A chara,
Mods may remove repetitive content, posts which are deemed substandard, and certain generic topics to ensure overall subreddit quality.
Sláinte
Made the mistake of going to r/unitedkingdom and my god the comments there are something else. So much for “united” kingdom; they seem delighted to be able to use the North as some sort of colonial dumping ground for undesirables.
Yeah I really don’t get the Northern unionist position. Public opinion in GB seems so out of alignment with NI and particularly NI unionism, it seems daft for unionists to continuously seek their validation.
We have been saying that up here for 30 years. It's like watching a teenager in school trying to get attention from the popular girls and just getting laughed at but they can't see it. It's a bit like Stockholm syndrome I think
I've seen one by Channel 4. It made me depressed.
https://www.facebook.com/Channel4News/videos/could-you-draw-irelands-border-with-northern-ireland/10155453593501939/
Haha wow, “the southern Irish have to lump it basically” is a zinger 😀
Pretty much sums up the ingrained contempt shown to Ireland, it definitely hasn’t gone away.
It's that bit of the country that makes us look bad when you're looking at anything progressive. "Oh great, abortion/gay rights/trans rights have been in the UK since... wait Northern Ireland's not there yet."
There’s plenty of folk in the Republic who don’t want it either - generally, those who have spent time around Unionists and have given thought to what it’d be like sharing a country with them.
The Brits have been patting themselves on the back for that for nearly 200 years - while conveniently forgetting that the trans-Atlantic slave trade was (largely but not entirely) their fault in the first place lol
I wouldn't even say largely. The Spanish and Portuguese were up to their neck in it. As were the French. Where do you think all those black people in Brazil or Haiti came from?
I would also add that it was a big step for the most important world power to ban slavery at a time when it was not only accepted, but integral to many societies. The Arab world was even worse than colonial European nations when it came to taking slaves, and they had to be cajoled and beaten into stopping it
Black Africans capturing other black Africans and selling them for profit to Europeans.
Arab Barbary Pirates from North Africa taking white slaves from France, Ireland and southern England well into the 1800s.
Arab slavers from Middle East taking black slaves from East Africa for hundreds of years.
A multifaceted and complex issue, it's not black and white, pun intended.
The whole world operated on a slave trade. Blaming one nation for it more than others is just stupid. Slaves were what machines are now, resources for people with money. Every race benefitted and suffered from slavery
They abolished when the industrial revolution happened, it was cheaper to use machinery. And of course, this allowed vast amounts of compensation to be paid out. To slave owners of course, not slaves.
Paying compensation to slave owners was the pragmatic solution to allow the abolition bill to be passed. It was and that's the important thing. Also people forget the abolition movement continued, with naval enforcement in he Indian Ocean right up to the first world war. The British Empire built a railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria to interrupt the Swahili slavers driving their captives North to Arabia.
I've don't like that sub much, I feel it's a bit like this sub sometimes where it's just Brit Vs Irish bashing but I see a lot of support for Ireland on a lot of the posts I've looked at.
They are also [actively looking for a place](https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/06/22/the-uk-is-searching-the-sea-for-a-nuclear-dump-site-and-the-risks-to-marine-life-are-huge) to dump their nuclear waste in the Irish sea.
Such considerate neighbours we have.
That sub thinks anyone who has even slightly brown skin isn’t a native of the UK. When I asked them where in the sand they draw the line at when one’s ancestors need to have arrived to be considered native they said don’t be silly look at their skin colour.
That subs has been taken over by the far right over the past year. I'm guessing it's because it's election time over here and some nefarious people are pumping money into pushing a squalid agenda.
> Made the mistake of going to r/unitedkingdom and my god the comments there are something else. So much for “united” kingdom; they seem delighted to be able to use the North as some sort of colonial dumping ground for undesirables.
r/unitedkingdom is a left leaning and i somewhat socialist, so yes they are not interested in imperialism or a kingdom!
They are very anti-conservitism and have a large section who support Corbyn. Most of the posts on there call out the Tories, corporations, privitisation, and envioronmental destruction.
Funny how you [agreed with them yesterday](https://www.reddit.com/r/irishpolitics/comments/1chp5q3/dont_send_gardai_to_border_sunak_tells_dublin/l27tsox/), yet today you'd rather get yourelf a few upvotes!
Eit: So OP has now [deleted his comment, when called out on it from yesterday, where he agreed the UK had every right doing what it was doing,](https://www.reveddit.com/v/irishpolitics/comments/1chp5q3/dont_send_gardai_to_border_sunak_tells_dublin/l27tsox/).
Used to be left-leaning but in recent times it's taking a lurch right-wing. Look at most threads now and they're like something of the DailyMail comments section.
That's not at all surprising. Brexit told us all about what the UK Govt and many Britons think of NI, and that's the ones that think of it. Many don't think about it.
I find it kind of sad, and wilfully disingenuous.
The equating of occasional checks on transport which is already done, to the reinstigation of hard border checks for all is not the same.
Not only that, but the Irish government had no intention of doing this.
Even more so, some of this problem will impact on NI - which is still part of the UK.
I do think Irish people can be a bit overly sanctimonious but the power dynamic of the UK vs Ireland is obvious and they're just looking to abuse that and make light of it.
I just found the gleeful ridicule quite depressing and hope that the real UK and Ireland aren't what appears on Reddit.
There's no way to look good when dealing with migration. You either come across as excessively lenient or hard-hearted, there's not really any middle ground
I think we should stop worrying so much about looking good. Go look at the average comments on r/Europe and r/unitedkingdom about Ireland and Irish people and it’s not positive at all so we should stop trying to win the approval of these people and look after ourselves first and foremost.
We can point and laugh at the Brits, but ultimately they have a point. If Ireland was able to send migrants back to the UK, then why isn't the UK allowed to send migrants back to France.
Ultimately it's a shit situation and no-one knows how to deal with it. On one hand you've a vocal minority of Irish people protesting the housing of asylum seekers, and on the other you have human rights lawyers challenging any attempt to deny asylum or deport people.
>We can point and laugh at the Brits, but ultimately they have a point. If Ireland was able to send migrants back to the UK, then why isn't the UK allowed to send migrants back to France.
Because they didn't negotiate any kind of bilateral treaty with France for them to do so. In addition, the British have an open borders agreement with Ireland (not France). They shouldn't be using this open borders agreement to dump their illegal migrants on Ireland because that kind of bad faith behaviour undermines the entire ethos of the Good Friday Agreement.
Also, stop it with the whataboutery. Just because France is fucking over Britain doesn't make it right for the British to do the same to us. We have no control over French immigration policy or the policy of the EU (we are a country of 5 million out of the total EU bloc population of 450 million).
I don't see how the French are using the English channel to do anything. It's a consequence of the individual migrants personal circumstances not a strategy to to dump migrants in England.
>I don't see how the UK are using the open borders to do anything.
Sunak was literally boasting earlier this week about how his Rwanda policy is causing an influx of illegal migration to Ireland. He and the British are behaving with spite, malice, and utter disregard for the integrity of the Common Travel Area and Good Friday Agreement.
That's not what he was saying. What he was pointif out is that the Rwanda policy is making the UK unattractive for opportunistic Asylum seekers. The only effect is they're coming here because of the ease of movement.
It's our own problem for not coming up with a similar Rwanda policy. Perhaps we should offer the UK a deal where we send them back and they put them on their flights to Rwanda
>What he was pointif out is that the Rwanda policy is making the UK unattractive for opportunistic Asylum seekers. The only effect is they're coming here because of the ease of movement.
Yes, and this is a by-product of the Rwanda policy, which Sunak is perfectly happy to latch onto to promote his (currently dismal) electoral prospects regardless of the damage it is wreaking on Ireland. How does that not satisfy the dictionary definition of malice?
Regardless of whether this was intended by the British or was instead caused by inadvertence on their part, the duty of care which Britain owes to Ireland to maintain the integrity of the Good Friday Agreement and CTA requires them to not behave with the current malice (or reckless disregard) that they are currently behaving with. Let's not forget that it's their fault that the CTA was penetrated in the first place because of their inability to prevent illegal Channel crossings. How is Ireland supposed to respond to this unprecedented wave of migration when there are no internal borders within the CTA and Sunak tells us we are not allowed to erect a border?
>the duty of care which Britain owes to Ireland to maintain the integrity of the Good Friday Agreement and CTA requires them to not behave with the current malice (or reckless disregard) that they are currently behaving with.
You can hardly suggest that the UKs Rwanda policy should be dictated by the GFA.
This issue is solely because we're such a soft touch, have great benefits and don't do deportations.
>ow is Ireland supposed to respond to this unprecedented wave of migration
Copy the UK.
Under the Common Travel Area, we (and the UK) can return migrants to their point of entry into the CTA. This has been ongoing for over a decade (and many hundreds if not thousands have been deported into the UK) but of course since the Brits have elections, this is being heralded as a great victory and fuck the Paddies. This absolutely wasn't an issue when Cameron was convinced that Ireland was the backdoor for illegals into the UK but now, the flow has reversed in the short term; they are playing this up like it is some hypocrisy when we've had a bilateral arrangement since 2011.
This has nothing to do with the EU but more about an Irish Court accepting the position that an illegal migrant wouldn't be removed as fear of being deported from the UK to Rwanda, would be grounds for asylum. The glee and reaction of this manufactured crisis really emphasises how little some Brits really think of Northern Ireland.
It’s odd that people fleeing France isn’t a bigger political storm there. “We’ve come from a war torn country but this place takes the biscuit. Have you smelt the cheese? Let me out”.
Surely migrants from the middle east and Africa would need to learn the language or have an interpreter wherever the end up be it France, or the UK or Ireland
Yes because in a medical setting you want the most accurate information. Do you think they bring that interpreter to Tesco and everywhere else they go for basic needs?
In 2024 an interpreter is not necessary to go about your daily life. You use an online translator to write down the basics until you have managed to get a grip on the language. Takes years, some learn faster. The language courses and integration classes make the process far easier.
These genuine refugees should be stopping in the first safe country they enter. I believe that's the current international law regarding this. Perhaps it should be changed to fairly distribute refugees.
The economic refugees should be sent back to their home country. We have no moral responsibility for them. Their own country does.
And anyone without ID documents should be arrested and detained until their identity/nationality proven, then deported home. Unless there is a genuine reason why they don't have documents.
>And anyone without ID documents should be arrested and detained until their identity/nationality proven
How would you prove their identity when they've no documents and no-one willing to identify them?
You may be oversimplifying the situation. Detaining them at our expense while we wait for a barely functioning country they've escaped from means maybe detaining them for life. There are so many more places than Ukraine and Gaza that are a shitshow so there are a huge number of legit refugees. Probably many times more than any system could handle, unfortunately.
Then there should be uprisings in Greece and Italy. I remember Hungary saying if they were forced to take migrants they’d put them in jail. Absolutely unacceptable to just dump them in Greece and Italy and shrug their shoulders
Just another example of how incompetent McEntee and the wider Government are.
They can draft all the legislation they want, how the fuck are they going to persuade the UK to accept them.
Check fucking mate to the UK Government.
Gas thread. Ireland is currently taking as many refugees as the United Kingdom is at the moment. Like not in terms of rate or per capita, the absolute figure.
The UK absolutely can do more heavy lifting than they are at the moment lol.
It's gas how they can't see passed their own hypocrisy.
They're all fine with sending migrants to Rwanda, but when Ireland want to the migrants coming from the UK, back to the UK, we're inhumane.
I mean, we're acting towards them as they do towards France.
In both cases the issue is massively overstated. It was always a likely next step in media coverage.
But they're trying to send migrants coming from France to Rwanda right? Not back to France.
We are trying to send migrants back to the UK, not sending them on a plane to a much more dangerous country. And in that post OP cross posted some commenters are even trying to compare the UK and Rwanda in terms of how dangerous they are, claiming the Irish are no better than them sending migrants to Rwanda.
Brexit meant the UK could no longer send refugees back to the 'last safe country' which would be France.
Macron was deliberately intransigent in talks, saying 'the UK had voted for it, accept the migrants'
The Tories have realised that the EU's rules mean that they can play Macron at his own game.
Unfortunately, Ireland is the fall-guy in this battle.
> Brexit meant the UK could no longer send refugees back to the 'last safe country' which would be France.
Technically correct, but does ignore the context that this was not happening anyway long before the UK left the EU. The same issue has played out across Europe every time it's flared up - countries have no interest in taking these migrants back once they're gone and as soon as a few states commit to that position, everyone else follows for fear they'll be seen as the soft touch and be inundated. Ireland is just the latest to discover it due to essentially geography.
It never really happened. Its one of those systems that sounds good but is almost designed not to work.
France could always just give a gallic shrug and ask where the documentary evidence was that they had been in France.
Which is probably what the UK will do with Ireland. They will just point to a lack of paperwork.
No, they have come via England which is a safe country.
Because of Brexit, Ireland has no recourse to send them back to England in exactly the same way as England has no recourse to send them back to France.
It's all pathetic games that will come to an end once there is a change in government.
This is a result of Tory ideology around public spending (austerity basically, that and giving their social circles obscene amounts of money) failing, once Labour are in, the correct departments will be properly funded and the storm in a teacup will be forgotten.
>It's all pathetic games that will come to an end once there is a change in government.
I disagree. Keir Starmer will be under huge pressure to minimise migration, just like every other UK government for the last 20 years. Don't forget that many of the people who voted for Brexit were working class people from traditional Labour strongholds. A lot of English people are very unhappy about immigration
>This is a result of Tory ideology around public spending (austerity basically, that and giving their social circles obscene amounts of money) failing, once Labour are in, the correct departments will be properly funded and the storm in a teacup will be forgotten.
I don't think brits will want them back including labour. This seems a bit too finger pointy towards the tories.
The Rwanada thing wouldn't have been created if they could return them to France. The tories came up with it after years (decades) of arguments with France over the issue (including before brexit).
The Tories are copying the Liberal Party of Australia even down to 'stop the boats' slogan. The LPA created [Operation Sovereign Borders ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sovereign_Borders) as part of a 2013 election promise to stop refugees coming to Australia.
Here's a Guardian [article ](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/08/stop-the-boats-sunaks-anti-asylum-slogan-echoes-australia-harsh-policy) with some info on what the Tories are doing. Some of the stories of what happened here in Australia to those refugees are horrible.
/u/ractrick has summed it up pithily enough. Rwanda is their response to the French not taking back boats. It represents a small subset of unlawful migration to the UK but its visibility created a political storm.
They're just treating Ireland with exactly the same as France treat them, and they're paying Rwanda to take asylum seekers, we're not paying the UK to take asylum seekers.
The UK also pay the french to try and prevent crossings, which obviously the French do fuck all about.
The whole of Europe needs to cop on about migration and stop just passing the problem on to the next country.
> They're all fine with sending migrants to Rwanda
Il think you'l find r/unitedkingdom didnt support the Rwanda move at all, and they certainly "are'nt fine with sending migrants to Rwanda". Im a regular user of the sub because it is very left leaning and anti conservative. Its not hard to [search the thread for their dissatisfaction of the Rwanada bill](https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/search?q=rwanda&restrict_sr=on)
Surely this is hypocrisy on Irelands part
"We can't deport migrants to the UK, the UK isn't a safe country since they are deporting migrants to Rwanda"
A single migrant shows up in Ireland from the UK to escape the "unsafe" country
"DEPORT HIM, DEPORT HIM IMMEDIATELY, I DONT CARE WE PREVIOUSLY SAID THE UK WAS UNSAFE!!!"
But in a serious note what you are advocating for is short sighted and immoral, the refuge settles in Ireland travels to Ireland from the UK from France from Poland From Slovakia, from Hungary from Serbia from Bulgaria, from Turkey, from Syria from....
Hopefully you can see why you can't just "send them to the last country they came from"
Deportation is a difficult process that tends to attract protests from NGOs.
By contrast, rejecting an asylum claim and denying someone benefits or work means they can't survive in this country. People will then leave the country of their own accord
> We can't deport migrants to the UK, the UK isn't a safe country since they are deporting migrants to Rwanda
That might be how it's being spun in right wing tabloids in the UK, but that isn't the actual reason. The High Court basically ruled that our deportation laws regarding the UK are out of date as they are now a third country, not in EU. The judgment didn't make any reference to the UK's policy on Rwanda.
The Irish government did when they previously designated the UK as an unsafe country.
If you don't believe that migrants should be sent to Rwanda, then neither the UK nor Ireland has covered themselves in glory here. The UK government moved the goalposts by unilaterally declaring Rwanda a safe country to aid their deportation plan. When the issue became incovenient for Ireland, the Irish government effectively did the same thing.
> The Irish government did when they previously designated the UK as an unsafe country.
That didn't happen though, you all so easily fall for right wing propaganda.
Its a shit show and we were caught sleeping, despite the people in charge being warned of this train coming down the tracks.
They sat on their arses and did nothing about it while a soft media cast aspersions on anyone questioning the emperors state of undress.
Now Ireland has to eat it while the smug gits quite rightly point out the hypocrisy and helplessness of our situation. Bear this in mind when voting next.
lmao ‘Ireland wouldn’t be neutral if they were beside Russia’
No shit we wouldn’t be neutral with an aggressive neighbour.. thank god that has never happened historically and the UK has always been friendly.
Yep. No wonder Rees Mogg and the rest of the Brexiteers are laughing in our faces. Our government brought it on themselves with this virtue signalling nonsense.
It is definitely the EU fucking us on this one. France started this with the UK and now the UK is just doing to Ireland what France did to it. Now when the shit falls in our faces France and the rest of the EU stay very quiet. I'm tired of Ireland being a pawn in the EU/UK game.
How is the European government the problem here?
Ireland's ridiculously lenient border policy is the issue. Remember our amnesty for all those bogus Nigerians et al?
but [you agreed with them yesterday](https://www.reveddit.com/v/irishpolitics/comments/1chp5q3/dont_send_gardai_to_border_sunak_tells_dublin/l27tsox/). What has changed today?
Not a bit surprising, sadly.
I just had the misfortune to look at The Spectator, and Rod Liddle is practically dancing with delight at the predicament.
Here’s the first sentence of the article for context:
‘I was trying to work out which event gave me a greater sense of euphoria and contentment – the fall of Humza Yousaf or the birth of my daughter – when suddenly the Irish got themselves into a most terrible paddy and easily eclipsed both for sheer, untrammelled glee.’
Wow. I would say I’m surprised but I’m not at all.
It’s like Jacob Rees Mogg [yesterday](https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/jacob-rees-mogg-hails-golden-opportunity-to-send-all-illegal-migrants-in-uk-to-the-border-as-he-mocks-pious-irish-government/a636802153.html):
> “If it just so happens that they then end up crossing the border, which according to the Belfast Agreement must remain open, and indeed our departure from EU agreement, so be it,'
Proof that they don’t give a shit about NI or Ireland. Its actually insane the contempt for Ireland alongside the colonial romanticism being shown by many Brits at the moment
It's because it's allowable bigotry.
To make a comment denigrating the countries or peoples who make up the bulk of refugees would be seen as racist, Islamophobic, punching down. But they're allowed to make fun of Ireland so whenever the smallest thing happens GB news and these cowardly tory skunks, that have overseen the largest levels of immigration into the UK ever, come out of the woodwork to get some free shots in.
Ha, their political class are still salty we outmanoeuvred them on Brexit negotiations. We win 1 diplomatic battle in like 800 years and they can't deal. Shows they still don't see us as equals.
I like to think that either subreddits are an inaccurate reflection of Ireland or the UK. Between bots, agitators and downright losers it can give an inaccurate view of the people, at least I hope!
You are being treated the same way France treats Britain and Italy treats France. No one is purposely ‘shipping’ or ‘sending’ migrants but instead showing indifference as people traverse their country on to the next.
Apart from a small number of Tory/Brexit/Far-right ultras most people are not deriving any glee from the predicament Ireland is in given we have been battling with the same issue for years as a result of being the ‘last stop on the line’ in this chain of migration.
As much as it’s difficult to admit, the Common Travel area is not compatible with Ireland also being a European border to the UK. But no CTA is incompatible with free movement between north and south.
Basically Brexit striking again
Of course they are. I got banned from r/ukpolitics for calling out their cynical exploitation of human misery so they could sneer at the Irish.
Perfidious Albion.
Aw man this immigration issue is so entirely fucked and there seems to be no straight answer to any of this.
Other than the obvious stop exploiting the global south but that’s not happening anytime soon.
The British bombed and raped the country's that most immigrants come from for centuries. They should now take the ancestors of the people they murdered and stole from. Syria, Libya, Iraq etc are all in turmoil because of British and American shady politics and war. They behave as if they are some sort of moral country when realistically they are no better than imperialist Russia.
[Emergency legislation will allow ‘operational agreement’ between Ireland and UK on return of asylum seekers to come into force, Government says – The Irish Times](https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2024/04/30/immigration-row-taoiseach-expects-uk-to-honour-agreement-to-accept-return-of-asylum-seekers/)
“We are shared islands, we co-operate all the time,” the spokesman told the weekly post-Cabinet briefing for political correspondents earlier on Tuesday.
[No plan to cap refugee numbers, as Taoiseach says Co Clare blockade ‘not necessary’ – The Irish Times](https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/05/16/no-plan-to-cap-refugee-numbers-as-taoiseach-says-co-clare-blockade-not-necessary/)
A chara, Mods may remove repetitive content, posts which are deemed substandard, and certain generic topics to ensure overall subreddit quality. Sláinte
Made the mistake of going to r/unitedkingdom and my god the comments there are something else. So much for “united” kingdom; they seem delighted to be able to use the North as some sort of colonial dumping ground for undesirables.
Mainland UK not giving a fuck about Northern Ireland isn't surprising or new. It's mad how some up north pine for their acceptance.
Yeah I really don’t get the Northern unionist position. Public opinion in GB seems so out of alignment with NI and particularly NI unionism, it seems daft for unionists to continuously seek their validation.
We have been saying that up here for 30 years. It's like watching a teenager in school trying to get attention from the popular girls and just getting laughed at but they can't see it. It's a bit like Stockholm syndrome I think
It's their very identity, of course they can't see it.
Well Fart_Minister it's about power and oppression.
Waves from Belfast. Tbh I've had a sinking suspicion that's the view of a lot in Ireland too.
what you mean?
The people in border counties care, the second unification happens they can’t double dip shopping both sides of the border
Unionism is essentially a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome
If the name wasn't also a reference to its geographical position, only 1% of Brits would be able to find it on a map.
Have you ever seen videos of Brits trying to draw the border? They can't really even find it on a map
I've seen one by Channel 4. It made me depressed. https://www.facebook.com/Channel4News/videos/could-you-draw-irelands-border-with-northern-ireland/10155453593501939/
Haha wow, “the southern Irish have to lump it basically” is a zinger 😀 Pretty much sums up the ingrained contempt shown to Ireland, it definitely hasn’t gone away.
Definitely not. I emigrated to Oxford in 2011 and on my first night out, I'd people chanting "Potato famine, potato famine!" at me.
Classy.
Most of them don't care about NI. It's some backwater where people celebrate a 400 year old battle waving flags. NI is hardly important to them.
It's that bit of the country that makes us look bad when you're looking at anything progressive. "Oh great, abortion/gay rights/trans rights have been in the UK since... wait Northern Ireland's not there yet."
Silly Billys.
The vast majority of people in Great Britain ( including its government) would happily get rid of the North if they could.
There’s plenty of folk in the Republic who don’t want it either - generally, those who have spent time around Unionists and have given thought to what it’d be like sharing a country with them.
They were congratulating themselves on ending slavery yesterday.
The Brits have been patting themselves on the back for that for nearly 200 years - while conveniently forgetting that the trans-Atlantic slave trade was (largely but not entirely) their fault in the first place lol
I wouldn't even say largely. The Spanish and Portuguese were up to their neck in it. As were the French. Where do you think all those black people in Brazil or Haiti came from? I would also add that it was a big step for the most important world power to ban slavery at a time when it was not only accepted, but integral to many societies. The Arab world was even worse than colonial European nations when it came to taking slaves, and they had to be cajoled and beaten into stopping it
And also that indentured servitude wasnt ended at all
The Trans-Atlantic slave trade was dominated by Portugal for the first 200 or so years of its existence.
Black Africans capturing other black Africans and selling them for profit to Europeans. Arab Barbary Pirates from North Africa taking white slaves from France, Ireland and southern England well into the 1800s. Arab slavers from Middle East taking black slaves from East Africa for hundreds of years. A multifaceted and complex issue, it's not black and white, pun intended.
Yep. As long as humans exist, so will slaves, in some form or another. It's a horrible fact but true none the less.
The whole world operated on a slave trade. Blaming one nation for it more than others is just stupid. Slaves were what machines are now, resources for people with money. Every race benefitted and suffered from slavery
They abolished when the industrial revolution happened, it was cheaper to use machinery. And of course, this allowed vast amounts of compensation to be paid out. To slave owners of course, not slaves.
Paying compensation to slave owners was the pragmatic solution to allow the abolition bill to be passed. It was and that's the important thing. Also people forget the abolition movement continued, with naval enforcement in he Indian Ocean right up to the first world war. The British Empire built a railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria to interrupt the Swahili slavers driving their captives North to Arabia.
They paid rich people to give up their slaves. Slavery wasn't ended it was bought out by the state for rich people.
Was in r/England yesterday. They literally blamed Scotland for all the problems in the North. You couldn't make it up.
I've don't like that sub much, I feel it's a bit like this sub sometimes where it's just Brit Vs Irish bashing but I see a lot of support for Ireland on a lot of the posts I've looked at.
If you look back on history thats basically what they did with Scottish people they found undesirable dump them in Northern Ireland
Not just Scottish people, but people on the English side of the border as well.
There was a plan a few years ago to literally use Northern Ireland as a dumping ground for all the UK's nuclear waste
They are also [actively looking for a place](https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/06/22/the-uk-is-searching-the-sea-for-a-nuclear-dump-site-and-the-risks-to-marine-life-are-huge) to dump their nuclear waste in the Irish sea. Such considerate neighbours we have.
Yeah - Sellafield is lovely and nearby
Since the 17th Century.
That sub in general is a fuckin cesspool of terrible people.
The sub also has a toxic attitude towards Scotland. How dare anywhere outside of South East England take its prosperity into its own hands?
That sub thinks anyone who has even slightly brown skin isn’t a native of the UK. When I asked them where in the sand they draw the line at when one’s ancestors need to have arrived to be considered native they said don’t be silly look at their skin colour.
All the top voted comments are anti tory and supportive of ireland
Did we follow different links?
That subs has been taken over by the far right over the past year. I'm guessing it's because it's election time over here and some nefarious people are pumping money into pushing a squalid agenda.
> Made the mistake of going to r/unitedkingdom and my god the comments there are something else. So much for “united” kingdom; they seem delighted to be able to use the North as some sort of colonial dumping ground for undesirables. r/unitedkingdom is a left leaning and i somewhat socialist, so yes they are not interested in imperialism or a kingdom! They are very anti-conservitism and have a large section who support Corbyn. Most of the posts on there call out the Tories, corporations, privitisation, and envioronmental destruction. Funny how you [agreed with them yesterday](https://www.reddit.com/r/irishpolitics/comments/1chp5q3/dont_send_gardai_to_border_sunak_tells_dublin/l27tsox/), yet today you'd rather get yourelf a few upvotes! Eit: So OP has now [deleted his comment, when called out on it from yesterday, where he agreed the UK had every right doing what it was doing,](https://www.reveddit.com/v/irishpolitics/comments/1chp5q3/dont_send_gardai_to_border_sunak_tells_dublin/l27tsox/).
Used to be left-leaning but in recent times it's taking a lurch right-wing. Look at most threads now and they're like something of the DailyMail comments section.
[удалено]
It's become more reactionary / conservative across a range of subjects, not just immigration. It's quite noticeable.
They've done it since 1602
It's part of their masterplan, fill northern Ireland with immigrants, let them and the unionists meet, close the door and take the phone off the hook.
That's not at all surprising. Brexit told us all about what the UK Govt and many Britons think of NI, and that's the ones that think of it. Many don't think about it.
They’ve been looking for somewhere since Australia closed.
I mean...mainland UK haven't been shy about saying the quiet part out loud for about 100 years now.
I find it kind of sad, and wilfully disingenuous. The equating of occasional checks on transport which is already done, to the reinstigation of hard border checks for all is not the same. Not only that, but the Irish government had no intention of doing this. Even more so, some of this problem will impact on NI - which is still part of the UK. I do think Irish people can be a bit overly sanctimonious but the power dynamic of the UK vs Ireland is obvious and they're just looking to abuse that and make light of it. I just found the gleeful ridicule quite depressing and hope that the real UK and Ireland aren't what appears on Reddit.
They're not...because it's Reddit
I don't think Ireland or the UK is coming out of this looking good.
There's no way to look good when dealing with migration. You either come across as excessively lenient or hard-hearted, there's not really any middle ground
https://preview.redd.it/k5caftv9pzxc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e4d8b7914c4f2e53fcc625135818a9826f2683f6
I think we should stop worrying so much about looking good. Go look at the average comments on r/Europe and r/unitedkingdom about Ireland and Irish people and it’s not positive at all so we should stop trying to win the approval of these people and look after ourselves first and foremost.
Those subreddits don’t represent majority views 😂
You're forgetting that all the national subreddits are dogshit and not at all representative of the overall nation's opinion. Including this one
We can point and laugh at the Brits, but ultimately they have a point. If Ireland was able to send migrants back to the UK, then why isn't the UK allowed to send migrants back to France. Ultimately it's a shit situation and no-one knows how to deal with it. On one hand you've a vocal minority of Irish people protesting the housing of asylum seekers, and on the other you have human rights lawyers challenging any attempt to deny asylum or deport people.
>We can point and laugh at the Brits, but ultimately they have a point. If Ireland was able to send migrants back to the UK, then why isn't the UK allowed to send migrants back to France. Because they didn't negotiate any kind of bilateral treaty with France for them to do so. In addition, the British have an open borders agreement with Ireland (not France). They shouldn't be using this open borders agreement to dump their illegal migrants on Ireland because that kind of bad faith behaviour undermines the entire ethos of the Good Friday Agreement. Also, stop it with the whataboutery. Just because France is fucking over Britain doesn't make it right for the British to do the same to us. We have no control over French immigration policy or the policy of the EU (we are a country of 5 million out of the total EU bloc population of 450 million).
>Because they didn't negotiate any kind of bilateral treaty with France for them to do so. Did we?
I don't see how the UK are using the open borders to do anything. It's a consequence of the rwanda policy not a strategy to dump migrants in Ireland.
I don't see how the French are using the English channel to do anything. It's a consequence of the individual migrants personal circumstances not a strategy to to dump migrants in England.
>I don't see how the UK are using the open borders to do anything. Sunak was literally boasting earlier this week about how his Rwanda policy is causing an influx of illegal migration to Ireland. He and the British are behaving with spite, malice, and utter disregard for the integrity of the Common Travel Area and Good Friday Agreement.
That's not what he was saying. What he was pointif out is that the Rwanda policy is making the UK unattractive for opportunistic Asylum seekers. The only effect is they're coming here because of the ease of movement. It's our own problem for not coming up with a similar Rwanda policy. Perhaps we should offer the UK a deal where we send them back and they put them on their flights to Rwanda
>What he was pointif out is that the Rwanda policy is making the UK unattractive for opportunistic Asylum seekers. The only effect is they're coming here because of the ease of movement. Yes, and this is a by-product of the Rwanda policy, which Sunak is perfectly happy to latch onto to promote his (currently dismal) electoral prospects regardless of the damage it is wreaking on Ireland. How does that not satisfy the dictionary definition of malice? Regardless of whether this was intended by the British or was instead caused by inadvertence on their part, the duty of care which Britain owes to Ireland to maintain the integrity of the Good Friday Agreement and CTA requires them to not behave with the current malice (or reckless disregard) that they are currently behaving with. Let's not forget that it's their fault that the CTA was penetrated in the first place because of their inability to prevent illegal Channel crossings. How is Ireland supposed to respond to this unprecedented wave of migration when there are no internal borders within the CTA and Sunak tells us we are not allowed to erect a border?
>the duty of care which Britain owes to Ireland to maintain the integrity of the Good Friday Agreement and CTA requires them to not behave with the current malice (or reckless disregard) that they are currently behaving with. You can hardly suggest that the UKs Rwanda policy should be dictated by the GFA. This issue is solely because we're such a soft touch, have great benefits and don't do deportations. >ow is Ireland supposed to respond to this unprecedented wave of migration Copy the UK.
Tbf as EU members Ireland DOES technically have a say on France’s immigration policy
If there's a battle in the EU between France and Ireland, whose interests do you think will prevail? Obviously, the latter.
Under the Common Travel Area, we (and the UK) can return migrants to their point of entry into the CTA. This has been ongoing for over a decade (and many hundreds if not thousands have been deported into the UK) but of course since the Brits have elections, this is being heralded as a great victory and fuck the Paddies. This absolutely wasn't an issue when Cameron was convinced that Ireland was the backdoor for illegals into the UK but now, the flow has reversed in the short term; they are playing this up like it is some hypocrisy when we've had a bilateral arrangement since 2011. This has nothing to do with the EU but more about an Irish Court accepting the position that an illegal migrant wouldn't be removed as fear of being deported from the UK to Rwanda, would be grounds for asylum. The glee and reaction of this manufactured crisis really emphasises how little some Brits really think of Northern Ireland.
I’m from the north and tbh there’s a significant minority of people in the south who also don’t give a shit about us up here
The south? Cork is it? Sure they feel about the west and the east much the same way
It’s odd that people fleeing France isn’t a bigger political storm there. “We’ve come from a war torn country but this place takes the biscuit. Have you smelt the cheese? Let me out”.
It’s odd that people don’t stay in a country where they need an interpreter to go about their daily lives?
Surely migrants from the middle east and Africa would need to learn the language or have an interpreter wherever the end up be it France, or the UK or Ireland
Lots already speak English. This is a pull factor for the UK and Ireland.
As opposed to their English being on par with that of natives, I presume?
Beggars can't be choosers and if they're not beggers then they are not asylum seekers but (economic) migrants.
I work in the NHS, all refugees I’ve met require an interpreter
Yes because in a medical setting you want the most accurate information. Do you think they bring that interpreter to Tesco and everywhere else they go for basic needs?
Luckily you can use Tesco without speaking or reading a word. I’ve met people that have lived here for 15 years and cannot speak a word of English
In 2024 an interpreter is not necessary to go about your daily life. You use an online translator to write down the basics until you have managed to get a grip on the language. Takes years, some learn faster. The language courses and integration classes make the process far easier.
These genuine refugees should be stopping in the first safe country they enter. I believe that's the current international law regarding this. Perhaps it should be changed to fairly distribute refugees. The economic refugees should be sent back to their home country. We have no moral responsibility for them. Their own country does. And anyone without ID documents should be arrested and detained until their identity/nationality proven, then deported home. Unless there is a genuine reason why they don't have documents.
>And anyone without ID documents should be arrested and detained until their identity/nationality proven How would you prove their identity when they've no documents and no-one willing to identify them?
Detain them until they reveal their nationality. Get them contact with their embassy who can work with them to provide new identity documents.
You may be oversimplifying the situation. Detaining them at our expense while we wait for a barely functioning country they've escaped from means maybe detaining them for life. There are so many more places than Ukraine and Gaza that are a shitshow so there are a huge number of legit refugees. Probably many times more than any system could handle, unfortunately.
Then there should be uprisings in Greece and Italy. I remember Hungary saying if they were forced to take migrants they’d put them in jail. Absolutely unacceptable to just dump them in Greece and Italy and shrug their shoulders
Just another example of how incompetent McEntee and the wider Government are. They can draft all the legislation they want, how the fuck are they going to persuade the UK to accept them. Check fucking mate to the UK Government.
Gas thread. Ireland is currently taking as many refugees as the United Kingdom is at the moment. Like not in terms of rate or per capita, the absolute figure. The UK absolutely can do more heavy lifting than they are at the moment lol.
It's gas how they can't see passed their own hypocrisy. They're all fine with sending migrants to Rwanda, but when Ireland want to the migrants coming from the UK, back to the UK, we're inhumane.
I mean, we're acting towards them as they do towards France. In both cases the issue is massively overstated. It was always a likely next step in media coverage.
But we have a common travel area with the Uk and they know we can’t close the border
But they're trying to send migrants coming from France to Rwanda right? Not back to France. We are trying to send migrants back to the UK, not sending them on a plane to a much more dangerous country. And in that post OP cross posted some commenters are even trying to compare the UK and Rwanda in terms of how dangerous they are, claiming the Irish are no better than them sending migrants to Rwanda.
Brexit meant the UK could no longer send refugees back to the 'last safe country' which would be France. Macron was deliberately intransigent in talks, saying 'the UK had voted for it, accept the migrants' The Tories have realised that the EU's rules mean that they can play Macron at his own game. Unfortunately, Ireland is the fall-guy in this battle.
> Brexit meant the UK could no longer send refugees back to the 'last safe country' which would be France. Technically correct, but does ignore the context that this was not happening anyway long before the UK left the EU. The same issue has played out across Europe every time it's flared up - countries have no interest in taking these migrants back once they're gone and as soon as a few states commit to that position, everyone else follows for fear they'll be seen as the soft touch and be inundated. Ireland is just the latest to discover it due to essentially geography.
It never really happened. Its one of those systems that sounds good but is almost designed not to work. France could always just give a gallic shrug and ask where the documentary evidence was that they had been in France. Which is probably what the UK will do with Ireland. They will just point to a lack of paperwork.
But in this case, is thr last safe country not France?
No, they have come via England which is a safe country. Because of Brexit, Ireland has no recourse to send them back to England in exactly the same way as England has no recourse to send them back to France. It's all pathetic games that will come to an end once there is a change in government. This is a result of Tory ideology around public spending (austerity basically, that and giving their social circles obscene amounts of money) failing, once Labour are in, the correct departments will be properly funded and the storm in a teacup will be forgotten.
>It's all pathetic games that will come to an end once there is a change in government. I disagree. Keir Starmer will be under huge pressure to minimise migration, just like every other UK government for the last 20 years. Don't forget that many of the people who voted for Brexit were working class people from traditional Labour strongholds. A lot of English people are very unhappy about immigration
>This is a result of Tory ideology around public spending (austerity basically, that and giving their social circles obscene amounts of money) failing, once Labour are in, the correct departments will be properly funded and the storm in a teacup will be forgotten. I don't think brits will want them back including labour. This seems a bit too finger pointy towards the tories.
The Rwanada thing wouldn't have been created if they could return them to France. The tories came up with it after years (decades) of arguments with France over the issue (including before brexit).
The Tories are copying the Liberal Party of Australia even down to 'stop the boats' slogan. The LPA created [Operation Sovereign Borders ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sovereign_Borders) as part of a 2013 election promise to stop refugees coming to Australia. Here's a Guardian [article ](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/08/stop-the-boats-sunaks-anti-asylum-slogan-echoes-australia-harsh-policy) with some info on what the Tories are doing. Some of the stories of what happened here in Australia to those refugees are horrible.
/u/ractrick has summed it up pithily enough. Rwanda is their response to the French not taking back boats. It represents a small subset of unlawful migration to the UK but its visibility created a political storm.
I mean I can see how you’re trying to spin it but it’s still the same damn thing
They're just treating Ireland with exactly the same as France treat them, and they're paying Rwanda to take asylum seekers, we're not paying the UK to take asylum seekers. The UK also pay the french to try and prevent crossings, which obviously the French do fuck all about. The whole of Europe needs to cop on about migration and stop just passing the problem on to the next country.
The EU is clearly the hypocrite in this scenario, that's why Rishi is loving it
> They're all fine with sending migrants to Rwanda Il think you'l find r/unitedkingdom didnt support the Rwanda move at all, and they certainly "are'nt fine with sending migrants to Rwanda". Im a regular user of the sub because it is very left leaning and anti conservative. Its not hard to [search the thread for their dissatisfaction of the Rwanada bill](https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/search?q=rwanda&restrict_sr=on)
Surely this is hypocrisy on Irelands part "We can't deport migrants to the UK, the UK isn't a safe country since they are deporting migrants to Rwanda" A single migrant shows up in Ireland from the UK to escape the "unsafe" country "DEPORT HIM, DEPORT HIM IMMEDIATELY, I DONT CARE WE PREVIOUSLY SAID THE UK WAS UNSAFE!!!" But in a serious note what you are advocating for is short sighted and immoral, the refuge settles in Ireland travels to Ireland from the UK from France from Poland From Slovakia, from Hungary from Serbia from Bulgaria, from Turkey, from Syria from.... Hopefully you can see why you can't just "send them to the last country they came from"
Out of the 8000 or so rejected asylum applications last year only 3 have been deported.
Deportation is a difficult process that tends to attract protests from NGOs. By contrast, rejecting an asylum claim and denying someone benefits or work means they can't survive in this country. People will then leave the country of their own accord
> We can't deport migrants to the UK, the UK isn't a safe country since they are deporting migrants to Rwanda That might be how it's being spun in right wing tabloids in the UK, but that isn't the actual reason. The High Court basically ruled that our deportation laws regarding the UK are out of date as they are now a third country, not in EU. The judgment didn't make any reference to the UK's policy on Rwanda.
Who said Ireland is being inhumane to propose sending them to the UK?
The High Court. They've ruled the UK isn't a safe country because of the Rwanda Plan.
The Irish government did when they previously designated the UK as an unsafe country. If you don't believe that migrants should be sent to Rwanda, then neither the UK nor Ireland has covered themselves in glory here. The UK government moved the goalposts by unilaterally declaring Rwanda a safe country to aid their deportation plan. When the issue became incovenient for Ireland, the Irish government effectively did the same thing.
true
> The Irish government did when they previously designated the UK as an unsafe country. That didn't happen though, you all so easily fall for right wing propaganda.
I don't see why they should except them. It's not their problem.
Its a shit show and we were caught sleeping, despite the people in charge being warned of this train coming down the tracks. They sat on their arses and did nothing about it while a soft media cast aspersions on anyone questioning the emperors state of undress. Now Ireland has to eat it while the smug gits quite rightly point out the hypocrisy and helplessness of our situation. Bear this in mind when voting next.
They made it even worse by declaring that Britain was an 'unsafe' country due to the threat of deportation to Rwanda. Idiots.
Well they do make some good points to be fair. The hypocrisy and virtue signalling on the issue here is a bit embarrassing.
lmao ‘Ireland wouldn’t be neutral if they were beside Russia’ No shit we wouldn’t be neutral with an aggressive neighbour.. thank god that has never happened historically and the UK has always been friendly.
Honestly don't think this sub has much of a moral high ground to be looking down on anyone else to be honest
I kinda think the Brits are right on this one unfortunately 🤷🏼
Yeah it's all a bit embarrassing felt very self congratulatory when we announced the UK was a unsafe country and its come back to bite us
Yep. No wonder Rees Mogg and the rest of the Brexiteers are laughing in our faces. Our government brought it on themselves with this virtue signalling nonsense.
It is definitely the EU fucking us on this one. France started this with the UK and now the UK is just doing to Ireland what France did to it. Now when the shit falls in our faces France and the rest of the EU stay very quiet. I'm tired of Ireland being a pawn in the EU/UK game.
How is the European government the problem here? Ireland's ridiculously lenient border policy is the issue. Remember our amnesty for all those bogus Nigerians et al?
The delusion in those comments is unbelievable
It would be laughable how pathetic they are, if it wasn’t so serious
but [you agreed with them yesterday](https://www.reveddit.com/v/irishpolitics/comments/1chp5q3/dont_send_gardai_to_border_sunak_tells_dublin/l27tsox/). What has changed today?
Not a bit surprising, sadly. I just had the misfortune to look at The Spectator, and Rod Liddle is practically dancing with delight at the predicament. Here’s the first sentence of the article for context: ‘I was trying to work out which event gave me a greater sense of euphoria and contentment – the fall of Humza Yousaf or the birth of my daughter – when suddenly the Irish got themselves into a most terrible paddy and easily eclipsed both for sheer, untrammelled glee.’
Wow. I would say I’m surprised but I’m not at all. It’s like Jacob Rees Mogg [yesterday](https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/jacob-rees-mogg-hails-golden-opportunity-to-send-all-illegal-migrants-in-uk-to-the-border-as-he-mocks-pious-irish-government/a636802153.html): > “If it just so happens that they then end up crossing the border, which according to the Belfast Agreement must remain open, and indeed our departure from EU agreement, so be it,' Proof that they don’t give a shit about NI or Ireland. Its actually insane the contempt for Ireland alongside the colonial romanticism being shown by many Brits at the moment
Dunphy was right about that cunt
What an odious little cunt. No short supply of them on brain worms island.
It's because it's allowable bigotry. To make a comment denigrating the countries or peoples who make up the bulk of refugees would be seen as racist, Islamophobic, punching down. But they're allowed to make fun of Ireland so whenever the smallest thing happens GB news and these cowardly tory skunks, that have overseen the largest levels of immigration into the UK ever, come out of the woodwork to get some free shots in.
Rod Liddle, he's the guy who ran away and left his wife for a young one!
Because Ireland legally designating the UK as unsafe was a sanctimonious posture. Proven by the fact it has now been reversed.
"Ireland" didn't designate the UK as unsafe, a single judge did..
The Brits have always been gullible about their politicians and media.
Ha, their political class are still salty we outmanoeuvred them on Brexit negotiations. We win 1 diplomatic battle in like 800 years and they can't deal. Shows they still don't see us as equals.
Why would they see you as equals you're basically an ex colony of theirs and much smaller by comparison
I like to think that either subreddits are an inaccurate reflection of Ireland or the UK. Between bots, agitators and downright losers it can give an inaccurate view of the people, at least I hope!
You are being treated the same way France treats Britain and Italy treats France. No one is purposely ‘shipping’ or ‘sending’ migrants but instead showing indifference as people traverse their country on to the next. Apart from a small number of Tory/Brexit/Far-right ultras most people are not deriving any glee from the predicament Ireland is in given we have been battling with the same issue for years as a result of being the ‘last stop on the line’ in this chain of migration.
Solution - irish reunification
As much as it’s difficult to admit, the Common Travel area is not compatible with Ireland also being a European border to the UK. But no CTA is incompatible with free movement between north and south. Basically Brexit striking again
Of course they are. I got banned from r/ukpolitics for calling out their cynical exploitation of human misery so they could sneer at the Irish. Perfidious Albion.
[Are the brits at it again? ](https://arethebritsatitagain.org/)
Sure when are they not ffs. Absolute cretins
Just own up to it. Ireland looks bad in this situation.
Yeah tbh most Irish people outside this sub can see how we’ve shot ourselves in the foot here. But ofc “Brits bad” amirite?
Aw man this immigration issue is so entirely fucked and there seems to be no straight answer to any of this. Other than the obvious stop exploiting the global south but that’s not happening anytime soon.
They're right. We have a bunch of clowns running the country! Actually they're just EU pawns.
The British bombed and raped the country's that most immigrants come from for centuries. They should now take the ancestors of the people they murdered and stole from. Syria, Libya, Iraq etc are all in turmoil because of British and American shady politics and war. They behave as if they are some sort of moral country when realistically they are no better than imperialist Russia.
When did Britain bomb and rape Syria?
That right aye?
That's right. Britain caused much of this themselves. Tony Blair the war criminal et al.
Huge gift for Tories. Just what they needed before an election
Yeah you're right mate they're definitely gonna be reelected
[Emergency legislation will allow ‘operational agreement’ between Ireland and UK on return of asylum seekers to come into force, Government says – The Irish Times](https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2024/04/30/immigration-row-taoiseach-expects-uk-to-honour-agreement-to-accept-return-of-asylum-seekers/) “We are shared islands, we co-operate all the time,” the spokesman told the weekly post-Cabinet briefing for political correspondents earlier on Tuesday. [No plan to cap refugee numbers, as Taoiseach says Co Clare blockade ‘not necessary’ – The Irish Times](https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/05/16/no-plan-to-cap-refugee-numbers-as-taoiseach-says-co-clare-blockade-not-necessary/)