Is it time to end the common travel area.??

[Borchester]

Like I keep saying Tom, crack on with it and stop talking about it.
The problem you've got is that Ole Seaweed cares more about her job than actually delivering what she allegedly stands for.

It has to be said that laughing and singing wise, the SNP seems to be a little less than top rank

Found this in Friday's Telegraph

Nicola Sturgeon has turned Scotland into a banana republic
Intolerant of criticism, the SNP has presided over failure after failure while doing little to stop the rise of toxic anti-English abuse
Camilla Tominey
Associate Editor
18 March 2022 • 5:00pm
One of the consequences of devolution is that, for much of the time, we English only get glimpses of what life is really like north of Hadrian's Wall. Scottish Nationalists generally seem to prefer it that way, except when they are asking to be fed another bottle of Barnett Formula.
According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, funding per person for public services in Scotland is 30 per cent higher than in England, which perhaps goes some way to explaining why the SNP thinks it can afford to run the country like a banana republic.
Having controlled Scotland's devolved legislature since 2007, their unfettered influence appears to have totally poisoned a once great nation. The latest example is the former SNP MSP Tricia Marwick, who this week launched an extraordinary attack on a bunch of students who had the temerity to criticise Nicola Sturgeon. (Should anyone tell her there are a number of SNP MPs in Westminster who are openly critical of their esteemed leader?)
Ms Marwick's Aberdeen Angus was with an amusing satirical article in The Saint, the University of St Andrews's student newspaper, which claimed the First Minister would "put Beezlebub off his cornflakes". Student Alexander Sparkes wrote that Ms Sturgeon would be "turned away at the door" of hell for "being too scary".
In the article, headlined Och Aye The Noo and Au Revoir, Mr Sparkes, who is English, also claimed Scotland would like to "fleece England for all he's worth", comparing the two countries to a middle-aged married couple where "the mutual hatred is palpable". He wrote that the solution was "unilateral divorce" where an "old and saggy" Scotland, which he said was becoming "the ultimate Braveheart tribute act" under the SNP, would be booted out of the union.
The article also attacked Scottish restrictions on the sale of alcohol, claiming Ms Sturgeon "must be the only politician who ever looked at Saudi Arabia's nightlife and said, 'I want a piece of that action'."
So far, so hilarious, except Ms Marwick, like many of her tartan-clan kin, refused to see the funny side.
Branding St Andrews students "failed Oxbridge students," the former Holyrood presiding officer described the undergraduates as "anti-Scottish" and "pathetic wee trolls". The nationalist grandee went on to claim that the 609-year-old institution, where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge met, was "not a Fife university" – despite it being in Fife.She also said the students were "anti-women". (The Liberal Democrats also suggested the article was "misogynistic" – a curious conclusion to be drawn by a party that is seemingly content with a woman being described as "an adult human female").
Fife politicians demanded that Ms Marwick apologise immediately and said her comments were particularly inappropriate as she is now the chairman of NHS Fife, which runs health services for St Andrews students and its staff. We can only hope she is able to find her offices, since they are located in, er, Fife.
If that wasn't Krankie enough, we then had The National newspaper, Scotland's own Pravda, running the "story" on its front page as Ukraine continued to burn under Russian missile fire. They subsequently took a dislike to Linden Grigg, editor-in chief of The Saint, for standing by the "light-hearted" article after initially being forced into an apology for it.
As Grigg later revealed on Twitter in response to the "intimidation" his publication had been subjected to by "cyber nats" and others: "The article made it obvious that it was a satirical representation of the views that the average voter might hold ... The piece was categorically not misogynistic; the First Minister is not scary because she is a woman with power – she is scary because of the way she uses that power.
"Mrs Sturgeon has created a cult around herself to obscure the SNP's awful record on drugs, Covid, education etc. Our paper now found itself being targeted by the First Minister's hero-worshippers, who clearly could not handle criticism of her and found us an easy target.
"It was amusing to me personally to discover just how fragile both the First Minister's own image and her new Scottish sense of identity was, that a harmless article in a harmless student newspaper could arouse such anger, hatred, hysteria, and vitriole [sic]."
Quite.
Sadly, intolerance of criticism has become a hallmark of the SNP regime. Just look at the treatment of Sarah Smith, the BBC's former Scotland editor, who, after she had spoken about the vile and misogynistic abuse she had suffered, was then mocked by SNP MP James Dornan as having "imaginary woes". Former party MP Phil Boswell sparked further anger by describing Smith as a "traitor to the highest metric within journalism". These sorts of beliefs belong in the Kremlin, not Kirkcaldy (which is in Fife, apparently).
The truth of the matter is that the SNP's record is obviously appalling across a swathe of areas.
Sturgeon and her party have presided over the worst A&E waiting times on record, the lowest levels of early-stage cancer diagnoses in a decade and a big rise in drug-related deaths despite implementing more tax rises than any other part of the UK.
There are now 1,519 fewer teachers in Scotland than when the SNP came to power, according to one opposition party. There are also 332 fewer schools in Scotland, two thirds of which haven't been inspected for five years.
To please her radical Green coalition partners, Sturgeon has also seemingly turned her back on the Scottish oil and gas industry, and the thousands of jobs it creates, in favour of foreign imports.
Having ignored an 11-year-old warning from the head of CalMac about the perilous state of Scotland's lifeline ferries, two future CalMac ferries are now to be built in Eastern Europe instead of Scotland under the SNP's watch. And there are now apparently nearly 650 fewer local police officers since the SNP's police merger.
And let's not even get started on Covid, where the vaccine passport scheme was branded "an unmitigated disaster" and the overzealous use of restrictions has inflicted misery on the country's people as well as its economy.
So the criticisms of Sturgeon have nothing whatsoever to do with her being female, and everything to do with her poor performance in office.
Propped up by deluded fan boys and girls draped in the Saltire, she has turned Scotland into a basket case, plagued by broken public finances and a toxic nationalistic debate. One can only pity the poor Scots who didn't vote for this and can seemingly do little to challenge it, let alone change it.
While pandering to virtue-signalling causes like allowing non-binary people to record their gender as "X", another dark side to Scottish supposedly "progressive" politics has been allowed to flourish, too.
Scottish councillors have called for a crackdown on Anglophobia amid an alarming rise in anti-English sentiment – with one claiming residents face more discrimination for being English than Muslim.
The calls came as Moray council, in the north-east of the country, adopted a widely-accepted definition of Islamophobia this week when it committed itself to tackling discrimination against its Muslim population.
However, Conservative councillors claimed the "abuse" hurled at the English "minority group" is now far more common in the SNP-controlled territory.
Student jokes about Scotland being "menopausal" appear rather tame by comparison.

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[Nick]

Why do the scots irish and welsh need a CTA with little england , when we can have a bigger better common travel area with the rest of the EU?

Like I keep saying Tom, crack on with it and stop talking about it. 
The problem you've got is that Ole Seaweed cares more about her job than actually delivering what she allegedly stands for. 

[Thomas]

cant think why ireland wouldnt want to rejoin the yookay......

[Thomas]

Probably makes sense to ditch,there are though hangovers from before independence that are beneficial and should stay in place.

Again like streetwalker you at least are being honest and realistic. I think once northern ireland goes , then the common travel area will go with it.

[Thomas]

I've got a better idea. Keep the common travel area, in fact bolster it and it becomes the United Kingdoms of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. All outside the EU.
Job done.

I appreciate you are being tongue in cheek barry , but how likely do you honestly think it is that the republic is going to renounce its freedom it gained in 1922 to join a brexit yookay , when brexit yookay cant even take northern ireland out of the EU after a referendum that was held  a mere 7 years ago?

Why do the scots irish and welsh need a CTA with little england , when we can have a bigger better common travel area with the rest of the EU?

[Thomas]

Priti Patel does't really like much of anything. When she sees a radiant smile on the face of a happy child her first impulse is to reach for a Tommy gun. But be that as it may be, I can't see any problems with a few Ukrainian refugees

Priti patel , like much of the tory front bench including johnson , is a hopeless politician who is way out of her depth and shouldnt be in the job.

Still she was obviously upset enough to phone dublin , and from what we hear , received the correct reply and was told whats what.

Another embarressing put down for her yet again.

[cromwell]

Probably makes sense to ditch,there are though hangovers from before independence that are beneficial and should stay in place.

[Barry]

I've got a better idea. Keep the common travel area, in fact bolster it and it becomes the United Kingdoms of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. All outside the EU.
Job done. 

[Borchester]

The reason in part im asking borkie about this common travel area malarkey is your priti patel character doesnt appear to like it.

She rang irelands justice minister over concerns of the CTA and ukrainians getting to the uk from ireland , where as Ms mc Entee politely told her to fack off and that ireland as an independent sovereign country can do as it pleases and it was taking ukrainian refugees as part of a wider EU response.

Priti Patel does't really like much of anything. When she sees a radiant smile on the face of a happy child her first impulse is to reach for a Tommy gun. But be that as it may be, I can't see any problems with a few Ukrainian refugees

[Thomas]

The reason in part im asking borkie about this common travel area malarkey is your priti patel character doesnt appear to like it.

She rang irelands justice minister over concerns of the CTA and ukrainians getting to the uk from ireland , where as Ms mc Entee politely told her to fack off and that ireland as an independent sovereign country can do as it pleases and it was taking ukrainian refugees as part of a wider EU response.

[Thomas]

I am, as you know because I have said this so many times, the kindest of men, but I don't give a wet fart in a high wind what happens to Northern Ireland or what legal system they operate under. If he wasn't a 13 year old schoolboy desperate to avoid doing his homework, I would suggest wrapping Ulster up in blue ribbon and giving the place to Gerry, with maybe a couple of jolly colleens from the Republic to help clear up his acne.

As to common travel areas, I don't know that we need them but I like the idea

so let me get my heid around this borkie.

You ( Engerlund) voted to leave the EU in part because you didnt like the common travel area you had with them. You dont give a wet fart about the irish in the north of their ireland , but care enough about the irish in the south to want to maintain a common travel area with them?

On top of that , you personally wanted to leave the eu so english ( bwitish ) law was made in bwitain , but in the northern irish part of the yookay , eu law still prevails as the eu took norfern ireland off the empire ?

..and boris is brilliant for wrapping ulster 6/9 up in a gift ribbon for the europeans?

I heard more sense from pappy on here when he was talking about food rationing in cornwall.

Am still no the wiser why the empire wants to maintain a common travel area in these islands , but there you go. Me being the kindest of men like yourself will try not to laugh , and keep a stoic demeanor when debating the seriousness of the world as seen by the tory brexiters.

[Borchester]

No such thing as uk law borkie. If you can't understand the basics , then how can we possibly debate politics?

In your 4th sentence , you talk about uk law being made in the uk , with the obvious referance to eu law. Now apart from what i said earlier ,taking that aside , uk law isnt being made in the uk as northern ireland is still subject to eu law.

To be fair though borkie , none of this addresses why we need a common travel area.?

Sounds a bit of british exceptionalism to me borkie. Kid on you still rule ireland by giving the paddies the right to a cta , while up in arms about FOM with the french and germans etc etc.

I am, as you know because I have said this so many times, the kindest of men, but I don't give a wet fart in a high wind what happens to Northern Ireland or what legal system they operate under. If he wasn't a 13 year old schoolboy desperate to avoid doing his homework, I would suggest wrapping Ulster up in blue ribbon and giving the place to Gerry, with maybe a couple of jolly colleens from the Republic to help clear up his acne.

As to common travel areas, I don't know that we need them but I like the idea

[Thomas]

Sound good Tommy.

In my younger days I recall traveling around Europe with a very out of date ship's boarding pass. It was grubby and had a photo of me when I was fourteen. No cop gave a toss or nation collapsed.

As said before, our problem is that the UK becomes so insular and impoverished that no one wants to come here, not a few chancers pitching up and making a go of things.

As I have said about a zillion times, as long as UK laws are made in the UK, the rest can go hang.

That said, I don't care how big her knockers are, if that my useless Pakee cow of an MP doesn't get the bin collections sorted out, she can forget about my vote come the next election.

No such thing as uk law borkie. If you cant understand the basics , then how can we possibly debate politics?

In your 4th sentence , you talk about uk law being made in the uk , with the obvious referance to eu law. Now apart from what i said earlier ,taking that aside , uk law isnt being made in the uk as northern ireland is still subject to eu law.

To be fair though borkie , none of this addresses why we need a common travel area.?

Sounds a bit of british exceptionalism to me borkie. Kid on you still rule ireland by giving the paddies the right to a cta , while up in arms about FOM with the french and germans etc etc.

[Borchester]

Forgive me here borkie , but recalling the arguments involved in the brexit referendum , wasnt a main bugbear of englands this freedom of movement lark with the eu 27?

so perhaps you could explain to me , a mere scotsman , the thinking behind keeping a common travel area with a country that also has freedom of movement with the eu nations?

I mean you are closer to France than ireland borkie , so why not have a common travel area with the french?

Sound good Tommy.

In my younger days I recall traveling around Europe with a very out of date ship's boarding pass. It was grubby and had a photo of me when I was fourteen. No cop gave a toss or nation collapsed.

As said before, our problem is that the UK becomes so insular and impoverished that no one wants to come here, not a few chancers pitching up and making a go of things.

As I have said about a zillion times, as long as UK laws are made in the UK, the rest can go hang.

That said, I don't care how big her knockers are, if that my useless cow of an MP doesn't get the bin collections sorted out, she can forget about my vote come the next election.

[Thomas]

Not arguing with JOG that it should have been ended years ago though would say it certainly should have been ended when we left the EU .

Its purpose of freedom to work live and travel within the area is no longer valid now we are under different visa arangments and just complicates the internal Irish border . (as if it wasn't complicated enough already )

Thanks for your honesty and realism streetwalker , and i fully agree. Cant get my head around not wanting FOM with one neighbour , but wanting it with another?