Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and predictions not written down are easy to get right. However I recall quite a few years back wondering aloud to many people why the various factions in Northern Ireland were bothering as with the EU it’d all become moot anyway, as they’d just be regions of a greater EU state. I wasn’t that politically aware back then but with a single currency and European passports it seemed the logical end point, and once we were all just “Europeans” what would they be fighting for exactly?
Via Leg Iron and by way of Witterings from Witney it seems the Irish have now noticed that they have in fact given away 400 years of struggle for independence. The Irish Times asks if “this is what the men of 1916 died for“, as Archbishop Cranmer observed they didn’t even make it to the centenary of their independence. I wonder when or if the Irish people as a whole will realise fully what’s happened and what they’ll then do about it. They do after all have a recent history of causing trouble and have a bit of a reputation for their ability to cause mischief.
Closer to home back in the 90′s Margaret Thatcher appears to have been on the money as to the effect the Euro would have on weaker economies. So as the Irish state looses autonomy to the bankers of the EU, perhaps we still have time to ask questions about the state of our independence – after all we have Dave’s cast iron guarantee. Hopefully we’ll not be as quick to squander the sacrifice of generations to gain and keep our sovereignty and freedoms as our Irish brethren have been – or maybe the next episode of X-factor will let us all sleep walk into the waiting arms of the EU. Though as Douglas Carswell observes we may already be past that point as the Lisbon treaty already means we have no choice about helping to bail out the Irish – on terms decided by the EU.
Update: As every Leg Iron has a good take on matters
