British MP: Press Ireland for a Brexit deal with threat of food shortages

[lpetrich]

Priti Patel: Use threats of food shortages to force Ireland to drop Brexit backstop -- "Former Cabinet member Priti Patel urges Number 10 to press Ireland with no deal warnings"

Leaked government papers show Ireland faces the prospect of taking a bigger economic hit than the UK should there be a disorderly withdrawal from the European Union.

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The country also sees 80 per cent of its road freight from the EU pass through the UK, meaning any extra border checks “would cause challenges”.

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“This paper appears to show the government were well aware Ireland will face significant issues in a no-deal scenario,” Priti Patel, who was International Development Secretary until last year, told the Times.

“Why hasn’t this point been pressed home during the negotiations? There is still time to go back to Brussels and get a better deal.”

That provoked a lot of outrage, and to many people, it evoked Ireland's Great Potato Famine of the mid 19th cy. Though potatoes originated in the Andes Mountains of South America, they became a very popular crop in Europe and North America, including Ireland. But in 1845, a funguslike organism called Phytophthora infestans arrived, devastating Ireland's potato crop with potato blight. Over the next decade, a million Irish people starved and a million more emigrated. Ireland's population never recovered. The famine was made worse by British officialdom not wanting to do much for Ireland. At the time, all of Ireland was ruled by Britain.

Patel comments on no-deal Brexit in Ireland criticised - BBC News She tweeted

It is clear my comments on‘ No Deal’ have been taken out of context by some. We should go back to Brussels & get a better deal. There is still time. Let’s take back control of borders, laws & money.

Brexit: Tory MP backtracks over food scarcity in Ireland

The former British international development minister has been condemned on both sides of the Irish Sea for her remarks in the Times that Britain could prevent the use of its country as a landbridge between Ireland and the continent.

People are absolutely destroying Priti Patel’s backpedaling on Ireland and food shortages | JOE is the voice of Irish people at home and abroad
She retweeted a tweet from Change Britain that stated

Remain's #ProjectFear has made hysterical threats about leaving on WTO terms for over two years: no flights, no water, and even no Mars bars!

Now they attack Priti Patel for highlighting that risks of leaving without a deal would extend to other countries.

Patrick Kielty:

Quick one for Priti Patel before she reruns the Irish Famine -
Ireland is a major importer of food from the UK.
The UK is a major importer of food from the EU.
Ireland is a member of, guess what? The EU.
If shit was wit she’d be constipated.

If she meant something like "lack of a deal means that it will be hard to get food to Ireland", she could have tried to make it seem like the EU leadership was to blame. But she didn't.