Northern Irish deadline a line in the sand?

Soooo . . . I mentioned in a previous post about how the UK has threatened the Northern Irish leadership with a revocation of their salaries and positions if they could not agree to work with Sinn Fein in a new government. Well, the deadline is tomorrow and the hangup is what appears to be a silly one: the parties have to “indicate” – not set in stone, put forward or even suggest – just INDICATE that they will nominate leaders for the new government.

The problem seems to be that the DUP (those are the “hooray England” guys up in Northern Ireland) won’t put forward a candidate until Sinn Fein (those are the “hooray Ireland” guys up in Northern Ireland) agree that the current police force will pretty much stay as it is (that’s the Police Service of Northern Ireland – usually referred to as the PSNI). I suppose the DUP is afraid that if the new government is set up before Sinn Fein agrees, then there might be problems policing the newly self-governning state of Northern Ireland.

The 80-year-old Ian Paisley (he’s the head of the “hooray England” guys) has said, “I am not jumping first or last. Other politicians jumped first: they broke their arms and their legs and are now deserted.” I think he’s referring not to jumping into swimming pools with no water in Arizona, but to DUP guys in the past who lost their political support by making bad decisions . . . ? Actually, I have no idea what that quote means.

That’s a weird quote.

Anyway- doesn’t it just seem like they’re putting this off as long as they possibly can in hopes that it won’t actually happen?

Well, November 24 is tomorrow. I suppose we’ll see if the deadline is really a DEADline or just a “ah, he’s not really dead; just passed out, must have had a few beers too many, sorry about that” line.