John Walsh
speaker
89 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 25 Jul
John Walsh’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
I know it's called the Irish question, but really it could have been called the British question.
And I suppose the starting point for this really was the Brexit referendum.
I was working as a journalist at the time for The Times, the Ireland edition of The Times.
And I was, you know, looking at Brexit, but not very seriously, mainly because I didn't think the British people would vote for it.
But about a week before the referendum, I had an off-the-record conversation with somebody who was looking, scoping out Brexit from an Irish perspective.
What would be the implications for Ireland?
And it was obvious during the course of that conversation, it would have enormous consequences.
I mean, you were basically riding a horse and carriage through the Good Friday Agreement,
And what was also very evident is that Ireland, if you remember, didn't feature during the referendum.
In fact, there was a radio journalist caught up with Nigel Farage on the campaign trail and asked him what would be the implications for Ireland if there was a yes vote for Brexit.
And his response was, don't worry, we'll still buy your Guinness.
Well, if you remember, she actually made those comments.
It was an edition of the BBC politics programme on the Sunday before the referendum.
And she was on with Peter Sutherland.
Peter Sutherland, the former head of the World Trade Organisation.
If there's one person who knew about the implications of Brexit for trade, it was him.
And she basically dismissed him as being one of these experts who was just scaremongering that Europe, the EU, was the failing project.
Once the UK was out, it would be free to negotiate trade deals wherever it wanted.
And basically, there was no downside to Brexit.
Certainly, when she was asked about the implications for the border, you know, it was just... You could tell she hadn't... I mean, even though she was a Northern Ireland secretary, she really hadn't thought about the implications for Northern Ireland.
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