Discussing policing the border under SF

What if instead of thinking about the past, as he surmises, the Garda and the PSNI officers were thinking about a future? And that future was one in which a Brexit was not talked about but had actually taken place.

In the ensuing rumpus a snap election had been called by Leo Varadkar, his megaphone diplomacy having failed to stop a Brexit, and with his hope that he would lose the election fulfilled (he would not have to face the consequences of what to do about the border, both land and down through the Irish Sea) by the victory of the now ardent EU party, Sinn Fein.

Sinn Fein, not Leo Varadkar, is then faced with the remit of Brussels that it has to police the EU border. There can be no cherry picking. There is an accountability to the European Union that has to be respected and takes precedence over any family connections within and between the geographical Britannic islands.

That, I suggest to John Dallat MLA, could have been what the Garda and PSNI officers were thinking about on the bridge at Belleek, during the visit of the prime minister — the Garda manning the check points on those coming in from the “north”, and Sinn Fein defending these measures in the Dublin parliament.

W A Miller, Belfast BT13