James O'Brien: Why The Irish Border Is One Of The Biggest Brexit Issues

Why bother trying to understand complicated issues when you could spit bile instead? James O'Brien asked.

John McDonnell has warned a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland after Brexit would undermine the peace process and "be a nightmare."

Ireland's Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has written to the UK asking it to clarify its position on the border, calling for a legal guarantee that it will not harden. It's the Irish premier's red line.

So a fairly big issue then, James O'Brien acknowledged, and a complex one at that.

But why expend the effort trying to understand the complexities of the border when it's so easy to spit bile, as the Sun has?

The LBC presenter said: "You try and unravel this horribly complicated situation that some people warned was going to happen, Some people insisted it wasn't and now incontrovertibly is.

"Either you try and unravel it or you follow the line of the Sun newspaper and just start spitting bile at Ireland."

James then read out a text message, riddled with poor spelling, received from someone "that thinks they have a better understanding of this issue."

"There's the voice of the Sun reader," he joked. "But the most cursory understanding of the Good Friday Agreement would explain why it requires equality of patient rights, regardless of which side of the border you live on you have the same healthcare access and rights as each other.

"So patient rights, that would require single standards for medical devices, the approval of medicines at EU level, mutual recognition of medical qualifications, mutual acceptance of cross-border ambulance activity.

"It's mess upon mess upon mess, but because we've allowed it to become so ludicrously nativistic and one dimensional, people don't like acknowledging the mess.

"What do you do if you don't want to acknowledge the mess that you've in large part help to make? Start shouting abuse at someone.

"Keep your eyes shut, keep your fingers in your ears and start spitting bile at foreigners. In this case Irish people.

"They've never been on our side? Happy days, they built this country mate