She's already laid her plans out. Bridge-burning is exactly what those plans entail. The letter just says she wants a co-operative relationship, even though she has shot that suggestion down multiple times in the past nine months... no idea why. Out of diplomatic reasons? Maybe Theresa knows we're about to get slapped around on the world stage by everyone because we still think we're the superpower we were 100 years ago when we're not. Maybe she now realises the UK could be about to completely collapse. Who knows. Anyway, leaving is bridge-burning enough for me.
Don't forget that this is the beginning of a process that will take years and is plowing new ground. I hope whatever happens, that it turns out well for you.
If I get to keep my European citizenship and Northern Ireland doesn't devolve into civil war again and my family members don't get killed, I'll be pretty happy. Not a lot to ask for actually.
The EU is proposing granting British citizens who want to remain European citizenship. No idea if the British government will like, or accept, that. The alternative is single market access - which the EU is telling us to take or forget about any trade deal (which, by the way, we need) - which requires the UK to suck it up and let European citizens into the country anyway (what most people voted to get rid of). Northern Ireland is majority British, as a result of hundreds of years of ethnic cleansing. After the Irish War of Independence (1919 - 1921) and the Irish Civil War (1922 - 1923), the UK got to keep Northern Ireland. The Troubles - an ethno-nationalist conflict between the Irish and British revolving around N.I - kicked off in late 1968, and the Provisional Irish Republican Army committed hundreds (maybe thousands, I think) of terrorist attacks across the United Kingdom, Ireland itself, and sometimes even in mainland Europe. The British Army went on a couple of shooting sprees against the Irish in Northern Ireland, built a few walls to divide the Catholics and British Protestants - obviously, the Irish Catholics were condemned to poverty and poor schooling (my granddad left N.I for this reason), while the Protestants lived fairly normally besides hearing PIRA bombs go off every night. The Troubles were ended in 1998, when the Good Friday Agreement was signed. Since then, the Irish in Northern Ireland have been able to very freely move between their homes and Ireland to go see family. They are basically integrated as one state. It's huge thanks in part to the European Union that this is possible. It's for this reason that Northern Ireland is one of the only two countries in the UK that voted to remain. We don't know if this border arrangement can continue. We don't know if Northern Ireland and Ireland can remain... how they are. If it doesn't, their economy is destroyed. That breeds the hate that hasn't been completely killed off yet. It's also been recently discovered the PIRA are still active, just dormant, and very likely have sleeper agents all across Ireland and the UK - this triggered a crisis over the summer in NI that actually delayed the Article 50 triggering. Brexit has the potential to re-ignite the civil war in Ireland because the English wanted to make a stupid decision and now Northern Irish lives could very likely be paying for it.
This is a pretty good article. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...s-delusions-of-empire/?utm_term=.756888ce05b6 Also, the drama surrounding Gibraltar has already kicked off. This is going to be great. I can see Spain forcing the UK to give up Gibraltar in exchange for them vetoing Scottish entry into the European Union if Scotland were to declare independence. This is going to get messy.
Oops. Would be quite funny for Brexit to be the thing that unites Ireland. https://www.ft.com/content/f4c720b0-2b63-11e7-bc4b-5528796fe35c Also Theresa May is upset the EU is 'ganging up on the UK'... it's almost like they're a union.
