a-Fisking we shall go – Hugh Bennett in Brexit Central, again!.

Hugh Bennett (@hughrbennett) is the gift that keeps on giving. A rambling piece, devoid, nay utterly ignorant, of history and full of nonsequiturs and misdirection, his latest in BrexitCentral is a hodgepodge of jejune attempts at debating legerdemain, historical inaccuracies and whataboutery. So, standard Brexit stuff really

Read on. For an alternative, just as cutting, takes read here and here and here

a-Fisking we shall go : David Raynes in Conservative Woman

Every now and again a piece of perfectly congealed boneheadedness comes along. Why do they come on a Friday from the brexstremists, making me fisk them when I should be heading for a beer? Anyhow, here we go, with a piece of internally inconsistent and condescending foolishness of note. So bad is it that the author knew, and allowed a sign, reproduced above, of a vandalised “welcome to NI” sign be its picture lede. 

The Northern Ireland Border issue is NOT about a Common Travel Area

Lots and lots of commentators seem to be confused about Northern Ireland. No surprise there. The confusion seems to be around the post Brexit space. Again, no surprise there, its a mess wrapped in a confusion inside a conundrum. But, let’s parse it. The problem is what to do with the border when it is no longer internal but becomes an external EU frontier. 

Harden this border so…

Much talk this day on a hard, wet, soft, chewy…ok not that one… border.

Tell me, harden this border will you, for me? Tell me where the border will be placed… The border is so twisty turny topsy turvey…

This is a tiny part of the border, in Louth. It cuts through motorways (zig zagging) and houses and farms and barns….

So, wheres the hard border going to be?

 

 

Here are some more fun and games.

 

 

A 2017 Competition for Brexiteers

So, in the spirit of a new year and a new challenge, let me lay one before the Brexiteers. 

Batsh!t Britain’s Brexit Border Blues

So, having run on a campaign of “taking back control (of our borders)” the latest cunning plan to deal with its only actual EU border is for Brixitian to ….cede control of its border to another EU state. Yep.

This is cracked. Humpty Dumpty , sorry James Brokenshire , the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, has suggested that in order to avoid a hard border at the actual legal border between the EU and Brexitian the Common Travel Area external border would be “the” UK border. Several thoughts come to me on this

Cultural Learnings of Brexit for Make Benefit…

So brexit will, or possibly wont, happen. And if it happens we might or might not see a significant change in how the UK interacts with the remaining EU that is if there is a UK and it has not splintered. But what will it really mean for Ireland? And how should we interrogate the issues? A purely economic lens wont really work. We need to look beyond politics, beyond economics. 

How do Credit Unions in Ireland view Brexit?

This morning I delivered a talk to the Credit Union Compliance Center Annual Conference. Part of the talk was on the results of short survey which they had issued to the risk and compliance officers of their 160 members.

Enda’s Brexit Dilemmas

Enda faces a set of interlocking and mutually incompatible dilemmas regarding Ireland and the post Brexit EU. In the negotiations he faces a number of problems.