Minority of British Citizens want NI to remain part of the United Kingdom

Kermit.de.frog

Check out the latest Brexit poll.





Which of these is the greatest priority:

1. That the United Kingdom leaves the European Union
or
2. That the union between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom is maintained


___________________________________


Leave Voters

That the UK leaves the EU: 71% • That Northern Ireland remains part of the UK: 12%


___________________________________


Remain Voters

That the UK leaves the EU: 9% • That Northern Ireland remains part of the UK: 47%

From Yougov

Data here:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/bhy62x09m0/LBC_Results_180322_w.pdf

Jeez ever feel like you are not wanted? :eek:

Leave voters - just 12% think NI should remain part of the UK instead of Brexit.


Why do I get the feeling we'll be taking over more than we might actually want in the years ahead.

end of the road

it's certainly great news. i have said for a long time now that britain doesn't want northern ireland. i can't see that this new revelation will bring unification closer though, unfortunately.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

Unionists have given 100 years of loyalty to the Empire, and England couldn't give the slightest sh1t about them. In fact, if a majority of people in the UK knew how much they were paying to keep the statelet afloat they would vote to Leave them.

Edgarfrndly

The British public was asked in a survey spanning 25+ years what their views on NI was (Remain part of the UK or unify with Ireland). In every single survey bar one, they chose for NI to unify with the rest of Ireland.

Anytime I've spoken to my English friends, at no point have I ever felt like they gave a fiddler's about the north, or even understood it. Very few of them have ever visited it, and many are even confused about the status of the north and why it's not part of the rest of Ireland.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

NO SURRENDER!!!

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

The Brexiteers have not thought this true: the majority of them, one would assume, are Conservative; and if Norhtern Ireland were to leave the UK, their government goes with it.

end of the road

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

The Brexiteers have not thought this true: the majority of them, one would assume, are Conservative; and if Norhtern Ireland were to leave the UK, their government goes with it.

to be fair that in itself would be a good thing. the DUP end up buried and jeremy likely becomes prime minister.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

end of the road wrote: »

to be fair that in itself would be a good thing. the DUP end up buried and jeremy likely becomes prime minister.

... unless you're Jewish, apparently...

Yer Da sells Avon

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

... unless you're Jewish, apparently...

Only if you believe the latest right-wing smear campaign. Last month he was a communist spy. That didn't work, so this month he's an anti-semite. Next month it'll be the IRA stuff again.

end of the road

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

... unless you're Jewish, apparently...

there is no way jeremy is anti-semetic. jeremy wouldn't do anything like that. he's a good man. he has been campaigning against racism and similar for decades. he will be a great prime minister.

Peregrinus

The poll doesn't show, as claimed that "minority of British Citizens want NI to remain part of the United Kingdom". It shows that a minority of British citizens rate that as a more important objective than maintaining the Union. It doesn't follow that those rate Brexit more important don't want to maintain the Union. They may want both. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that the bulk of Brexiters do want both, regardless of which order they rank them in.

Vic_08

Peregrinus wrote: »

The poll doesn't show, as claimed that "minority of British Citizens want NI to remain part of the United Kingdom". It shows that a minority of British citizens rate that as a more important objective than maintaining the Union. It doesn't follow that those rate Brexit more important don't want to maintain the Union. They may want both. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that the bulk of Brexiters do want both, regardless of which order they rank them in.

I'd hazard a guess that a majority of Brexiters don't understand the current status of NI, couldn't explain the difference between UK and Britain and would fail to mark NI on a map.

Peregrinus

Vic_08 wrote: »

I'd hazard a guess that a majority of Brexiters don't understand the current status of NI, couldn't explain the difference between UK and Britain and would fail to mark NI on a map.

The same might be true of a majority of remainers. NI generall doesn't feature very highly in the British consciousness when it's not being a problem.

But that doesn't mean they don't want NI to remain part of the UK. The only way to find that out is to ask them the question, and this survey doesn't ask it.

Kermit.de.frog

Peregrinus wrote: »

The same might be true of a majority of remainers. NI generall doesn't feature very highly in the British consciousness when it's not being a problem.

But that doesn't mean they don't want NI to remain part of the UK. The only way to find that out is to ask them the question, and this survey doesn't ask it.

Take the remainers at just 47% to keep NI in UK and to be honest it might as well ask it.

Just 12% for leave.

It tells you what they think of the 6 counties if nothing else.

corny

Its hardly surprising. Irrespective of your politics....why on earth would anyone (UK or Ireland) want union with the north?

Jesus, i'd march the streets to prevent a united Ireland.

kneemos

The English barely know what Wales is never mind the North.

Doubt the Unionists give a ****e anyway. Being part of the Union is all they care about.

Amirani

corny wrote: »

Its hardly surprising. Irrespective of your politics....why on earth would anyone (UK or Ireland) want union with the north?

Jesus, i'd march the streets to prevent a united Ireland.

I'd consider doing similar. As well as the economic drawbacks, I could well envisage there being bombings etc. in Dublin and other Irish cities by dissident Unionists. Would not be worth that.

McMurphy

Amirani wrote: »

I'd consider doing similar. As well as the economic drawbacks, I could well envisage there being bombings etc. in Dublin and other Irish cities by dissident Unionists. Would not be worth that.

I've often heard this line trotted out, dissident unionists you say?

Mmmm. And What might their aim be?

If Britain severed it's links and withdrew, then what?

Bomb Dublin to try and force the Irish out of another part of the island of Ireland?

Make the 6 counties a separate state? (Wouldn't that defeat their unionism ethos?)

Make the British Government re-invade?

I don't envisage it myself.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

Peregrinus

Under the GFA the status of NI as a part of the United Kingdom can't be changed without the consent of a majority, expressed in a poll. So whether the majority of voters in GB are committed to the Union or not doesn't really clinch matters; NI has a veto over any constitutional change which would see them cease to be a part of the UK.

Of course, there are those on the Brexiter side who would be happy to, um, "move on" from the GFA. But for the most part they are not people who would welcome the dissolution of the Union. I'm thinking Kate Hoey and Michael Gove.

Amirani

Johnny Dogs wrote: »

I've often heard this line trotted out, dissident unionists you say?

Mmmm. And What might their aim be?

If Britain severed it's links and withdrew, then what?

Bomb Dublin to try and force the Irish out of another part of the island of Ireland?

Make the 6 counties a separate state? (Wouldn't that defeat their unionism ethos?)

Make the British Government re-invade?

I don't envisage it myself.

I don't believe that there's any constitutional way that Britain could unilaterally sever its links to Northern Ireland. Hence the only possible way would be through actions taken in Ireland (North and South). I think it's entirely possible that dissident Unionists would seek to influence or disrupt these actions through violence.

As a result, I'd probably want to avoid a scenario where a United Ireland seemed a likely scenario. I don't think there'd be much tangible benefit to most people down South. Particularly in Dublin, it would just be another drain on economic resources to support a group of counties that share some deep seated resentment for you.

On a similar note - can people thinking of many recent unifications that have been successful? Germany worked pretty well in the 1990s I guess (though there are still issues there), but the trend Worldwide seems to be towards de-unification and independence movements for regions rather than the opposite way round. I think even if Ireland was to unify, there'd need to be more decentralisation of power than is currently the case.

Mint Sauce

Brexit is one of the biggest fcuk ups of the British Government in a long long time. No exit stratagy, as never expected it to go through, let alone how it would affect the Union, and its land border it shares. Those who supported it only did for they own egos and political gains, and when it did go through, even they were, oh fcuk, what do we do now!

Further still, when May failed to get her majority, she tried to bribe the the DUP, tried to go behind their back, thinking ah the 500 Million will keep them sweet. Whilst I am against most things they stand for, I do respect them for pulling the conservatives, and saying, hey we have a say here to, in relation to Mays first Brexit plan.

All of this combined, will eventually be Mays failling and downfall. Whilst most failed PMs, do have at least one or two positives that people occassionally remember, I cant think of anything for May.

As for most of Britian, why would they care about the North, allot of them still think that the whole of Ireland is still part of the Union. As for the polititians not wanting it, its because they cant afford it, but then the Irish Government cant really afford it either.

Unfortunetly, the Political issues will never dissappear, what ever happens. Theres is to much history, to many wounds, scares, and still enough around, the pass that to future generations.

topper75

corny wrote: »

Jesus, i'd march the streets to prevent a united Ireland.

Being of a nationalist persuasion I wouldn't have joined you before this morning.

I heard an NI tourist ad on the way in to work though on the radio: "...and all this just 2 hours away".

Not me sonny Jim, I mused.

Then it hit me like a cricket bat/hurley [delete as appropriate] between the eyes - a Belfast-Dublin axis on the east coast would bury the west. As if it wasn't bad enough already. Derry/Cork/Limerick/Galway would have to settle for crumbs.

So it's a no for me.

Sleepy

No surprise in that result, I don't think I've ever met an Englishman who wanted anything to do with Northern Ireland.

There's an eerie stagnation, at best, about unionism now more than ever. With the huge constitutional, political and economic changes that Brexit is bringing to definitively confirm the end of Empire/British decline, unionists have an enormously idiosyncratic "Where the fúck are we going?" look about their entire existence. That, more than anything. And leaders? Statesmen? Cultural ambassadors? Where is the dynamism in the community?

For how long can any community progress and advance when their existence is based on what they are not/whom they hate, and on a wholly out-of-date sense of what they are? This is a double whammy for unionists: culturally and educationally nationalists have progressed enormously from the figures of contempt of, say, 1930s Belfast, and the British state they profess allegiance to is undergoing yet another transition of existential proportions that is moving it from the great imperial power with which they identified. Unionist identity has always been bound up with association with power and this has strengthened what JJ Lee described as their settler-colonial 'herrenvolk mentality'. Now, in another historical first, it is nationalists who are more associated with power (the EU). [by internationalising the Northern conflict nationalists outsmarted the more powerful unionists on so many levels]

Talking to a loyalist recently I was struck by not only the socio-economic deprivation but, moreover, by the lack of momentum and sense of progress that every community that has embraced education as the path to freedom gives off. There's a hostility to education among poor unionists that is culturally not near as big a factor in the nationalist community. The decline of traditional unionist industries, and thus the apprentices that many loyalists historically entered, has not been replaced by an embrace of other educational avenues. This stagnation is a huge existential problem for unionism and the principal source of alienation in working class loyalist areas, and by extension a problem for both communities.

I've said it before many times: when the British cut the enormous subventions to unionists, unionists will have to face up to a whole array of realities connected with their existence on this little island. It looks like the British will finally be forced to do that in their own post-Brexit existence.

end of the road

corny wrote: »

Its hardly surprising. Irrespective of your politics....why on earth would anyone (UK or Ireland) want union with the north?

Jesus, i'd march the streets to prevent a united Ireland.

it's part of this country and reunification is our destiny. march away but a strong counter-march would be launched by those of us who want the real ireland, the 32 county republic.

Amirani wrote: »

I'd consider doing similar. As well as the economic drawbacks, I could well envisage there being bombings etc. in Dublin and other Irish cities by dissident Unionists. Would not be worth that.

considering the dissident Unionists can only muster up a bit of rioting, they have no support from the BA or british government, and bombing won't bring anything for them, i think we can probably say that the likelyhood of there being bombs is very slim to non-existant.
the supposed economic drawbacks are likely over exaggerated as well, there will quite likely be a transition period with the EU and britain helping to steady the ship upon reunification while everything is sorted out and integration between both north and south takes place.
reunification is coming, it's a case of when and not if. may not be in our lifetimes but who knows.

Amirani

end of the road wrote: »

reunification is coming, it's a case of when and not if. may not be in our lifetimes but who knows.

International trends seem to be more around secession and increased regional autonomy rather than unification. I'm not sure a United Ireland is necessarily inevitable in this sense due to the large cultural and historical differences.

end of the road

Amirani wrote: »

International trends seem to be more around secession and increased regional autonomy rather than unification. I'm not sure a United Ireland is necessarily inevitable in this sense due to the large cultural and historical differences.

remember though that northern ireland is a very small region, which is unlikely to be able to independantly survive by itself. the other regions which currently have campaigns for independance such as catalonia and so on are quite big and will survive independantly.

Capt'n Midnight

Amirani wrote: »

I don't believe that there's any constitutional way that Britain could unilaterally sever its links to Northern Ireland.

Parliament is sovereign.

So the Commons could vote on anything tomorrow.
The Lords lost their veto a long time ago.

And the easiest thing to do is turn off the cash.
Money that could go to the NHS :pac:

ToddyDoody

Northern Ireland is a very important part of the UK*

*not really, more of a humanitarian project.

TheValeyard

DUP will deny that poll ever happened