The Dilemma

Start your story with someone being presented with a dilemma.

The Dilemma 

The word dilemma comes from the Latin dilemma via the Greek word dilemma meaning ‘double proposition’. Di means ‘two’ and lemma means, ‘premise, anything received or taken’. And the root word is lambanein which means to take. The biggest dilemma Billy ever faced in his life was whether to vote to stay in Europe or to leave the union. He lived in a small farm in County Down and he was not an overly politically minded person.  Most of his neighbours were farmers as well and when he went to the market on the last Tuesday of the month, there was only one topic of conversation, namely Brexit.

These Presbyterian farmers were God-fearing men and they attended their church services every week. And like Billy, they were not that interested in Brexit. But the longer the debate dragged on they realised they could not ignore the fact that they would have to cast their votes in June 2016. 

Billy carried out some research into the potential impact of Brexit on his livelihood. Before the decision to leave the Union was made, there was much rhetoric about how the UK needed to take back control and this became the mantra of the ‘leave camp’. It was argued by the Brexiteers that the Union threatened British sovereignty and that Brussels had grown too big for its boots. The bottom line was that Europe had too much say over agriculture, copyright and patent law. He read that some of the EU laws were absurd—for example, you could not recycle a teabag, or children under the age of eight could not blow up a balloon. 

When Billy spoke to the neighbouring farmers he got the distinct impression that they were being influenced by the Leave campaign. And as well as that, most of them supported the DUP, who were convinced that leaving Europe was the way forward. Ivan Smith, a local farmer met Billy at the Farmer’s Market in Comber said, ‘It will be a relief to get away from the overbearing bureaucrats in Brussels. The EU has become a cumbersome beast.’

Billy replied, ‘Some of the regulations are overly restrictive but at the same time I don’t think that the farmers can complain. Look at how many subsidies we have received over the years’.

Ivan said, ‘Have you not been listening to the news? EU regulations are costing our economy 600 million pounds every week’.  

Billy said, ‘The Brexiteers are just using scare tactics. As farmers, we need to think about our own livelihoods. Do you realise that if we leave the European Union, we will have to pay tariffs on our beef, on our lamb, and on our chicken?’ 

Ian replied, ‘But we will have access to other markets and we will not be hampered by the EU’s rules and regulations’.

Every time Billy and Ivan met, they discussed the ins and outs of Brexit. Ivan was convinced that leaving Europe was for the best, and Billy was not convinced. He believed that everyone was getting caught up in the Brexit rhetoric and not seeing the pitfalls of leaving the Union. 

Although Billy lived among a conservative farming community, he was at heart a European. He had been in Belfast recently and as he walked through Upper Arthur Street, he noticed a

few cafes with chairs and tables on the pavement—it looked like any other European City that he had visited and he thought it was great that a European ambience was being created.  

He could see the bigger picture and he realised that his community was being railroaded into a situation which would backfire on them. 

After the Referendum, it became clear that Brexiteers had won the day by 52% to 48%.  Ironically Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union by 56% to 44%. The turnout was 62% and 790,523 people voted. 

Billy was quite unhappy about the fact that the UK was leaving the European Union and over the next four years, he listened to the debates about this decision and its ramifications. Words like ‘hard border and soft border’ began to gain momentum in the media. Basically there was the fear that a hard border could destabilise the Good Friday Agreement. Words like ‘backstop’ also entered the lexicon. Later the word ‘protocol’ would surface and this would really set the cat among the pigeons. 

Billy noticed that his community began to see the way the wind was blowing in terms of the Northern Ireland backstop and they felt they were being sold down the river. The backstop would be there to ensure that there would be no hard border on the island of Ireland. 

Ivan said to Billy a few months after the Referendum and after the contentious issues surrounding Brexit were surfacing, ‘I don’t like the sound of this backstop’. And he added, ‘looks like Northern Ireland will be treated as a special case. And this threatens the Union with the UK’. 

Billy said, ‘beware of what you wish for, as the saying goes. You were a devout Brexiteer, and you and the other farmers never thought of the consequences. You and everyone in this area were bandying terms like the European Union was no longer fit for purpose and that we were being strangled by their meddlesome bureaucrats. Now everyone is complaining about the backstop and the inevitability of a border down the Irish Sea’. 

Ivan said, ‘we can never accept a border down the Irish Sea. This is not satisfactory.’

Billy realised Ivan and the other local farmers had been betrayed by the British Government. They felt that a regulatory border down the Irish Sea tilted Ulster away from the United Kingdom and towards Southern Ireland. There was dissatisfaction in the Loyalist community and posters and graffiti started to appear condemning the sea border. Billy knew that this would be translated into violence and this is exactly what happened. The Unionist and Loyalist community felt that they were being bulldozed into a United Ireland and that was intolerable. 

Billy was not trying to adopt a ‘I told you so’ attitude with his neighbour, Ivan. He had tried to warn him that leaving the EU would have repercussions but Ivan just wanted to toe the party line and follow the directive to vote leave.