IT’S been an eventful and relieving 24 hours in the Brexit negotiations.
An agreement announced this morning that will guarantee no hard border in Northern Ireland after the UK leaves the EU.
We’ve seen a variety of British politicians making some outrageous and ill-informed statements with relation to the border issue, highlighting the lack of education in the UK on Irish history.
Last night on BBC political programme This Week, former Conservative Minister turned BBC pundit Michael Portillo really took the biscuit with his comments.
Portillo’s extraordinarily ignorant statement on Irish-British relations down the years that’s wound up so many people on Twitter.
"Ireland has been so disruptive for the British..." Actual words spoken by Michael Portillo on television just now.
You've been fairly fucking disruptive over here, mate.— Colm Tobin (@colmtobin) December 8, 2017
I was mortified to hear this. I implore people to read #Irish history. Such an imperialistic comment. Arrogant and wrong #sadmanonatrain https://t.co/RXbRkk0sOZ
— Mr Mark Fairhurst (@MrMarkFairhurst) December 8, 2017
One Twitter user even pointed out that Portillo has presented a documentary on the Easter Rising before, so he should be entirely aware of the facts.
Do people actually think before they speak. Seems like every person has verbal diarrhoea. As for Michael....the arrogance of the man re Ireland https://t.co/yPm9I6jFRK https://t.co/fHwrdQEpoL
— David Weldon (@theweldon88) December 8, 2017
While Portillo did say that Britain had also been disruptive to the Irish, people don’t think there’s any equivalence between the two levels of interference. And no mention of the obvious reason why there has been “disruption” between the two seemed to be given.
Anyway, regardless of Portillo's comments, today has been a good day politically for Ireland as we emerged from the first round of Brexit talks with all of our demands met by the UK.
See More: BBC, Brexit, Feature, Ireland, Michael Portillo, Newslettertop, UK
