Well, at least you got the flake. Unfortunately not on your ice cream, but in Downing St. No 10... (BTW on a totally unrelated note --but possibly a quite appropriate one as getting drunk is the only sane option left-- I recall you like Hendricks gin. Have you tried Nordes gin? It's outstanding!)
He campaigned for a republican victory.... http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1985/nov/27/anglo-irish-agreement
Your accusations carry no more weight than someone talking to the Argentinian government, even while maintaining a personal opinion that the UK has no sovereignty over the Falklands. I've talked to republicans...and terrorists. You need a more mature approach to this than labelling certain factions as the big bad, who should never be approached let alone agreed with.
You seem to be conflating the political movement with other elements. Or are you saying it was wrong to support a single sovereign state and right to support the partitioning of Ireland? EDIT: Also the whole Corbyn took sides thing really doesn't hold water as he's meet with republicans on many occasions, most notably David Ervine and other republicans who attended the 1994 Labour party conference and while there they meet with Corbyn and later had at least 4 other meetings. The same can be said of Gary McMichael who played a vital role in the 1994 ceasefire that came a week after republicans meet with Corbyn and his team at the Labour party conference. Then there's Mr Paisley himself whose widow said the following of her late husbands relationship with Corbyn... Trying to claim he took side shows a fundamental lack of understanding on the dynamics of the peace processes that Mo Mowlam oversaw.
No corbyn clearly took the side of that of the republicans against the side of NI being a part of the UK by consent until it became clear that the option of a united Ireland was unlikely (because the IRA hierarchy were completely compromised) and yes I think it is wrong to pursue a policy that would create a united ireland against the consent of those in northern Ireland. http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/...nd-termination-of#S6CV0069P0_19841205_HOC_421 http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/...nd-termination-of#S6CV0235P0_19940120_HOC_222 http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1984/jul/02/new-ireland-forum#S6CV0063P0_19840702_HOC_232 He was arguing for peace but the IRA's peace until that became impossible.
The point is: he was talking to both sides and he was arguing for a peaceful solution. Doesn't matter if you don't agree with him.
So what you're saying is that anyone who supports a particular policy has taken a side? If that's the case what about our PM who supported remaining in the EU, was she wrong to support a united EU or was someone like Boris wrong to show his support for an independent sovereign United Kingdom? It seems when it comes to this subject your thinking has become very muddled, if it's wrong to pursue a policy that doesn't have the consent of the electorate then that means any policy that doesn't have their consent is also wrong, such as holding a referendum on leaving the EU, cuts to public services, etc, etc. Also as I've said before, on many occasions, Corbyn never supported the IRA, in fact he condemned the violence from both sides and while some simple-minded people like to say how he never specifically called out the IRA and condemned them all they're doing when saying that is showing how little they understand about life in general, if you catch your kids knocking seven bells out of each other you don't take sides and tell one kid he was right and the other wrong, you stay impartial and tell them violence is wrong, full stop. Now undoubtedly me calling such people simple-minded is going to invoke an emotional responses in people who see things in such black&white terms, however let me point out that if you single out one side for condemnation then you've taken a side because you're in effect saying the use of violence is good or bad based on whose doing it instead of saying all violence is bad. Honestly i find it deeply disturbing that some people, most notably our politicians and the media, want to stir up the troubles of old by sowing division and attempting to make people take sides instead of staying impartial, they appear to relish in the idea of people taking sides, it's almost like they want to return to the days of old when there was a right and a wrong side. This article does a good job of explaining my view on the whole subject of attempts to smear Corbyn with claims about his support for the IRA. Just in case there's still any doubt, in the following video of an interview with Sophy Ridge he said (@2m): "I condemn all the bombing by both the loyalists and the IRA."
No it is wrong to support a policy that goes against the self determined stance of a majority of a people within a territory. If the majority of NI were for unification and they were being kept against their will then he'd be correct, the point is he could be in favour of unification if he gave a fig about receiving consent of the people of NI first. Now we've had border polls for that thing, we have political processes for measuring the desire of a people to secede from the union or for other things such as say the EU. Say after the 1975 referendum on the eec and after say the formation of the EU from that a small minority of brexiteers started a campaign of separatist sectarian bombing throughout europe and nigel were meeting with them and arguing for a brexit regardless of the will of the people of the UK to bring peace, his peace, you would be talking in different terms on his suitability to be PM but because corbyn is of your politics then it's different. (as far as sides go there were the loyalist side and republican side which were both unionist or republican no matter what consent, then there is the British government side and the right side of international law which is the consent of the people) It's equivocation. I think it is rather simple minded to assume that a politician making equivocations when asked specifically about a single groups terrorism is anything other than providing an excuse for the group's behaviour, it's just code for "they did it too". If you ask a politician about a specific proven terrorist group they should be able to condemn them. No, the reason why he is asked is because there is reason to suspect that he was too close to the IRA. Condemning a single terror group's bombings (never mind the group in general) when asked whether they would condemn a single terror group because people suspect he supported that terror group would not be taking sides. The answer of "yes" is not mutually exclusive of condemning other groups or sides. The reality is it's not a smear but a genuine concern in relation to him occupying the office he desires. He had supported the IRA's terms of peace, he had consistently supported only those linked to the republican side and now it is being spun into he was some champion of peace, I say BS and whose peace? It's a strange choice of Prime minister to choose someone who has desired to secede a nation of the UK regardless of the will of the British citizens located within that nation. Similar to his views on the falklands and "power sharing". The peaceful solution being that of the IRA's and talking to people on both sides: not in any meaningful way.
I find it funny how exercised you get about Corbyn while Theresa May is systematically destroying this country.
This. People get so hung up on something that happened two or three decades ago, and completely ignore what their leaders are currently doing.
Sorry but that's hogwash, if it was true we wouldn't have had the EU referendum, we wouldn't be spending billions of pounds in foreign aid, we wouldn't have gone to war in Iraq, and anyone who supported any other policy that went against the majority would be classed as being wrong like when people supported the decriminalisation of homosexuals or the suffragette. Sorry but you really are showing an utter lack of understanding on the Ireland situation, no one ever asked the electorate for their consent when England invaded, no one asked them for their consent to be ruled over by the UK parliament, no one asked them if they were for or against unification, Westminster refused to give them a voice or let them make independent decisions on their future. You really don't understand the politics of NI do you, NI didn't have a political voice within the union like the UK did within the EU, if the UK government didn't like what NI politicians were asking for they were ignored or simply told no, just like they did with Scotland for decades until it became embarrassing to keep copping a deaf ear. People say the EU is a superstate and we had no say in what happened but if you want to see what a real superstate is really like you only have to look at the way Westminster treated parts of our union, the whole reason the political process worked in the EU is because everyone had a voice, the whole reason violence erupted in NI was because they didn't. That's not what i asked, i asked you if someone supporting a particular policy has taken a side, i asked you about our PM who supported remaining in the EU and Boris who supported leaving and if them supporting those respective positions make one of them wrong and the other right. I asked you if someone who supports a policy that's not supported by a majority of people is wrong. No it's not, he said he condemned all violence by both the unionists and the republicans, that's not ambiguity, that's an unequivocal condemnation of violence no matter what group a person associates themselves with. It seem the only reason yourself and others want someone to take sides is because you support the continuation of conflict and actually want to pit one group against another instead of seeking a peaceful solution, you want everyone to take sides and fight each other. The only reason to see things in such black&white terms is because someone is more interested in scoring cheap political points than they are stopping the conflict. It's beyond me that you can't understand how singling out one groups actions and condemning them just extends the conflict, that doing so doesn't facilitate an end to a conflict, that doing so just means you're involving yourself in their conflict. It certainly is a smear because the "genuine concern" and his supposed "support" of the IRA doesn't hold up when anyone bothers to look beyond Daily Mail style headlines and into the actual facts. EDIT: In the end it comes down to this: Why is it so important to you (and others) that someone should take a side by singling out one group and condemning them?
As a "perceived Protestant" living in NI this argument holds no weight. It's why I asked you to look at the Plantation of Ulster. It was invaded, the natives were displaced and replaced with English and Scottish unionist settlers who then prospered to a point that they outnumbered what was left of the second-class citizen Irish natives. You're saying it would be democratically valid if I came round to your house with a number of mates and informed you "Well, we've had a vote and we own this place now..."
What is the alternative? Exclude the unionists from the NI Border Poll? By excluding the unionists from the NI Border Poll the logical consequence would be that England would have to foot the bill for relocating every single unionist who refuses to live under Irish law back to England, complete with giving them a house and job as compensation.
Cool. Does that mean that the UK will foot the bill for relocating me back to the Netherlands and give me a house and job there for compensation? Only it had this vote I was excluded from...
That's never been an issue with other ex-British territories. However you can blame the Dutch for this mess
Apples and Oranges (no Orange Order pun intended): Your problem is rooted in the UK threatening to overthrow the fundamental principles of centuries of law in civilized countries. English law as well as those pesky human rights May so desperately wants to abolish have always opposed retrospective legislation. While the NI problem is part of the problem about how to undo centuries of land theft by England without punishing the innocent descendants of the english who live in one of the affected territories.
