OPINION: Let's hear it for our Republic... it's one of the sanest states

IT is a remarkable situation but increasingly this part of this island – this Republic – is looking more and more like one of the sanest places around these parts. You might also include our EU neighbours, with the possible exception of Hungary. It continues to behave like a brat state with only its own narrow interests of any concern in Budapest.

But, looking to the immediate West and East, you do have to conclude that were George Bernard Shaw alive today he would have to revise his conclusion that 'Ireland is the largest open-air lunatic asylum in the world!'

In America things seem to go from bad to worse with the lunatics still in the ascendant, even as a Biden White House struggles to establish some sanity.

At Uvalde in Texas an 18-year-old with a newly bought assault weapon fired more than 100 rounds in a primary school killing 18 children and two teachers before being shot – eventually – himself. For much of the time local police did nothing as 19 officers stood by for 78 minutes awaiting support while the children were being shot.

It is claimed that one desperate child, while others of her friends phoned the emergency services for help, covered herself with a dead classmate’s blood to give the impression she too was dead. Outside, desperate parents tried to climb over fencing to save their children while being stopped by police with one mother handcuffed by them for trying to get in to save her child.

A dead teacher’s husband himself died of a heart attack after the shooting, leaving their four kids also traumatised.

Meanwhile, in Houston – the same state, but about 400 kilometres from Uvalde – former US president Donald Trump tells a National Rifle Association conference the problem is not the ease with which guns can be bought in the US. The safety of schoolchildren could be ensured by every school having a single point of entry, strong fencing and metal detectors, he said. There should also be a police official or an armed guard at all times in every school.

There were 19 police at Uvalde as the shooting took place. The problem, he said, was “the existence of evil in our world.” It was “not a reason to disarm law-abiding citizens - the existence of evil is one of the very best reasons to arm law-abiding citizens,” he said.

Nothing will come between most Americans and their guns, particularly pro-life Americans too, it seems. Try squaring that contradiction. They will have their guns even if it means repeated massacres of the innocents.

Meanwhile to the East we have Boris and his merry band making up laws for everyone else while partying to their hearts content, apparently, at the seat of British government – number 10 Downing Street. And all while treating cleaning and security staff with disdain. These people may fancy themselves as an elite but they have no class.

They have brought British politics to an unprecedented low where standards, like laws, are for other people and which they can make or break at will – whether domestically or internationally.

It is doubtful whether Britain has had less respect or standing in the world, as Boris and his crew hanker after glory days of pints, inches, feet and miles - and other such imperial measurements -which he is about to reintroduce and which the Mail on Sunday told us – in another Brexit-based lie – had been banned by the EU.

And all about keeping his hardline Brexiteer backbenchers onside so he retains power. His threats to unilaterally change the Northern Ireland protocol and offer immunity from prosecution for Troubles-related crimes is about holding that support and to hell with the consequences for this island.

These so-called legacy proposals offer immunity from prosecution for Troubles-related crimes in return for cooperation with an information retrieval process would also end all legal investigations into such crimes, including inquests.

These proposals are opposed by every party in Northern Ireland, by victims’ groups and by the Irish Government, but they appeal to Conservative MPs who want to spare former British soldiers from prosecution for their alleged crimes in Northern Ireland.

His threat to introduce legislation within weeks to unilaterally override the protocol is in the teeth of opposition from Dublin, Washington and a warning of retaliation from Brussels, but it keeps his hardliners happy. None of this is in the interests of the British people, the EU, the US, or, certainly, of Ireland. The only beneficiary is Boris, in Downing Street!

And, looking North, there is little consolation either. There where the DUP is, seemingly, so worried about the effects on the Good Friday Agreement of the protocol they refuse to allow a government be set up at Stormont. This is the same DUP which opposed that Good Friday Agreement tooth and nail when it was introduced in 1998 and was supported by overwhelming majorities in the two referendums on the two jurisdictions on this island.

This is the same DUP whose current leader Jeffrey Donaldson and former leaders Arlene Foster were so opposed to the Good Friday Agreement that they left the Ulster Unionist Party, which helped negotiate it, to join the DUP. Then, respecting the democratic wishes of the majority of people in Northern Ireland is not really their thing, unless it suits.

After all, the majority of MLAs elected to the new Stormont in recent weeks support the protocol just as the majority of people in Northern Ireland, including in Arlene Foster’s own constituency, opposed Brexit.

Then this is not about democracy. It’s about identity, their British identity before whom there shall be no other. Personally, I have no problem with that. But in this entire Brexit debacle they’ve been at the hardest edge of the wedge which has led to the current situation of an effective border down the Irish Sea 'cutting them off' from their would-be motherland.

Prior to Brexit relations north and south on this island, as well as east and west between Dublin and London, could hardly have been better. Under the umbrella of the EU single market all identities were respected and secure. But such was the passion of the Little Englander element in the Tory party, supported by their old allies in hardline unionism, for a pure English sovereignty they decided on striking out on their own with Brexit and to hell with the consequences.

And when Teresa attempted to secure something of the old stabilities by keeping Britain within the single market she was destroyed, not least by the then six DUP MPs. Now, they reap the whirlwind they set off and pity is in short supply.

Meanwhile, Putin continues to plunder and rape eastern and southern Ukraine. He may win the battle but he has lost the war. The West, whether through Nato or the EU, has rarely been as united with Finland and Sweden now applicant members of Nato. He has set in train a sanctions regime which, in time, will greatly damage his economy and – possibly even more importantly – has put the West on course to divest itself of any dependence on Russian gas or oil.

Even if he succeeds in taking two of Ukraine’s eastern provinces, along with Crimea, he has seriously weakened his Russia. In other words, this invasion of Ukraine is on course to being a disaster for his country. Couldn’t happen a nicer guy!