We need to make a Plan B for a Brexit - Appalling vista a reality

THE late Lord Denning, one of Britain’s most senior judges, will always be remembered in Ireland for his dismissal of a civil action by the Birmingham Six against West Midlands Police in 1980, because, to accept their case that officers had lied about their confessions and beaten them would have opened up “an appalling vista”.

On their release, he had to admit he was wrong but the damage had already been done.

Let us hope it is not the same with the so-called Brexit — the growing prospect that the United Kingdom will leave the European Union. In view of their head-in-the-sand approach, neither the Irish Government and Opposition nor the European Commission has given a British exit from the union any serious consideration, demonstrably unwilling to countenance such an appalling vista.