 50/50 or close to it.

We should have a much more nuanced approach, rather than trying to scare people into voting one way. Now I’ll come back to the scare, right.

Every single institution, Sean, that has told us this will be economically a catastrophe, it’ll be detrimental, etc, etc..Every single one of those also told us in Ireland it would be a soft landing eight years ago. Ok?

The IMF, the European Commission, all these institutions that were so confident in the forecast about Brexit got everything wrong on the financial crisis.

So, let’s just stand back a bit. Nobody really knows what is going to happen economically.However, what we do know is that, during this period of uncertainty, some direct foreign investment will be diverted away from Britain because companies might think, ‘well, hold on a second, we’re not going to put, invest there, just in case, we don’t know really what the end result is going to be’.

Now where Sean will that DFI be diverted to? Americans will not stop investing in Europe, via the two English-speaking countries in Europe, just because Britain has said politically ‘we’re out of the EU’. So I suspect we could have a huge opportunity here, actually garner a percentage of that diverted capital and income to Ireland. So rather than assume that the world is going to end, what we know Sean, is that change is the only thing that is constant in life.”

O’Rourke: [faintly audible sigh] “Ok, I’ll come back to you on that..”

McWilliams: “And we’ve got to deal with it…”

O’Rourke: “In a few moments…”

Listen back here

Previously: ‘You Came Out Pretty Aggressive There, Dan’

Picture-112

Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness

The British government has a “democratic imperative” to call a referendum on whether Northern Ireland should leave the United Kingdom and unite with the Irish Republic, the province’s Irish nationalist Deputy First Minister said on Friday.

“The British government now has no democratic mandate to represent the views of the North in any future negotiations with the European Union and I do believe that there is a democratic imperative for a ‘border poll’ to be held,” Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness told national Irish broadcaster RTE.

Northern Irish deputy leader calls for vote on united Ireland (Reuters)

90297068

European Central bank president Mario Draghi at Dublin Castle, June 2013

The far right are leaving.

And the left should  join them.

Nigel Wilmott, letters editor of The Guardian, writes:

Tomorrow despite a wobble over the horrible killing of Jo Cox and Ukip’s appalling poster, I shall be voting to leave the EU – the same way I voted in the 1975 referendum.

However, there is no straight line from one to the other. I have been for many years a strong supporter of the EU and am slightly surprised to be making this choice.

But an EU that is now based on mass unemployment and mass migration is not one worth supporting.

Of course Ukip plays the race card. But I’m still voting for Brexit

Official unemployment is 9% across the union and over 10% in the euro area. And those figures are flattered by unemployment rates of just over 4% in the EU’s biggest country, Germany, and the UK’s rather dubious 5%, which excludes the millions on zero-hours, part-time and temporary contracts.

In Greece, 24% are unemployed and 20% in Spain.

Youth unemployment (under-25s) is 51% in Greece, 45% in Spain, around 40% in Croatia and Italy, and over 30% in Portugal, with an average of 19% across the EU.

The only response in an austerity-bound EU is migration. It was somewhat odd to hear Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the party of which I am a member, explaining this matter-of-factly and with obvious approval, given the overtones of Norman Tebbit’s “on yer bike”.

And it needs to be remembered that this is not a temporary phenomenon at the bottom of an economic cycle.

This has been the situation more or less since the financial crash in 2008. If anything, we are probably near the top of a cycle with a downturn more likely than a new burst of economic growth.

Apart from the obvious impacts of unemployment on those immediately affected – poverty, lack of status and sense of worth – it keeps down wages generally for those sectors of the labour market affected.

It is this widespread sense of insecurity and fear that drives the growing rightwing populism across the continent, just as it did in the 1930s…

Remain and reform is wishful thinking – the left should vote leave (Nigel Wilmot, Guardian)

Screen Shot 2016-06-21 at 12.08.22


Radio Direland writes:

This is an important public service announcement about the consequences of a Brexit for Ireland and its Game Of Thrones fans. We can only hope that the people of Ireland vote for the correct outcome in the referendum this Thursday. *WARNING: Contains some GOT spoilers, although you probably know them by now anyway as they’re a few seasons old (mostly)*

FIGHT!

ClE5xUnWAAESQN-

Taoiseach Enda Kenny at St Michael’s Irish Centre in Everton, England where he’s campaigning against Brexit.

More as they get it.

Previously: Rat Joins Sinking Ship

Pic: Gavan Reilly