Brexit-Shmexit...
The DUP are the least of our worries. Theresa May is (politically) a dead woman walking. The concern is the schism it re-creates, in a "province" which has its roots in the 17th Century European and Political mire. A mire which had so many about-faces and contradictory agendas that even in the early 20th Century, a barbaric industrial WW1 and an Irish Revolutionary War couldn't resolve the glaringly bleeding obvious. The fudge was made, hands were wrung, justifications were made for past evils and ill-treatment, lines were drawn, the old-boys sat down with cigars and whiskey and signed some papers.
The North lay preserved under a weird 1930-50's blanket up until the 1990's. The South lay entombed in a weird "povertwilight" until the late 70-80's when the EEC money started trickling in. The EEC money did a lot for Oirish rural development and farming. The non-carry-on at the Border meant endless journeys for some livestock as they travelled South, then North, then South, boomeranging around to create new tarrif repayments, VAT scams and general administrative idiocy which only the EEC and HM Customs could facilitate and only the Oirish could have dreamed up and then knitted to suit the situation and maximise the best from a shabby situation.
I lived, worked and studied in Northern Ireland back in the funky 1980's when it was (... ahem...) a fairly lively place both politically and militarily. The politics of it by then had dwindled to fatal hunger-strikes over prison garb, Sunday opening for pubs, installing women's toilets in pubs and the ill-fated "Save Ulster From Sodomy" campaign. The paramiltary situation had dwindled into a weird chessgame of placemen working for various MI factions setting up bombings, shootings, proxy assassinations and general mayhem.
I pointed out quite some time ago on here that a hung Parliament with the Tories attempting ANY deal with the DUP would break the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. Everyone in Ireland knew this. Mentioning it in mainland Britain was equivalent to talking in Klingon about Balamory burning down. No-one could comprehend it, was interested or could see any relevance to Britain's Got Talent. Recently UK news covered this trivial, minor DUP issue as if a deal with the DUP was simply nothing. No BBC or major TV or UK newspaper seemed interested in pointing out this MASSSIVE scab which was being picked off in one scoop by Theresa May. She either has NO idea what she is doing or she is a psychopath posing in a Middle England Vicar's Daughter's clothing. I do NOT believe she has not been briefed or given the correct information. This is a massive brick getting knowingly thrown into what has been a fairly calm pond recently.
In many ways Theresa May is as irrelevant as the DUP is. Theresa will be gone sooner rather than later. The DUP will remain with their seats at Stormont and at Westminster, a strange anomaly which few people outside the six counties can countenance let alone attempt to understand. Perhaps the schism this ToryDUP is set to rip across NI is a deliberate attempt by Westminster to force the issue and finally cut mother's apron strings, perhaps it is a deliberate distraction from Mainland UK issues, perhaps it is the talentless May's crappiest last throw of the dice ever, perhaps it is a return to the strange manipulations which were borne out in the 1980's when I lived over there. Whatever it is, it will be felt strongest over in those six counties even if they get high-speed broadband and a few roads re-surfaced.
The only film I ever felt came close to touching on what was going on over there in the 80's was difficult movie called "Angel" which was directed by Noel Jordan and starred a young Stephen Rea. You wont feel any better by the end of it but some of the confusion might clear a little.
