merseymouth wrote:I think you'll find that the Irish Republic IS actually a member of the E.U. and the Head Honchos in Brussels are playing hardball with them!
They wish to make Varadkar get ready to throw himself on the sword to defend the Gravy Train. Apparently the Polish Government want the Greats of the E.U. to lighten up, some hope.
Rather than address my points, you shifted the subject from Switzerland to Ireland. Perhaps you would be so good as to address my post rather than avoiding it.
As for the Irish/EU relations issue, I don't have access to the Telegraph article, although I understand it's about the EU asking the Irish Govt. to provide details of its plans for the border in the event of a No Deal exit, which could happen on 31/10. Without knowing the full content of the article, it looks like you (and maybe the Telegraph, which I would not rely on for a impartial reporting given it is strongly pro-Brexit and hoping one of its own columnists will soon be PM) are trying to interpret this as being the EU vs Ireland/the Irish Govt., with the EU bullying a member state.
Unless you or the Telegraph has some actual hard evidence, I don't see it that way. The Irish Govt. is indeed between a rock and a hard place in that its economy is more likely to suffer in the event of a hard/no deal Brexit than any other EU member (except Britain), and it probably desperately wants to avoid that. It wants to maintain the current frictionless border and maintain trade levels, and it is loath to install hard border checkpoints.
Neverthless, I don't think anyone in Ireland, north or south of the border, will consider this to be the Irish Govt.'s fault. Instead they will see it as the UK's fault that the EU is requiring them to install border checkpoints. They will not blame the EU because the EU is simply requiring Ireland to do what every member country is required to do where they have a border with a third country.
That is why I think that there is a very real risk of the presently small dissident republican movement getting a huge boost in the event of a hard/no deal Brexit (and I doubt that they would direct their terrorist attacks at any border checkpoints installed and manned by the Irish).