The World Is Looking At US President Joe Biden With a Big Smile and Welcoming Hands in Many Cases!

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

As I sit in my Kailyard I wonder often about the future.

Wasn’t it lovely to see the cordial nature of the recent G7 summit in the UK where the American President worried more about the content of his address than what was keeping his hair in place? Of course, us in the UK have a guy with an unfirm grip on reality and funny hair as Prime Minister; we can hardly complain…

When that very same man said that Joe Biden is a breath of fresh air, we all sighed, with relief. Someone with which we can do business, it suggested, and not spend all the time worrying about his hair brain trigger finger.

And then, our esteemed Prime Minister, Boris Johnson said something that made some of us all stop short…

Apparently, we are in “complete harmony” over Northern Ireland.

There are riots in that Province of the United Kingdom. Joe Biden fired a warning shot across our bows a few weeks ago. We aren’t in anything like harmony. Anywhere.

Thanks to the involvement of the United States through Bill Clinton the UK Government was able to find an agreement between all sides in the Northern Ireland conflict. It became known as The Good Friday Agreement, and it gave a very troubled part of our world peace in its time.

There are two sides in this conflict. We have the nationalists who believe in a united Ireland and the unionists who believe in the union with the rest of the United Kingdom. For decades they were at each other’s throats and then there was that peace. At first fragile, it grew into something more. Now we have people who have grown up not knowing the daily tension of death stalking their community.

And then the United Kingdom made a decision to leave the European Union (EU). That was a massive issue for The Good Friday Agreement. A guarantee in the agreement was the removal of the border between Ireland in the south and Ireland in the north. A source of tension with bombings, terrorist activity and checkpoints by the British army, there was general rejoicing at its loss. After all we were part of the EU anyway – what did we need with a border?

And then the United Kingdom decided to leave the European Union.

The only land border between the United Kingdom and the European Union is now that very border.

The Good Friday Agreement, written and agreed when we were all in the European Union meant there was no need for a border. But we now have a land border between us and the European Union. If we put a physical border up – as you would between two countries – it is contrary to The Good Friday Agreement which is enshrined in international law.

Instead, we made an agreement with the European Union that we would have no border on land, but Northern Ireland would remain part of the EU for trade. But we still needed a border so if goods came in or came out of Northern Ireland to and from the UK we would have to create something between them we have de facto ended up with a peculiar border somewhere in the sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. It means that a part of the United Kingdom is de facto in the EU and part is not. The Good Friday Agreement has not been breached. All good?
The nationalists are content enough. The unionists are furious. The US are on the side of making The Good Friday Agreement stick. The British Government and the unionists were in league to get the UK out of the EU. The unionists have brought violence back out and onto the streets of Northern Ireland. The US didn’t like that. None of us do and in a situation with paramilitary groups who were at one time the envy of the PLO, Baader-Meinhof, the ANC and the like, there are tinder kegs waiting to explode.

To find just how we can have one part of our sovereign nation following the rules of another sovereign power and this does not apply to the rest of the nation is a tremendously big issue. When the majority population within the area concerned object violently to having this arrangement, there can be nothing but tension. And there is certainly that.

Over the years the pressure that the US Government has continued to apply to the British Government has been tremendously helpful in keeping things peaceful. The support and aid ploughed into the Province of Northern Ireland has been critical in keeping us all from tearing out each other’s throats.

The special relationship between the US and the UK is heading for further tension unless this issue can find a solution BUT the EU are hardening their stance, the nationalists are hardening theirs and the unionists have very little room left to become harder in their opposition.

The British Government just appear clueless. People in both communities are very nervous. And they have every reason to be…

A view from the new Kailyard or, how you look over there, from over here…

(kailyard n. a genre of sentimental Scottish literature turned into effective invective comment from one Donald worth reading…)

[si-contact-form form=’2′]