LongTimeLurker

They have painted themselves into a corner. They almost certainly do want a soft border but they steered clear of Corbyn due to his past dalliances with SF because they thought the Tories were still Unionist and assumed something would eventually get sorted out with the EU. It now turns out that they're not and it almost certainly can't without all of the UK doing a soft Brexit, which would put the Tories into complete meltdown. Senior pro-Remain Tories need to start breaking ranks on this and collapse this government for the greater good or the whole thing is heading over the cliff to a no deal exit.

As well as the DUP angle and expecting them to bottle it yesterday rather than do the readily predictable of what can be paraphrased as a cry of No Surrender on the border issue, it's like Maggie T with the 1981 Hunger Strike all over again on how the Home Counties chattering classes simply don't understand why Irish republican opinion is the way it is. Do they really have no concept of who Michael Collins was and why given what happened to him in the 1920s no Fine Gael leader could ever contemplate being seen to cave to pressure from Westminster on the border issue?

Doubt it. What's being proposed by Theresa May is basically the end of the UK. There's no way the DUP can go along with that. Moving forward it will be interesting to see what effect this has on Unionist opinion even in Scotland. What has traditionally been understood by Britain and Britishness has been shown to be expendable when it runs counter to the interests of the Tory party in Middle England. Will also be interesting to see if this whole episode gets Westminster politicians to finally face reality on the UK's status in the modern post-imperial world.

Unlikely after the latest opinion poll numbers with Labour, and the SNP and Lib Dems are pro-Remain, so can't touch what she is doing with a bargepole. There's no way the DUP can go along with what Theresa May is alleged to be proposing because leaving aside any William Ulsterman stuff it would be even more economically disastrous for NI to be uncoupled from GB in customs union terms than it would be to have a hard border with the RoI, so either she backs down or there is going to be a general election early in the New Year. What never ceases to amaze me is how clueless English politicians always are about what makes people in NI tick. The one exception was Blair and that was basically because his mother was from an Orange family in Donegal.

The face saving way out is leaving the EU, but staying in the EEA Norway style with the four freedoms intact. The reason it isn't happening is that it would split the Tories and reinvigorate UKIP again and that potentially paves the way for Corbyn to win the next election. Politics is a cynical business sometimes. Formerly pro-Remain Tory politicians like Ruth Davidson should come under greater pressure to explain whether they are going along with a disastrous hard Brexit out of sheer selfish careerism at this point or a sudden change of heart since the referendum, because a small group of pro-remain Tories emerging with the courage to act in the national interest even if it means falling on the sword a bit in political terms is probably the only hope at this point.

The Isle of Man is not in the EU, but can still trade with EU members with no customs tariffs being applied, so Rees-Mogg isn't actually wrong in strictly technical terms even if it's a disingenuous argument due to the practicalities involved making a hard border a necessity when a state as large as the UK is involved. You would have to ask the UK government on the second question. My guess would be that they thought it would swing people over to the No side, so the question seems a bit redundant to me. The important point was that they had the ability to do that like the EU does with the NI border at the moment and if Scotland had voted for independence passport and customs checks on the M74 at Gretna could have been one of the outcomes regardless of what Holyrood wanted. Divorces often get bitter.

If we had wound up outside the EU with rUK still in there almost certainly would have been a hard border at the Solway and Tweed for a few years minimum, if EEA membership could not have been secured. If Brexit is teaching people anything it is that radical constitutional change is not something to do lightly and to be wary of snake oil salesmen that claim otherwise.

Some of that's questionable: A hard border forces people to choose, and the DUP think that choice favours them. This holds even if there is a severe economic downturn, as the easiest way to escape that will be for people holding both Irish and British passports to move to the Republic, further strengthening the Unionist majority. And in the long term, a hard border encourages economic activity to focus on trading with England, Scotland and Wales, strengthening the union of kingdoms economically. More likely is that they thought Remain would win and had nothing to lose by waving the Union Jack a lot during the referendum to shore up their base from splinter groups on the fringes of Unionist opinion like TUV and UKIP and have now painted themselves into a corner. The rest is pretty much on the money. No Unionist party in NI could ever go along with there effectively being a hard border between the rest of the UK and NI, so they are definitely not bluffing. Suspect the outcome is probably that Theresa May blinks first and there is a hard no deal Brexit, but it doesn't take much of a Europhile revolt from the Conservative backbenches by MPs that may be on the verge of retiring next time around to make the numbers no long work for the Tory-DUP deal so an interesting few weeks ahead. The EU are probably counting on Theresa May's government collapsing soon now that the sheer absurdity of the path they have chosen is becoming clearer and a soft Brexit EEA type outcome emerging in the aftermath of a general election with the EU's four freedoms remaining intact. An election in a Scottish context in the next few months would be interesting given the SNP could get anywhere from 0 to 50 seats based on relatively small shifts of public opinion and tactical voting patterns from the last outcome.

Think you'll find that number is misleading and that on other measures the UK is their biggest trading partner at around 50% or so. The reason they won't cave is because they don't get to negotiate separately from the rest of the EU and even if it's not stated publicly the rest of the EU want to make sure that the UK suffers without being too blatant about it. The RoI is just collateral damage when this issue is viewed from Berlin and Paris.

Having a hard border with either the RoI or mainland Britain is a catastrophe economically for NI. They were complete c***ts (that will confuse the hard of thinking who think I support them) for backing Brexit in the first place, but it was more Nigel and Geoffrey in Little Buggerington-on-Thames in the Home Counties that swung that one rather than William and Mervyn in places like Moira, Cullybackey or Comber and now that it has happened the DUP have to do what's best for their electorate. On balance leaving aside the fleg waving angle that is involved, NI as a totality is probably still better off making sure it keeps unfettered access to the internal UK market than the EU one, so it's rational to push for the hard border that is inevitable at this point to be at Newry rather than Larne if you have the economy of the core greater Belfast area in mind. Not so clear cut along the border and with Londonderry obviously but DUP supporters tend to be thinner on the ground there. The rational arguments for UI have probably never been stronger, so the future of Unionism that had looked secure for the forseeable future relatively recently is now far from rosy.

Suspect Tweedmouth won't hang around too much longer as the EoS experiment clearly isn't working for them. Will be interesting to see how many junior clubs actually follow through and do what Kelty did. So far it only seems to be superleague clubs like Bo'ness United and Clydebank that view the EoS as a stepping stone rather than a destination that are looking into it. The fun and games would really start if smaller junior clubs like Haddington and Blackburn that can't be too far off in licensing terms decided to give it a whirl for guaranteed Scottish Cup entry.

Does that mean that they will be licensed in time to be promoted if they edge out Kelty this season?

There's no need for a massive drop in gate revenue if the Polish model is adopted with 16 teams: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016–17_Ekstraklasa 30 games plus 7 in two sections for 37 overall. We have more than enough full-time clubs to do it without part-time East Fife, Dumbarton or Arbroath teams making an appearance early 1970s style.

East Kilbride are in the EoSFA. That set the precedent for Glasgow area teams to be in the EoS League.

Both sides know full well that there is going to have to be a hard border with a hard Brexit. It's all posturing to make sure somebody else gets blamed for it in the aftermath.

Were you paying attention to what just happened with Catalonia?

The EU insisted that Montenegro had to have 55% saying yes before they would be recognised as an independent state, so there's a precedent for it in European terms. It helps to move things into settled will sort of territory and limits the danger that the electorate changes its mind on something that fundamental every time there is a general election.

I think you just want to turn this into another turgid unionist vs nationalist argument? The natural place for the hard border that is the logical outcome of the hard Brexit that UKIP campaigned for and the Tories have now adopted as their own posture is the line on the map between NI-RoI, because the UK being partially in and mostly out of the EU customs union would be bizarre to say the least. The DUP were crazy to back Brexit, because it has created rational arguments for UI where there were none before and provided Westminster politicians with a motivation to want to jettison NI in future rather than the recent scenario of largely ignoring it, but they probably expected Remain to win like most people did.

East Kilbride joined the EoS FA, so they could take part in its cup competitions. That sets the precedent that clubs from the Glasgow area can join.

Rutherglen Central and North (first preferences) http://www.southlanarkshire.gov.uk/downloads/file/11870/election_results_per_stage Lab 1173 SNP 836 Libs 554 Cons 368 Greens 88 UKIP 28 Big swing from the SNP to Labour from earlier in the year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Lanarkshire_Council_election,_2017#Rutherglen_Central_and_North

That doesn't sound like satire to you?

Is the flat earth stuff not all just a wind up?

There's also Bonnyton Thistle from Kilmarnock. That would leave them needing another six for a viable league in numbers terms and it may not just be the Old Firm that would put colt teams in. How difficult could it be for clubs that have a 3G pitch like Hamilton Accies and Kilmarnock to do this? Also have to wonder if this is legit whether this would be an extra league alongside the SoS League in status terms or would be replacing it as the west coast feeder to the LL. If it's the latter, clubs like Threave, St Cuthberts Wanderers and Newton Stewart could then be roped in as part of their licensing. At that point they don't need much of a juniors contingent.

The EU negotiates as a single block, so I suspect the first bit was added spin. On the second bit, I suspect there may be some regret in Dublin at the moment amongst the elite that will never be stated publicly that they didn't stay pegged to the pound and hitched themselves to the euro, but nobody could have foreseen a decade or two ago that a Conservative leader would be crazy enough to hold a Brexit referendum and risk a hard border having to be enforced between the RoI and NI and most people still assumed that Remain would win even after they decided to proceed. The UK is the RoI's main trading partner, so the RoI may wind up having most to lose in all of this, if it has to adhere to a set of policies that are designed to suit EU members that can much more easily live without trade with the UK and want to make sure the UK suffers in the aftermath of all this to send the message that leaving the club is a very bad move.

Hopefully the under-30 generation I mentioned will drift away from the balaclava wearers and bible thumpers and vote Alliance, Greens, PBP etc instead. Time will tell.