Worried of Kirkcudbright

Like many across Scotland the increasing stupidity of the Conservative Government has me worried, nay scared, maybe even frightened.

I have waited three days for the scabrous Tory Party to behead itself but even in this they are clearly incompetent and ineffectual. If they can not do a hatchet job on Ms May's premiership, just how can anyone trust them to make any decision such as whether to put milk in their tea or not; deciding whether the milk goes in first is beyond their ken.

The EU has made its position clear on Ireland as much else and yet May's yapping dog, Rabb, keeps barking there must be a cherry picking deal to suit the Tory Party's own prejudices. Just how many variants of "Non, Ils ne passeront pas" does the Minister for Brexit have to hear to get the message the only offer the EU is willing to make, in order to allow Rabb to protect Tory protectionism, is stay in the customs union and free trade area; including keeping all the current EU customs and trading rules. This is all that is on the table no matter what attempts Rabb, May and the rest of her venal crew try to tell us otherwise or cry the EU "Is nae playin fair, yon bastarts."

It appears, as more and more multinationals plan to exit Brexit Britain or are in the process of moving out, the Tory Party can not see past its own bubble of denial while squealing the companies are just trying to scare the Tory Government into an EFTA style compromise, its blackmail the Tory MP's cry (into their own venerial soup of corruption and self interest). It is not "blackmail" when Jaguar Landrover's plant in the UK is being rundown in favour of a new plant in Croatia. Nor that Honda Swindon are already laying off workers in preparation of moving engine production to Belgium. Nissan have told the UK Government they will cease operating in the North East unless some customs deal is done to ensure "just in time" supply provision from across the EU. The "City" has already seen the exodus of over 60,000 finance related jobs to Dublin and Frankfurt since Brexit was announced. For heaven's sake even the Reese-Dog's finance and hedge fund company has opened an office in Dublin to protect its EU trading interests. Meanwhile, in the midst of this ever enlarging shit storm of economic malfeasance on the part of the Tory Government, the BBC tells us some tax dodging, taxpayer funded moron is "Having a baby!" Talk about MP's fiddling their expenses while the UK burns while, if not doing that, sexually harassing and bullying their work force at Westminster.

What I am really scared about is all the ordinary people who are walking around with their heads up their arses thinking it will be "all right", "It won't be that bad" and "We'll just muddle through." Their is no realisation that the fiscal collapse of the pound after Brexit will threaten their state pensions, welfare support and access to an ever increasingly privatised NHS which a post Brexit Scotland, remaining in the Union, will not be able to prevent. The current Tory Welfare policy has been estimated, by research carried out at Oxford University, to be directly causing 60,000 unnecessary deaths, among UK citizens, every year since 2012. That approximates to Dundee being reduced to a ghost town between 2010 and today. This figure is higher than the Nazi's average annual cull of children and adults with mental incapacities and disabilities between 1937 and 1945. If you can not find this comparison to be scary, dear readers, I do not know what will alert you to the cruel intentions of the ever more right wing, Tory Party the English electorate continue to support, according to the latest opinion polls.

 As for a recent Tory MP's comment "Why not leave the "Mick's" just to shoot each other." as a solution to the UK border in Ireland problem sums up why I am increasingly scared of any outcome that sees Scotland as a part of the UK come Brexit Day.

I will continue to support the First Minister's, "Slowly, slowly; catchee monkey" approach on the best time to call for an independence referendum in Scotland but, as we sidle ever closer to the Brexit cliff edge, my nerves are starting to feel like an over wound guitar string and I do not know just how much more Tory Party ignorance, hostility and bullying of Scotland I can take.

Update: Just checking news feeds, seems I have to add Ford to the list of manufacturers exiting the UK on Brexit.

Sleep Walking to disaster

I am in Northern Ireland at present with my daughter, grandson and her partner.

All I can say is: they are increasingly scared of the violence that will be unleashed on ordinary people as the PIRA and UDVF fight to control the cross border rackets and act in "protection" of their respective Catholic and Protestant communities, violence that is the inevitable outcome of a no deal Brexit and a hard border between the North and the South of this island of Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Police Force is already returning to pre "Good Friday" precautions for both their stations and their own safety. Irish Sea Ferry security checks are once again more stringent with mirror and boot checks the norm. Families once again wondering if their loved ones will come home safe accompanied by the marital stress and fear that will effect yet another generation of children growing up in Northern Ireland and not just in the police force.

The hiatus at forming a new devolved government at Stormont increases the tensions between two communities slowly coming to terms with the troubles, the tit for tat violence, the trust between the two groups is fragile at best, no ordinary person wants a return to the 70's and 80's, the Northern Ireland economy and employment is recovering, the under forties by and large simply want to live normal lives and see their kids grow up in a safe environment.

UK Service personnel from Catholic families once again fear the advisory wrap on their door from the PIRA to tell them to either leave their employer or get out of their community to the mainland, or else. The PIRA knock will be better welcomed than the UDVF one which will be accompanied by a shooting of the person dead.

There are few in Northern Ireland who want this to happen but this is what Tory intransigence over Brexit will bring to the North of the Emerald Ilse. Putting over stretched squaddies back on the streets will simply pour petrol on the flames but as Tory after Tory stands at their conference to defend a "Britain" which does not exist - except in their fevered imaginations - I am listening to people, who are now friends over here, telling me of their fears and why they are justified. It is open knowledge that both the UDVF and PIRA are re-arming courtesy of funds from the Irish community in the USA and US right wing. The general feeling is the DUP are skimming NI funding and dark money donations to help the UDVF.

You can cut the growing paranoia with a knife. I was here in the 1980's during the troubles and among the 40+ age group there is a return to the same caginess, care with what they say to whom depending where they are which was the norm then, in conversations. There are once again taboo subjects in public, especially around religion, allegiances and where you live.

It will take one bomb in Belfast's booming shopping centre to destroy the last twenty years of healing to an open wound which is still sore for many in Northern Ireland, whose families and relations knew the death of loved ones first hand during the "Troubles", but it will be the Tory Party who will stand accused as as good as priming and setting off the device and returning Northern Ireland to its darkest days and nightmares.

Scotland may well become independent on Brexit but a new civil war is on the verge of going live in Northern Ireland. The Tory Conference has lighted the fuse for many over here with its complete misreading of the situation in Northern Ireland and violence returning to the streets is the real price the people of Northern will end up paying for a "Brexit" debacle which was meant to stop a Tory Civil War but has made things worse within the Tory Party as well as for all folk in the UK in all manners of ways.

The ignorance and stupidity of the Tory Government and Party on Northern Ireland, as on much else, is sleep walking the UK to disaster.