Brexit has already directly cost a life through terrorism. With the murder of Jo Cox in the name of Brexit this whole sorry affair was born in blood. I have little illusion that no matter how this is resolved blood will be spilt. We upset the status quo and when you do that there is always a price to pay. There was a chance shortly after the referendum of a compromise, a Norway type solution, that could have been sold to the country. Leave the EU but maintain a lot of the economic links but no, May salted the earth and polarisation between extremes grew. When we needed a leader we got a political pygmy.
Then the EU proposed a solution to NI in order to safeguard the GFA. We rejected it. We proposed an alternative which the EU accepted. All to safeguard the peace process. Then we trashed our own solution and now our ‘solution’ is vague unspecified commitments allied to the threat to its own citizens of food and medicine shortages and to the NI peace process and its Paris and Berlin who should be bending over backwards? 27 European countries should shred the European Project and its economic creation of a single pan European market to appease the Brexit fanatics who have taken a narrow mandate to mean we cut all ties with Europe and isolate ourselves and who refuse to compromise?
As for democracy being held to ransom well democracy is a servant not a master and democracy often has conflicting outcomes. The GFA was an all Ireland referendum. NI voted to remain. The backstop has majority support in NI. Does ‘our democracy’ trump their democracy? And how does a PM elected by 140,000 people to pursue a no deal outcome that was rejected at the 2017 GE and dismissed as ‘Project Fear’ at the 2016 referendum fit into this ‘democracy’? Why are we being held to ransom to satisfy an outcome no one actually voted for? Do the EU nationals living here right now not feel ‘threatened’ by the Home Secs desire to end their legal right to stay after 31st Oct? You would be forgiven for wondering who exactly are ‘the terrorists’ right now.