stoking fires of division between europeans is cringe.
P-M Bonneau
Some details on the situation and the recent riots in Ulster
In simple terms, the loyalists are angered and frightened by the EU/Westminster decision to put the customs border in the sea rather than between Northern Ireland and Eire.
The UK governement could just have said there's no block to goods between Eire and the UK, but that he would seize anything to be found that has come from the rest of the EU via Eire but not been declared.
The EU wouldn't have liked UK giving special treatment to Eire, but could have done nothing.
The fact Johnson chose the one option that puts a border between Northern Ireland and the mainland has infuriated loyalists.
Then there's even more anger over the police/legal refusal to prosecute any Sinn Fein/IRA supporters for going to a huge lockdown breaking IRA funeral, while prosecuting individual Protestants, closing church services etc.
Finally, the resulting sectarian tensions have seen clashes in which hundreds of Republicans have burst through the peace lines in West Belfast and attacked loyalist enclaves.
The young loyalists portrayed on TV as "thugs" for burning a bus and attacking people were protesting about the police failure to defend their community, and chasing off the (far bigger) Fenian mob, it was 20 onto 500 at one point, those kids are heroes, not criminals.
It's set to get much worse.
Sinn Fein's arrogant triumphalism is pushing the Loyalists into a corner, but many of the new "catholic majority" are in fact new bourgeois liberals, mostly affirmative action civil servants.
If it goes really physical the loyalists will wipe the floor with them, and this time the British Army may simply not be big enough to stop the trouble.
In simple terms, the loyalists are angered and frightened by the EU/Westminster decision to put the customs border in the sea rather than between Northern Ireland and Eire.
The UK governement could just have said there's no block to goods between Eire and the UK, but that he would seize anything to be found that has come from the rest of the EU via Eire but not been declared.
The EU wouldn't have liked UK giving special treatment to Eire, but could have done nothing.
The fact Johnson chose the one option that puts a border between Northern Ireland and the mainland has infuriated loyalists.
Then there's even more anger over the police/legal refusal to prosecute any Sinn Fein/IRA supporters for going to a huge lockdown breaking IRA funeral, while prosecuting individual Protestants, closing church services etc.
Finally, the resulting sectarian tensions have seen clashes in which hundreds of Republicans have burst through the peace lines in West Belfast and attacked loyalist enclaves.
The young loyalists portrayed on TV as "thugs" for burning a bus and attacking people were protesting about the police failure to defend their community, and chasing off the (far bigger) Fenian mob, it was 20 onto 500 at one point, those kids are heroes, not criminals.
It's set to get much worse.
Sinn Fein's arrogant triumphalism is pushing the Loyalists into a corner, but many of the new "catholic majority" are in fact new bourgeois liberals, mostly affirmative action civil servants.
If it goes really physical the loyalists will wipe the floor with them, and this time the British Army may simply not be big enough to stop the trouble.
And the Irish army is even more pathetic.
https://youtu.be/qtaRuOK0gm8