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Originally posted by Laurauk
reply to post by Mclaneinc
Not to go off topic. Wont other Countries see this sealing of the UK Borders as Protectionism. And do the exact same thing, hence jeopardizing more of the UK's exports and jobs.
Originally posted by supamoto
"Don't beleive the hype".
When it comes to politics this newspaper is know for lies and false info'.
They are pro-government & are rumourmongers of the worst kind.
Social issues in Scotland, the Government up there are mostly concentrating their resources to rid the country of sectarianism, not the influx off European worker.s
Originally posted by count66
reply to post by mackey1224uk
Hi mate,
I'm from the south but work in Belfast and am of the nationalist persuasion. To be honest I understand your fears but that will never happen in the event of the UK sealing its borders to other EU nations in the event of a Eurozone collapse for a couple of reasons.
a) Ireland, the UK, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man have a common travel area agreement which as far as I know dates back to the 1930's and I doubt that the UK would repeal that in the event of an Eurozone collapse as that is separate to the EU treaties.
b) The Good Friday Agreement would be breached if such an event occurred as this again allows free travel and movement of peoples between the North and South of the Island of Ireland and I can't see the UK government breaching the agreement and all the trouble that would bring when it can easily still allow the common travel agreement to exist whilst reneging on the EU treaties in the event of border closure.
c) The biggest ethinic immigrant group living in the South is British citizens - approx 500K out of a population of 4.5 Million - can't see the British Government cutting off this population for no good reason. Also one of the biggest ethnic Groups in the UK are Irish citizens.
d) The Republic of Ireland accounts for more trade with the UK than Brazil, Russia, India and China combined - again it would make no sense for the UK to cut off all this trade through a border closure with the South.
e) 60% of the worlds hedge funds are domiciled in Dublin and have direct trade links with the city of London - the UK would be insane to again cut off the free movement of people between the 2 cities and collapse the City of London.
I don't think there is much of an appetite for war anymore - and this coming from a guy who got a glass smashed in his eye at an xmas party for having the wrong accent in the wrong part of town - I was with some unionist work colleagues by the way who were very ashamed and apologetic for what happened to me. At the end of the day - I don't agree with their political persuasion and they don't with mine but we are all mates and bar some friendly slagging that we have with each other I can't see them or I ever picking up a gun against each other in any circumstances and as I'm sure you know on both sides, the armed factions or those willing to use armed violence are limited to a small minority - although they can cause a lot of trouble I can't see things ever going back to the 70's.
Last word on the matter would be - that at the end of the day despite the historical differences the Irish and the British in difficult times tend to stick together - in both world wars a significant no. of Southern Irishmen joined the British army and still do. George Osbourne in turn was the only finance minister at the G20 meeting who stood up for Ireland wishing to burn the bondholders of private banks which was vetoed by Timothy Geitner and saddled the South with an unbearable Debt Burden. For those of us who thought the U.S. was our friend we found out that it wasn't but in fact the U.K was.
Happy new year to you!