THE crisis facing community and voluntary organisations as we go into April is not a new story. Following Brexit (remember that?) many groups, organisations and citizens warned that this would happen. Leaving the European Union meant leaving an infrastructure that has been designed to develop innovative and progressive programmes which support conflict resolution and address economic deprivation.

The island of Ireland was a net beneficiary of those programmes for decades. The South remains so. In the North, meanwhile, children’s projects, mental health projects and an entire network of support will close with the ending of funding.

Britain was never going to replace EU monies coming here with anything close to the long-term commitment of the EU. Britain doesn’t care a jot about kids in New Barnsley or Newbuildings. They haven’t considered for a second that our mental health needs, as a society creaking under the impact of decades of conflict, institutional abuses, and the violence of systemic poverty, simply needs more money and more resourcing. They don’t think about us. The current Westminster government is strangled by trying to figure out whether it lurches to the far right with Nigel Farage and pins the Green Party as radical, or whether they just go away quietly and hope no-one notices.

Of course locally this train has been coming a long time and Sinn Féin was blue in the face with Assembly motions pointing it out. Michelle O’Neill raised the matter at the highest levels of the Westminster government. It seems odd that the actual Minister for Communities was relatively quiet. Caught between being part of the vote for Brexit against the will of the local population and viewing everything uttered by a nationalist or republican as a hidden agenda, he must have missed it and the funding cliff edge came as a surprise. It's almost as if Gordon Lyons isn’t keen on communities after all. Or that he doesn’t want this region, which relies completely on the community and voluntary sector, to work.

Meanwhile, South of the border EU grants continue to be applied forand successfully used to make meaningful change. The economy continues to grow and the standard of living continues to increase. It is not just a different state, it is a different reality. All health metrics continue to grow in favour of those living in the South. Poverty rates continue to decline. Educational achievement statistics continue to be better. And mortality rates continue to favour those caught on the right side of the border.

There are some who say, somewhat wistfully, now that the Brexit shock is past us that the growing demand for a border poll has slowed. Well that would be a 'No, Ted.' Westminster does not fund this place nearly enough, and doesn’t care enough to remedy that. Political unionism has no idea how to share power with manners and respect. Relationships are appalling, and what should be political accountability is now reduced to tedious opportunities for clickbait on social media. And while none of the parties wish to bring it down, because they do not want to be the ones to suffer at the polls, neither is their heart in what this has become.

So no, the yearning for a border poll has not declined. Just as in 2016, this GFA strand ain’t working.