General Brexit discussion thread

[Thomas]

What did you find contradictory about it?

I thought it a strange way to express your view , this the unionists fed the beast . It implies there was a beast already in existence without defining the years of abuse that created that beast in the first place.

My stance is simply that I think it's important that people understand the motivations behind the emergence of the Provisionals — that it had much to do with the discriminatory conditions imposed by the state, the relatively unchecked level of loyalist violence against Catholic communities,

This is what im getting at and what wasnt clear in the quote i mentioned. Not to mention the fact i think it totally wasted on nick. :roll:

We smashed the sectarian State intellectually — and that is how we will end partition — with arguments and reason, not the brutality of the IRA.

Im not condoning IRA behaviour. Im saying its not difficult to understand the reasons behind why they came into being , not to mention the fact most english wont have a clue the difference between the old IRA and the provisionals.



I dont have the time to go into it now , but i would love to hear how you think the sectarian statelet was smashed intellectually...?



I would have to disagree with that at face value till i hear your explanation. You will never take on board hardcore unionism with polite argument s and reason. This shows a clear lack of understanding and knowledge.



These people have been brutalised and made savage beyond all normal reason .

[Thomas]

What a shame you laughed your Fat arse off Thomas...

How do you know if i have a thin or fat arse , and what are you doing looking at it yan auld wirral sex pest? 8-)  ::

that means that the wee brain that you had has now gone!!

getting all upset again stev? Few truths hitting home into that fantasy world you inhabit?

Your biased account doesn't tally with Full FACTs assessment..and you ignore the totally unfair and unwarranted Barnett formula too...

We have discussed the barnet formula many a time. We discussed on the auld forum over the years how all the parties hate it especially including the snp who want full fiscal autonomy for scotland , yet the westminster parties are afraid to give scotland complete control over running our own affairs , and as i said a million time , you have to ask yourself why that is?



So i havent ignored any barnett formula , as you know fine well. Its a long running discussion between us , and the simple fact is its still in place until the london based parties devise another system to screw scotland over.



I have dealt with your idiotic squeals about higher per capita funding many a time over the years as you yet again know fine well.



 I remember posting this auld article from a number of years back , from the business for scotland website which yet again destroyed your incessant bleating....

Scotland pays more tax per head.



One key figure in the report is that Scotland raised £54bn or £10,100 per person in taxes in 2013/14,a figure that is £400 per person higher than the UK average. This conclusively demonstrates that the Scottish economy is fundamentally sound. Indeed, this now means that Scotland has paid more tax per head of population than the UK on average for 34 years in a row. Scottish revenues generating the ability to spend £400 per person more than the rest of the UK, even in poorer years, scotches the myth that Scotland could not afford to be an independent nation.



The Scottish accounts are also allocated more spending, about £1,200 per person, which is why although Scotland raises more taxes, the deficit seems larger.  Please note that the Scottish Government doesn't spend more per head, the UK Government spends money which it says is on behalf of Scotland and that is applied to GERS as Scottish spending even if none of that spending happened in Scotland. Scotland's deficit as a share of GDP fell from 9.7% in 2012/13 to 8.1% in 2013/14 – it is still 2.5% higher than the UK average.

[/b]



https://www.businessforscotland.com/westminster-parties-wrong-footed-on-gers-debate/">https://www.businessforscotland.com/wes ... rs-debate/">https://www.businessforscotland.com/westminster-parties-wrong-footed-on-gers-debate/



Did you read that stevlin? The uk governments own figures show scotland had paid more tax per head of population than the uk average for 34 years in a row up to and including  year ending 2014. As i said to you , the last figures i posted to you on the old forum last year showed scotland , with 8.9 % of the uk popualiton , received 9.3% funding but supplied 9.6% uk government revenue , providing a net subsidy.



...AND MUCH OF THE SPENDING ALLOCATED TO SCOTLAND OVER THE YEARS ISNT SPENT BY THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT ON SCOTLAND , BUT BY THE UK GOVERNMENT WHICH ALLOCATES IT TO SCOTLAND WHERE MUCH OF THE MONEY IS SPENT IN YOUR COUNTRY ON INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS ETC!!!!



Defence spending allocated to scotland was £3.5 billion , 1.9 billion of which was spent in scotland. Westminster refurbishment  , scotland is paying 8.9% share of that , HS2 , scotland is paying a per capita share and so on , not to mention the uk governments debt interest.

Incidentally, it is BRITISH oil that you are talking about....it will become Scottish if/when you leave....what's left of it.

Aye stevlin we know all that.But when you are comparing figures for an indy scotland to scotland that is part of the uk , the point im making is in the uk scotland is allocated a population share in most figures of roughly 8.9% , but for oil and gas ion an indy scotland , as scotland holds two thirds of the current uk EEZ , that then rises to 96% oil share and 60 gas share , not to mention the billions of barrells of oil yet untouched to scotlands north and west.

[Stevlin]

LMFAO.

What a shame you laughed your Fat arse off Thomas....that means that the wee brain that you had has now gone!!   Incidentally, I didn't deny that the BE was exploitive - I just pointed out that it cost a lot of money to run....and it did do some good too....like installation of railways....but harping at the past while applying  'today's' morals is pointless.

Your biased account doesn't tally with Full FACTs assessment..and you ignore the totally unfair and unwarranted Barnett formula too....

http://www.historydiscussion.net/british-india/contribution-and-impact-of-british-rule-on-india/2617">http://www.historydiscussion.net/britis ... india/2617">http://www.historydiscussion.net/british-india/contribution-and-impact-of-british-rule-on-india/2617

i have made the credible case and destroyed your nonsense regarding scottish funding many a time on the old forum as you know fine well.



The bottom line is  with 8.9% of the uk population , scotland gets 9.3% of the funding as we have discussed many a time. The uncomfortable truth you fail to mention every time is scotland provides ( excluding our 96% share of oil and 60% share of gas etc etc ) 9.6% of the revenue  , meaning westminster receives a small net subsidy from scotland without taking into account mineral wealth.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQaMzr7X0AEceCp?format=jpg&name=small">

Your biased account doesn't tally with Full FACTs assessment..and you ignore the totally unfair and unwarranted Barnett formula too....

 Incidentally, it is BRITISH oil that you are talking about....it will become Scottish if/when you leave....what's left of it.

[Conchúr]

I just read this post conor which i missed earlier. In it you are saying pretty much what i am saying in my earlier post.



so i will wait till you clarify your stance , as it seems all over the place to be honest, but i ask again what do you mean by this?.....









Seems a bit of a contradictory statement in light of your earlier post .



Northern irish unionists treatment of their own irish people in the sectarian apartheid six county statelet from the twenties to the sixties is a little known oft forgotten period of history massively overshadowed by the events of the long war to come.



Had unionism embraced their neighbours instead of disenfranchising them  , and treating them as second class citizens almost exactly as white americans did to the blacks , history may have been slightly different. My personal belief , was things had went too far by the twenties , never mind during and aftermath of the thirty years of troubles we are all more familiar with , and as i said , unionism was in no mood to parley or relent.



Unionism created the monster in the north  , and was simply the twin cheek of the same sectarian and violent arse.

What did you find contradictory about it? My stance is simply that I think it's important that people understand the motivations behind the emergence of the Provisionals — that it had much to do with the discriminatory conditions imposed by the state, the relatively unchecked level of loyalist violence against Catholic communities, and the partisan nature of the security forces.  Bloody Sunday happened the day after my 13th birthday — if I had been a few years older, would there have been part of me thinking 'should I strike back'? Sure — who wouldn't? And many of them did — Ray McCreesh was two years above me at school, joined Na Fíanna not long after Bloody Sunday, and the next time I saw his face was in the newspapers a few years later as he starved himself to death on protest in the H-Blocks.  



So I've always sought to correct those who peddle this myth that the IRA were demonic ogres spawned from the depths of hell with the pre-programmed urge to kill.  They were mostly young lads reacting to a situation of conflict within a State that deemed them no good simply because they were Catholics.  I often find that those most critical of these young men are people who have never known what it is like to grow up in an environment like that.  Unionists have never properly acknowledged that the sectarian state and, as you say, the failure to embrace the very legitimate demands of the Civil Rights movement, fuelled the anger and frustration that led to the armed Republican campaign.



While I have always been quick to urge understanding of how the conflict arose, I am not so quick to condone.  The IRA were brutal, savage and often merciless. Most of the 'Ra Men' in our area were thugs and people were scared of them.  We cannot blame discrimination or Unionists for what happened at Kingsmill, La Mon House, Darkley, Enniskillen, Guildford, Warrington etc etc etc.  These were not reactions to discrimination — they were senseless horrific atrocities that achieved absolutely nothing.  We cannot blame Unionists for the butchery perpetrated in Republican punishment beatings and maimings of young working class lads.  We cannot blame Unionists for the IRA turning their stronghold areas into fiefdoms of paramilitary rule, where due process was ignored and thuggery was the rule of law.  



So no — whilst I have always understood its origins, and criticised Unionsts for their reluctance to accept any blame for it, the IRA campaign achieved next to nothing for the Irish people.  Catholics in the North did not achieve parity through violence — we achieved it through educating ourselves and reaching the political offices and careers once shut to us. In doing so we took on the State from within and changed its nature.  



We smashed the sectarian State intellectually — and that is how we will end partition — with arguments and reason, not the brutality of the IRA.

[Thomas]

The British government deployed the army to prevent what seemed like a potential imminent civil war, following the burning and destruction of Catholic homes in the late 60s by loyalist mobs.  But by the time the army were deployed, the British government had already turned a blind eye to almost 50 years of systemic discrimination against Irish Catholics (even Ian Paisley eventually admitted this).  When the Civil Rights movement began, anti-Catholic sentiment reached fever pitch.



The army were sent in to an environment which they did not understand, which had already begun to spiral out of control, and which they were not prepared to deal with.  Where the Catholic population had initially viewed them as saviours, sentiments changed quickly when it appeared to people that the army were not merely peacekeeping, but helping to prop up the Unionist government — and with it the discriminatory status quo.  The introduction of Internment Without Trial and the curfews fuelled that sentiment, and by the time Bloody Sunday happened a point of no return had been reached.  I don't blame individual soldiers for the failures of the Army's strategy, most of them were just kids following orders — but I encountered a fair few bad eggs in my time and the Army / other State security forces were responsible for some terrible things.  



So I ask you again Nick — if you had been born into an environment where you were discriminated against by a pro-Irish government...and your people rose up in marches...and during those marches they were beaten off the streets by Irish mobs and eventually gunned down by Irish soldiers ....and Irish soldiers came at night and took your dad away to prison on dodgy intelligence....and your house was raided constantly by Irish soldiers using CS gas ...please tell me how sure you are that you would not have taken up arms against that scenario?

I just read this post conor which i missed earlier. In it you are saying pretty much what i am saying in my earlier post.



so i will wait till you clarify your stance , as it seems all over the place to be honest, but i ask again what do you mean by this?.....

though I do feel Unionists have never fully accepted their mistake of feeding the beast.

[/b]





Seems a bit of a contradictory statement in light of your earlier post .



Northern irish unionists treatment of their own irish people in the sectarian apartheid six county statelet from the twenties to the sixties is a little known oft forgotten period of history massively overshadowed by the events of the long war to come.



Had unionism embraced their neighbours instead of disenfranchising them  , and treating them as second class citizens almost exactly as white americans did to the blacks , history may have been slightly different. My personal belief , was things had went too far by the twenties , never mind during and aftermath of the thirty years of troubles we are all more familiar with , and as i said , unionism was in no mood to parley or relent.



Unionism created the monster in the north  , and was simply the twin cheek of the same sectarian and violent arse.

[Thomas]

Well, I've always maintained that the IRA campaign took us further away from a United Ireland than closer — though I do feel Unionists have never fully accepted their mistake of feeding the beast. Only now, when most of militant Republicanism has come in from the cold to constitutional politics, are we starting to ebb closer.  

Well i have to say i really disagree with this statement conor.

though I do feel Unionists have never fully accepted their mistake of feeding the beast.

[/b]



What is that supposed to mean conor? What a strange way for an irish man to phrase things.If dear old nick doesnt know glasgow is in britain , then im sure this discussion will be lost on him and the difference between the old IRA and the provisionals and wider northern irish history.



Unionists didnt feed any beast , unionism CREATED the beast.



Its not within the scope of this thread to go into every single aspect of irish history , but cast your mind back to the early twentieth century and the founding of the sectarian apartheid wee 6 county statelet.



You are giving the impression , certainly to me ,that somehow all was milk and honey in this sectarian apartheid statelet from the twenties to the sixties , when it was anything but , and sinn fein ira merely bad eggs who were somehow stirring the pot against british rule for no reason whatsoever which unionism then reacted to , ie fed!



Mass demonstrations and civil rights marches , complete disenfrachisement of the nationalist community , beatings and rioting by loyalist mobs , etc etc etc so much so the british were forced under the watchfull gaze of the world at large to send in the army to protect the nationalist community.



....and where were the IRA and their political wing in all of this?



By the mid sixties, they were being mocked by slogans in the nationalist community like IRA , " i ran away" due to their failure to protect the wider nationalist community.



Up to that point , militant republicanism and  their political wing were celebrated in the republic for being the heros who won ireland its freedom and helped create the irish state.



Then from the late sixties onwards , the provisionals and hardliners took control in the north , and it was plain to see that militant republicanism in northern ireland wasnt a beast that came into being  on its own  for no good reason and was fed by unionism , but  a  violent reaction to the brutality the british had allowed in the sectarian  apartheid statelet up to that point. When faith in the ballot box went , violence was all they had left.



The british politicians created a monster in the north of the island , a frankenstein monster that ended up out of control , while by the eighties they were standing back aghast at what they had done. Who could have possibly believed violence would beget violence conor?



I mean it had never ever happened anywhere else the british had colonised and terrorised across the world did it?



The idea unionism is going to meekly accept a united ireland now or in the future as i told you before ,if sinn fein or the ira had never existed ,  or that some gradualist approach would have made any difference to the violence and outcome is laughable in my opinion.



After being elevated up by the british in the mid nineteenth cnetury from being protestant dissenters against british rule , allowed into the orange lodge , then allowed to set up a sectarian apartheid statelet in the twenties , unionism was in no mood to parley nor gradually accept unification somewhere down the line.



The thirty year campaign by the IRA was wrong in my opinion , but clearly not very surprising against the backdrop of what was happening .



Northern ireland is a lost cause , and the british establishment know it. I bet johnson , and his wider tory party would happily dump the place in a second if they could somehow save face over it , as old borkie and many other english on this forum have told you time and again.



Stop trying to plead with england and save them from themselves conor , they dont appreciate it one little bit.

[Conchúr]

I concede the point but it was hardly an invasion.

I still stand by the fact that in latter years the IRA concerned them selves with drugs and prostitution, with an occasional explosion for their sponsors in Boston. Unification and ridding the island of Ireland seemed pretty  low on the bucket list.

Well, I've always maintained that the IRA campaign took us further away from a United Ireland than closer — though I do feel Unionists have never fully accepted their mistake of feeding the beast. Only now, when most of militant Republicanism has come in from the cold to constitutional politics, are we starting to ebb closer.  



The IRA's links to petty crime, drugs and smuggling is much more nuanced.  The Provisonal IRA dealt with thieves and drug dealers with cruel brutality.  I remember walking my son to school one day and there was a man tied to a post, tarred & feathered, with a sign round his neck saying "I am scum, who stole from my own people".  Drug dealers were usually kneecapped.  



But there is no doubt that men involved with the Provisionals, as well as members of the Real IRA / Continuity IRA / the old Official IRA / INLA  were heavily involved in gangsterism and racketeering — and many continue to be.

[Thomas]

Well yes and no.



Prydain is actually modern Welsh which is an invention of middle class English academics at Cardiff University.



When Pytheas, the 4th century BC  explorer reached England he remarked upon how taken the locals were by form, by which he probably mean that they were into the fine arts such as painting and sculpture. So he named them the Painting or Painted People. Pytheas was a Greek from Marseilles where the locals spoke a mixture of Italian and French so Christ (particularly Christ who would not be invented for another three hundred years) knows what he was rattling on about most of the time, but he settled on the name Pretani which was soon translated into Britain.



The important point is that Pytheas sailed round Britain and claimed that he voyaged 5,000 miles. This suggests that he passed round the western coast of Ireland which means both Islands belong to England.

 ::



The greeks and the romans had many names for these islands , a common name was the tin islands , which is why the romans invaded to take control of the tin trade , cornwall being one of the few areas of europe to produce tin , a major component of bronze.



They all agreed , the natives called the islands prydain , prythen , pretan etc etc etc , from which the later roman bastardised the name to britain.



Funnily enough pretani was the name given to the picts , the painted people north of the forth clyde by the romans too. Later on  , the gaels called the picts the cruthen , and their land cruthentuath , notice the famous p and q celtic swap in the name where prythen in (old welsh/british) became cruthen in (old irish /gaidhlig).



The bottom line borkie is the english are the immigrants to these islands ::  , we are the natives , and the english have only been here for 1600 years , and during the whole of that time , have only come to call themselves british in the last two hundred years. It was well into the treaty of union before "british " became an accepted term for the ordinary englishman.



If you ever read any old books on the english and their ancestors , you will see the curious occurance of the derogatory slagging off of the british time and again , whom the english for the majority of history saw most definetly as something other to themselves.





Now because ireland  has left  , northern ireland and scotland are on the verge of leaving , nick and many other bringlish nationals are trying to appropriate the name "britain" to mean england in a fit of delusion of grandeur.



You can of course call yourselves whatever you like ( whats wrong with england and englishmen)? but as i always say international recognition is what counts , and it will be funny watching a wee country that makes up only 40% of the land of these islands attempting to call itself britian to argue its case as the successor state and retain all rights and international priviliges like security council membership while sub continents like india are told they cant have a seat because little england is in its place.

[Thomas]

Scotland didn't even exist until around the 1100's, it was Caledonia and the Romans got beaten back at virtually every turn. Britons is totally different to the term Britain, it was used by the French that lived there and aided Scotland in their fight against the English.

What ? The origination of the kingdom of scotland was in the mid ninth century , when giric , then kenny macalpin  , founded the country. England was founded roughly a century later under athelstan , and it took centuries before both countries took on their modern shape as we know today.



Caledonia was the name of the area north of the forth clyde , not the whole of scotland.The romans built a line of forts across the highlands , then later the antonine wall was their frontier  , then hadrians wall.



i have no idea what this means at all....

Britons is totally different to the term Britain, it was used by the French that lived there and aided Scotland in their fight against the English.

So are you telling me someone from britain isnt a briton? ::  What are you then nick , bringlish? :: Google the strathclyde britons and stop wasting my time.

Roman Britain (Latin: Britannia[1] or, later, Britanniae, "the Britains") was the area of the island of Great Britain that was governed by the Roman Empire, from 43 to 410 AD.[2]:129–131[3] It comprised almost the whole of England and Wales and, for a short period, southern Scotland.



A short period, that means not any more.

So lets recap. You claimed on our old forum glasgow wasnt in britain , as england and wales are called britain , based on the old roman province of brittannia.



Now you admit the glasgow area , bombarded with mass evidence and your own link , was at one point in roman britain , with the caveat it was only for a short time :roll:  ::  destroying your own argument in the process.



Away back to your bed nick. This is too much for ye. :fcplm:

[Thomas]

Well Mr Squawker,

It is clearly ridiculous to apply current day 'norms' to historical  events - but in any event, bringing civilisation to the Indians and the unruly Picts cost money....

LMFAO.



This might interest you stevlin regarding bringing civilisation to india.....

How Britain stole $45 trillion from India

And lied about it.

[/b]

There is a story that is commonly told in Britain that the colonisation of India - as horrible as it may have been - was not of any major economic benefit to Britain itself. If anything, the administration of India was a cost to Britain. So the fact that the empire was sustained for so long - the story goes - was a gesture of Britain's benevolence.



New research by the renowned economist Utsa Patnaik - just published by Columbia University Press - deals a crushing blow to this narrative. Drawing on nearly two centuries of detailed data on tax and trade, Patnaik calculated that Britain drained a total of nearly $45 trillion from India during the period 1765 to 1938.



It's a staggering sum. For perspective, $45 trillion is 17 times more than the total annual gross domestic product of the United Kingdom today.

[/b]



https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/britain-stole-45-trillion-india-181206124830851.html">https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opini ... 30851.html">https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/britain-stole-45-trillion-india-181206124830851.html





as for this...

Furthermore, instead of making a credible case for countering the over-supported Scots from UK funding via a non- biased source,,

i have made the credible case and destroyed your nonsense regarding scottish funding many a time on the old forum as you know fine well.



The bottom line is  with 8.9% of the uk population , scotland gets 9.3% of the funding as we have discussed many a time. The uncomfortable truth you fail to mention every time is scotland provides ( excluding our 96% share of oil and 60% share of gas etc etc ) 9.6% of the revenue  , meaning westminster receives a small net subsidy from scotland without taking into account mineral wealth.







https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQaMzr7X0AEceCp?format=jpg&name=small">

[Nick]

The British government deployed the army to prevent what seemed like a potential imminent civil war, following the burning and destruction of Catholic homes in the late 60s by loyalist mobs.  But by the time the army were deployed, the British government had already turned a blind eye to almost 50 years of systemic discrimination against Irish Catholics (even Ian Paisley eventually admitted this).  When the Civil Rights movement began, anti-Catholic sentiment reached fever pitch.



The army were sent in to an environment which they did not understand, which had already begun to spiral out of control, and which they were not prepared to deal with.  Where the Catholic population had initially viewed them as saviours, sentiments changed quickly when it appeared to people that the army were not merely peacekeeping, but helping to prop up the Unionist government — and with it the discriminatory status quo.  The introduction of Internment Without Trial and the curfews fuelled that sentiment, and by the time Bloody Sunday happened a point of no return had been reached.  I don't blame individual soldiers for the failures of the Army's strategy, most of them were just kids following orders — but I encountered a fair few bad eggs in my time and the Army / other State security forces were responsible for some terrible things.  



So I ask you again Nick — if you had been born into an environment where you were discriminated against by a pro-Irish government...and your people rose up in marches...and during those marches they were beaten off the streets by Irish mobs and eventually gunned down by Irish soldiers ....and Irish soldiers came at night and took your dad away to prison on dodgy intelligence....and your house was raided constantly by Irish soldiers using CS gas ...please tell me how sure you are that you would not have taken up arms against that scenario?

I concede the point but it was hardly an invasion.

I still stand by the fact that in latter years the IRA concerned them selves with drugs and prostitution, with an occasional explosion for their sponsors in Boston. Unification and ridding the island of Ireland seemed pretty  low on the bucket list.

[Borchester]

Britain is an english word , the roman word was brittannia , we dont use that word colloquially , and both the english and latin words come from the old celtic world prydain.

Well yes and no.



Prydain is actually modern Welsh which is an invention of middle class English academics at Cardiff University.



When Pytheas, the 4th century BC  explorer reached England he remarked upon how taken the locals were by form, by which he probably mean that they were into the fine arts such as painting and sculpture. So he named them the Painting or Painted People. Pytheas was a Greek from Marseilles where the locals spoke a mixture of Italian and French so Christ (particularly Christ who would not be invented for another three hundred years) knows what he was rattling on about most of the time, but he settled on the name Pretani which was soon translated into Britain.



The important point is that Pytheas sailed round Britain and claimed that he voyaged 5,000 miles. This suggests that he passed round the western coast of Ireland which means both Islands belong to England.

[Conchúr]

I may be wrong but I thought the English were asked to enter Ireland as peace keepers and stop Catholic deaths. Is that not correct?

The British government deployed the army to prevent what seemed like a potential imminent civil war, following the burning and destruction of Catholic homes in the late 60s by loyalist mobs.  But by the time the army were deployed, the British government had already turned a blind eye to almost 50 years of systemic discrimination against Irish Catholics (even Ian Paisley eventually admitted this).  When the Civil Rights movement began, anti-Catholic sentiment reached fever pitch.



The army were sent in to an environment which they did not understand, which had already begun to spiral out of control, and which they were not prepared to deal with.  Where the Catholic population had initially viewed them as saviours, sentiments changed quickly when it appeared to people that the army were not merely peacekeeping, but helping to prop up the Unionist government — and with it the discriminatory status quo.  The introduction of Internment Without Trial and the curfews fuelled that sentiment, and by the time Bloody Sunday happened a point of no return had been reached.  I don't blame individual soldiers for the failures of the Army's strategy, most of them were just kids following orders — but I encountered a fair few bad eggs in my time and the Army / other State security forces were responsible for some terrible things.  



So I ask you again Nick — if you had been born into an environment where you were discriminated against by a pro-Irish government...and your people rose up in marches...and during those marches they were beaten off the streets by Irish mobs and eventually gunned down by Irish soldiers ....and Irish soldiers came at night and took your dad away to prison on dodgy intelligence....and your house was raided constantly by Irish soldiers using CS gas ...please tell me how sure you are that you would not have taken up arms against that scenario?

[Nick]

Yes, I know about their history.  You weren't so quick to criticise the DUP who have a long history of sectarianism and links to loyalist paramilitaries when they were keeping the UK government supplied with votes. The DUP actually, and quite openly, created their own paramilitary force known as Ulster Resistance which collaborated with other loyalist paramilitary organisations to smuggle weapons into Northern Ireland which were subsequently used to commit atrocities. The State was far quicker to turn a blind eye to Loyalist paramilitary activity, even colluding with them.  The only real difference between the DUP and Sinn Féin's connections was that the latter had to operate underground while the former could operate so openly that it barely seemed illegal at all.  



Your passion for peace and justice wasn't so evident when it wasn't convenient for you.



I don't vote for Sinn Féin and don't particularly like them as a party.  But to give them their credit, they were instrumental in bringing the bulk of militant Republicanism back into the fold of constitutional politics — to the extent that current Republican paramilitary groups actively despise Sinn Féin as traitors.  It's easy to judge when you didn't grow up in a conflict society Nick.  Let's say things had been different — let's say it had been Ireland that invaded England.  Let's say that after a long struggle the Irish eventually left, but retained your county and the 5 counties around it and created an international border between you and the rest of England.  Let's say this new mini state actively discriminated against English people and deprived them of voting parity, housing and jobs. Let's say that when English people marched peacefully for rights, they had been attacked by mobs and shot at by Irish soldiers.  What would you have done ? Would you have fought ? And even if not, would you feel morally equipped to utterly condemn young Englishmen who did ?



That's the kind of environment the Sinn Féin old guard grew up in.  In any case, the majority of the current leadership were youngsters back when the ceasefire was announced in '94, and the cries of Sinn Féin being a political wing of the IRA will die out with the passing of time.

I may be wrong but I thought the English were asked to enter Ireland as peace keepers and stop Catholic deaths. Is that not correct?

[Nick]

Britain is an english word , the roman word was brittannia , we dont use that word colloquially , and both the english and latin words come from the old celtic world prydain.



The old roman province of brittannia fluctuated over the centuries as we have discussed , and was never ever used to refer to england and wales as neither country existed in those days , and it didnt correspond with the modern boundaries of both those countries , and as discusssed at one point included much of southern scotland.



You are making a tit of yourself as ever thick nick , and between stevlins lack of geographic skills and your insane ramblings about history and placenames you must be an embarressment to your fellow englishmen on this forum.



I notice you havent addressed any of my points regarding why is there a roman wall north of glasgow , and why did the ancient people in southern scotland call themselves britons if they werent part of old britain at one point in history?



I mean i could go on nick , but its probably all a bit above your head , Stevlin despite his shite geography skills can at least put forth an argument to engage with . You are more on lotsovs level of insane zany rantings.

Scotland didn't even exist until around the 1100's, it was Caledonia and the Romans got beaten back at virtually every turn. Britons is totally different to the term Britain, it was used by the French that lived there and aided Scotland in their fight against the English.





I don't expect you to ever admit you're wrong cause you have made a tit of yourself for far too long now, why don't you read this and educate your self.

And before you try and do a shimmy and say this is old Roman Britain tell me the year Britain was redefined or moved its borders.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Britain">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Britain



Roman Britain (Latin: Britannia[1] or, later, Britanniae, "the Britains") was the area of the island of Great Britain that was governed by the Roman Empire, from 43 to 410 AD.[2]:129–131[3] It comprised almost the whole of England and Wales and, for a short period, southern Scotland.



A short period, that means not any more.