Support for Johnson’s big plan is in short supply on the Falls and Shankill
“IT’S awesome. The sooner we’re out, the better!”
That was the reaction of one shopper on the Falls Road yesterday after being asked for his opinion on Boris Johnson’s controversial Brexit deal.
However, he was the only person we spoke to on either the Shankill or the Falls roads who was wholeheartedly behind the Prime Minister’s last-minute deal — and even he didn’t want to give his name.
On the Shankill Road, Maureen Blair was downbeat.
“It’s a nightmare,” she said. “I don’t know where he (Boris) is going. I don’t know whether to believe him or not. I have lost confidence in him completely.”
Pensioner Joseph Kirk agreed: “We’re being sold down the river. It’s not good for Northern Ireland.”
Pals Martin Holland and Billy Bell took a similarly dim view of the Prime Minister’s plan.
“I’m a Brexit supporter,” said Martin. “I think that we should have been out of Europe a long time ago. “
His pal Billy agreed, but added: “The Britishness of this place is being downgraded and it doesn’t seem as if Boris Johnson or the DUP have any red lines about that happening.
“This is the break-up of the Union, something the DUP are supposed to be against.”
A short distance away, on the Falls Road, Frank Bowes was sceptical about whether the Prime Minister’s plan would be passed by the House of Commons.
“It’s looking like it won’t go through. There are a lot of people coming out against it and I think Boris knows that,” he said.
“But it’s still too early to say what’s going to happen.”
Tiarna Bunting,a concessionaire in the HiPark Centre, took the same view.
“I don’t think Boris’s deal will happen. We’ve heard this ‘deal’ talk too many times before — sure they’ve been talking for years about this,” she said.
“I reckon it will all go belly-up and we’ll have a no-deal Brexit.”
Another shopper, a Mr Bagley, reckoned that no one really knew what was going to happen.
“Things change on a daily, even hourly, basis,” he said. “You can’t really think about it because you’d have to think about it all the time to keep up with all the twists and turns. Sometimes I think no one knows what’s really going on.”
Falls Road taxi driver Joe McCall liked the fact that Boris had sidelined the DUP: “He got a bit of sense and ditched them DUP doughnuts, Arlene Foster and the rest of them. Boris was always going to sink them.”