As a part-time resident of the Emerald Isle, I devoutly wish this to be true:
THE EUROPEAN Union “shafted” Ireland and will pay the price with a shock ‘Irexit’, a think tank has warned.
Dublin-based Hibernia Forum said the Republic could leave the bloc as revenge for its treatment by Brussels during the financial crisis. Co-founder Keith Redmond said the country had been “quarantined” and forced to take on “toxic banking debt”.
Mr Redmond, who is also a councillor on the Fingal County Council, told Express.co.uk other factors, such as a growing loss of sovereignty, could lead to an Irish EU exit. When asked whether euroscepticism was growing on the island, he said: “For sure. There is definitely a support for stopping what seems to be an unstoppable march to EU integration, EU super state, whatever you want to call it.”
He said a growing distrust of Brussels was centred on three concerns: a lack of accountability from those in power, a loss of sovereignty in Ireland and the EU’s treatment of the country during the banking crisis. Mr Redmond said: “Ireland as an island was quarantined for the toxic banking debt of the EU. They basically shafted us.”
This is all true. Ireland became the EU’s whipping boy after the collapse of the Celtic Tiger‘s financial and property markets, and the bankers of Brussels made a harsh example out of the Ould Sod, the way they dared not do to the even more profligate and irresponsible Greeks — because racism, or something.
It’s true that some benefits have accrued in the wake of Ireland’s forced EU membership, mostly a few hundred new miles of motorway, which certainly helps speed the way between my house in the west and Dublin. But with the EU’s charity have also come the punitive banking regulations (which have damn near killed Irish banking), the Schengen Zone of passport-free travel (which Ireland thankfully still resists), and increasing pressure to commit national suicide in the wake of the Islamic “migrant” invasion of continental Europe.
Last year, we celebrated the centennial of the Easter Rising, which marked the beginning of the end of nearly a millennium of English control, and the next few years will see the anniversaries of the revolution, the civil war, the establishment of the Irish Free State and, finally, the Republic. Did all those brave patriots fight and die so that their grandchildren could be subjects of… Belgium?
Ireland needs to swallow its distaste for emulating the larger island across the Irish Sea, bite the bullet, and join the Brits in exiting the Franco-German socialist state, joining with other members of the Anglosphere in a more ideologically and culturally suitable alliance that honors each individual member and exists for the good of all.
Otherwise, we might just as well chuck the language, return to speaking Irish, strip naked, paint ourselves blue, and dance around in the rainy moonlight, just like we used to in the good old days. It sure would be more fun.
Follow me on Twitter @dkahanerules
Join the conversation as a VIP Member