Republicans should step back from playing dangerous politics over the Irish Sea border

Much has been said by Simon Coveney and Michelle O’Neill of Sinn Fein regarding the UK’s trustworthiness in respect of recent negotiations surrounding the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol.

Both individuals, as well as the EU and America, seem incapable of foreseeing the implications for those whose culture and everyday livelihood can be adversely affected by such matters.

For example, it’s not so very long ago that the EU tried to block and redirect a consignment of Covid-19 vaccinations coming to our Province.

This was a reckless act of hostility that could have jeopardised lives within the current pandemic — irrespective of creed, class, colour or gender!

Then we have the spectacle of broken infrastructures, nonsensical bureaucracy, empty supermarket shelves, companies refusing to trade with us either directly or online and so forth.

Very shortly things will get immeasurably worse when the EU insists on a number of checks being conducted on goods entering our Province greatly disproportionate to what the rest of the EU in its entirety has to submit!

Imagine the cries from Sinn Fein, the Irish Republic, the EU and the Yanks if the shoe was on the other foot and it was Britain who was inflicting such assaults upon the most basic of human rights.

For me this protocol amounts to collective institutional harassment that in all likelihood is also intended to surreptitiously draw, even force, us into a united Ireland and which would mark the beginning of the end of the UK — all to the glee of many as revenge for us leaving the EU in the first place.

Given the unseen ramifications upon the well-being of all our peoples here, any counter steps now taken by the British government to right such wrongs is the morally responsible thing to do and has nothing to do with their honesty, integrity, nor the Good Friday Agreement.

Then, to make things even more unstable for all and sundry, we have Michelle O’Neill hypocritically questioning the need for the existence of the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) when Sinn Fein has been inextricably linked to the IRA, which reportedly still has specific departments and regional command structures, gathers intelligence, retains weapons and has been involved in isolated incidents of violence, including murders (Government report 2015, ratified again by PSNI November 2019 and reported upon in the News Letter, Feb 14 2020)

Given the fragility of political stability in NI, Ms O’Neill, I suggest, along with all the rest of the ‘Anti-Brit Brigade’ would be best advised to take a step back from dangerously playing with politics here.

Archibald Toner, Dromore, Co Down

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