Domestic political reflections

As I've been reflecting on other events elsewhere and dealing with some ahem 'drama' this week I though I'd set out some reflections around contemporary current affairs that have been grabbing the headlines across this year.

I think I'll begin by saying my thoughts around the use of intelligence and resourcing in tackling terrorism expressed in the aftermath of the Arianda Grande concert in May that had an impact on people in this local authority area seem to be been born out in the report into the incident. While there is talk of more police officers being deployed, it seems little real change in resourcing the surveillance side with the need to cherry pick who to closely follow  being finely balance hasn't been tackled.

The Irish Question or as my History teacher put it the 'English Question' is never far beneath the surface from the 'colonization' by Scots, the start of calls for 'Home Rule' during the Victorian era  through the Easter Rising and bloody Civil War, 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland and the 1995 'Peace Process'.

Feeling, symbolism and fear in Irish Politics counts for as half as much to either side  in Northern Ireland, itself the neutral name given to what I grew up as 'Ulster' so the issue of the co-alignment of Irish, United Kingdom and European Union boundaries was always going to be an issue in the UK's departing the EU.

"Two's company, three's a crowd" is an expression that lends itself  how that border causes issues for and between each because prior to joining  the the Common Market in 1973, the UK approach was one of special deals for the Irish Republic ("Eire") to take account of the close ties between the peoples of the British Isles notwithstanding political differences.

One of big things of the UK's leaving is the questions of the Single Market and the Customs Union because the UK and Irish Republic do trade and share some facilities such as hospitals, universities so border communities are rightly concerned about such matters.

On the other hand the customs side, taxation, declarations and  so on  they are very much EU wide matters and so ensuring checks are made in the event of the UK being completely matter in terms of lost revenue and common standards matter to them as much as to border communities the shared trade continues.

This was the idea behind in effect placing the boundary on the Isle of Ireland to eliminate the need to have manned boarder posts and associated paperwork.

The problem area with it is two-fold, one being it may solve the issue of trade with the Island of Ireland but places one in the North Sea between Northern Ireland and Great Britain  which counts for a higher proportion of trade between themselves than the Republic and the UK.

The second is what scuppered this weeks attempt to move on the the whole Brexit negotiations to trade, which is from a Unionist Northern Irish point of view you're not treating  the whole UK the same way and they felt it was the start of an erosion of their British Identity.

To those pro Brexit voters the terms of staying in the Single Market and Customs union - no regular ability to control migration levels year on year from the EU, the ability to set ones own tax rates and negotiation fully independently ones own trade agreements free from the EU after leaving - would be heavily compromised by acceptance across the whole of the UK. They hold effectively it nullifies the very reason they wished to leave.
It remains to be seen if there really is a solution that meets everyone's needs to this question before we are able to get around to talking about trading relations before the year is out.