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

Sleepy

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Hatred of the English is not the point, any more than it was in the independance of 26 counties, you don't have to hate someone to not want to be their colony. What does something the IRA did 30 years ago have to with it one way or the other? It is a bit like saying you cannot be in the EU with Germany because of Hitler. Economics certainly needs discussion, but Ireland will be more prosperous unified than divided, although there is a problematic transition.

OK, let's here this one out.

How will Ireland will be more prosperous unified than divided? Exactly how many generations do you predict will have to live through the "problematic transition"?

RandomName2

end of the road wrote: »

it's certainly great news. i have said for a long time now that britain doesn't want northern ireland.

Don't see why it's either news, or great. Who would want a fractious, economic drain like Northern Ireland where the two communities are divided, and one of the two main parties had members that actively partook in terrorism, while the other main party at the very least tacitly approved of sectarian violence and dissent.

You say 'unification' (with Ireland) as if the majority of Northern Ireland even want that. They apparently don't. Imperialistic ambitions alone aren't a justification for wanting unification.

Capt'n Midnight

Sleepy wrote: »

OK, let's here this one out.

How will Ireland will be more prosperous unified than divided? Exactly how many generations do you predict will have to live through the "problematic transition"?

If NI is a basket case , and Brexit reduces central funds - because ALL the economic projections say it will, then sooner or later the UK will cut them free.

Unless we build a wall they are going to be our problem at some stage. Might as well try to get them weaned off state dependency and working for a living. The big problem is a lack of inward investment and Brexit won't help there.

Skedaddle

I don't think there's really any "news" to this. The only big issue is that the decision on what Northern Ireland wants to do is ultimately for the population of Northern Ireland.

Also, with the bizarre arrangement the Tories have, being a minority government backed by the DUP, this or anything like this is extremely unlikely to happen anytime soon.

However, I think it's something the NI unionist communities don't really understand: the British aren't overly fond of them and see the whole concept marching up and down ranting about catholics while waving what they see as "their" flag as all a bit bizarre. It's not really a concept of Britishness that many in contemporary Britain would recognise at all.

gw80

I have a question, if unification happened, what would happen to all the prisoners currently in prison under her majesty,s keep,
Surely prisoners of one country cannot be handed over to another country,
Would the British have to continue running the prisons until all prisoners convicted under british rule served their sentences?
Or would they have to be transferred to prisons in England?
Just curious.

Junkyard Tom

FTA69 wrote: »

I'd say the people who want the north of Ireland to remain a part of the UK isn't a minority at all

I'd say you're right. People from nationalist backgrounds are doing okay in the north nowadays but they have no loyalty to the British state or the so-called 'union'.

Capt'n Midnight

The DUP are doing their level best to alienate minorities. Or at least you could be forgiven for thinking that. The swing vote up North isn't interested in the history of the two tribes and they'll be the ones who decide the border poll. Unless you support traditional unionist values the South is looking better all the time.


Ian Paisley retweeted a racist rant from Katie Hopkins (she who should be up for incitement at this stage) it doesn't even matter what the tweet said, the fact that it's from her is enough
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-43628054

Capt'n Midnight

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

If NI is a basket case , and Brexit reduces central funds - because ALL the economic projections say it will, then sooner or later the UK will cut them free.

Unless we build a wall they are going to be our problem at some stage. Might as well try to get them weaned off state dependency and working for a living. The big problem is a lack of inward investment and Brexit won't help there.

The UK can’t just “cut them free”. A state can’t just decide that one part isn’t worth the hassle any more and get rid of it. Christ, we’d have got shot of Cavan decades ago if this was the case.

Charles Babbage

Sleepy wrote: »

OK, let's here this one out.

How will Ireland will be more prosperous unified than divided? Exactly how many generations do you predict will have to live through the "problematic transition"?

Partition causes economic dislocation, duplication of resources, so it reduces the economy. Removing it will clearly remove these issues.

How long did the transition for Monaghan take?

gw80 wrote: »

I have a question, if unification happened, what would happen to all the prisoners currently in prison under her majesty,s keep,
Surely prisoners of one country cannot be handed over to another country,
Would the British have to continue running the prisons until all prisoners convicted under british rule served their sentences?
Or would they have to be transferred to prisons in England?
Just curious.

What happened in Mountjoy in 1922? Gurriers just remained in jail, likewise when NI joins the rest of the country. I would favour any loyalist prisoners being moved to Britain and then released provided they don't come back here.

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Partition causes economic dislocation, duplication of resources, so it reduces the economy. Removing it will clearly remove these issues.

What resources are currently duplicated?

Charles Babbage

Aegir wrote: »

What resources are currently duplicated?

Well this place has telephone poles on both sides of the road,. Now you might argue that this is not that important, although you can be sure if you live near the border your broadband will be crap.
But more seriously thousands of ill people are forced to travel further to hospital, forcing transport costs on themselves and the State and suffering for the most vulnerable sector or society. The power grid is sparsely connected and so extra generation capacity has to be paid for in case that one link breaks down.
But you only have to look at the number of public and private services that have one office in the 26 counties and one in the 6 counties, this cannot be optimal and reflects politics only.

blanch152

Skedaddle wrote: »

I don't think there's really any "news" to this. The only big issue is that the decision on what Northern Ireland wants to do is ultimately for the population of Northern Ireland.

Also, with the bizarre arrangement the Tories have, being a minority government backed by the DUP, this or anything like this is extremely unlikely to happen anytime soon.

However, I think it's something the NI unionist communities don't really understand: the British aren't overly fond of them and see the whole concept marching up and down ranting about catholics while waving what they see as "their" flag as all a bit bizarre. It's not really a concept of Britishness that many in contemporary Britain would recognise at all.

Many people in the South would say the same about the crazy republicans of the North, painting 20 ft murals of terrorists, making kerbs green, white and orange, kneecapping, kangaroo courts, waving Irish flags all year round, not just when the national team is playing etc.

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Well this place has telephone poles on both sides of the road,. Now you might argue that this is not that important, although you can be sure if you live near the border your broadband will be crap.
But more seriously thousands of ill people are forced to travel further to hospital, forcing transport costs on themselves and the State and suffering for the most vulnerable sector or society. The power grid is sparsely connected and so extra generation capacity has to be paid for in case that one link breaks down.
But you only have to look at the number of public and private services that have one office in the 26 counties and one in the 6 counties, this cannot be optimal and reflects politics only.

None of that is duplication, that is just what happens near borders all over the world.

Public services in NI generally fall under the much wider umbrella of the UK public sector. NHS NI, for example, would have far more clout with pharmaceutical companies in its current format than it would as part of the HSE.

blanch152

blanch152 wrote: »

Many people in the South would say the same about the crazy republicans of the North, painting 20 ft murals of terrorists, making kerbs green, white and orange, kneecapping, kangaroo courts, waving Irish flags all year round, not just when the national team is playing etc.

Do we include 20ft murals of the 1916 leaders in this description too blanch?

Nekarsulm

Aegir wrote: »

None of that is duplication, that is just what happens near borders all over the world.

.

Even without duplication of personnel near the border, as far as I can recall the % of the population emoyed by branches of Government in NI is almost double the Southern rate.
31% in NI as opposed to 16% in the RoI.

MarcusP12

Jacko753 wrote: »

NI is not a part of the UK.

NI is part of the Republic proclaimed in 1916 but through years of propaganda and intimidation Britain convinced the other 26 counties that they are better off without them.

In 1979 an extensive poll throughout the 26 counties showed nearly 90 percent of people in the 26 wanted complete immediate unilateral British withdrawal from the 6 counties but with all the propaganda flooded into the 26 counties over the years people have lost interest and are convinced that they should stay separate

I've skimmed through this thread and your post above interested me, primarily because you are using a poll that's nearly 30 years old as the basis of why you think the south would want the north back. My own view on that is that in 1979 the country was a depressing gray country with a low standard of living and high unemployment and little investment. Compare that to now....the country is getting back on its feet, most people's standard of living is pretty good and would probably like it to remain like that. Sure, there are plenty of things that could be done better in terms of health care, property prices, public sector pay stuff but I don't see that improving if we had the north to deal with. 

If we took on the north, it would potentially be a financial disaster. Its currently bankrolled from London and consequentially has a very high public sector employment rate which has been pointed out already. I'm not so sure a majority of people would vote for a unified Ireland if it meant risking a economic down turn as a result....it was different in the 70s and 80s, we'd no high standard of living to jeopardies....a united Ireland would of course be great but its a romantic notion but if push comes to shove, maybe most people don't want change of that order....

And that's just the economic aspect....I don't think the unionists would be too happy with the change. At the moment there's a kind of stand off which seems to be working out ok from the outside looking in and from a position of mild ignorance from my point of view. I'd be worried that it would descend back to violence with the loyalists being the aggressors this time instead of the nationalists but this time around I would suspect that the south would be the primary target.....again, not too sure how many people would vote for that potentially....

One thing is for sure though, if the wheels did start in motion for a united Ireland (some would argue that they've always been in motion), it will be far from a smooth transission and many people will ask the question of if it is worth it.....

Nekarsulm

Nekarsulm wrote: »

Even without duplication of personnel near the border, as far as I can recall the % of the population emoyed by branches of Government in NI is almost double the Southern rate.
31% in NI as opposed to 16% in the RoI.

that isn't comparing like for like though. The 31% of the NI population who worked for the civil service, aren't just working for Northern Ireland. HMRC have a large tax office there, for example, that covers certain aspects of tax collection for all of the UK, not just the North.

Sleepy

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Partition causes economic dislocation, duplication of resources, so it reduces the economy. Removing it will clearly remove these issues.

So, if we remove all the duplication, what will replace the jobs of huge numbers of public sector workers made redundant? Who will pay their redundancy (no small bill) and their unemployment benefits? Based off the the figure of 30-odd percent of the NI population being employed in the public sector, you'd be making 10-15% of the population redundant (or worse, continuing to pay them to do unnecessary work).

There'd also be massive bills to be footed for the merging of public bodies etc. You just have to look at the billions Irish Water has cost to centralise the management of the public water infrastructure away from our Local Authorities to get an idea of the scale of this kind of work. Imagine merging that with NI Water, then doing similar with the Electrical Network, Road Networks, Civil Service etc. We'd be seeing bills in the 100s of billions and neither the British exchequer, nor the EU are going to cover all of it.

In the midst of accepting this new region with circa 15-20% unemployment and massive unification costs hard-line unionists will inevitably cause violence, civil unrest and political instability in the region. This would limit the prospects of the North to attract foreign investment to virtually zero whilst also damaging the prospects of our country, an economy that's *heavily* dependent on FDI to attract more (or even retain existing) multi-national employers.

Voting for unification is a terrible idea for the citizens of Ireland. It's akin to Brexit in the UK: putting petty flag waving nationalism before common sense and economic prosperity.

Perhaps some day in the future, when the North has proved it's capable of supporting itself, the issue could be revisited but attempting to do so now would just be removing a leech from the UK and attaching it to ourselves.

Sleepy

Aegir wrote: »

that isn't comparing like for like though. The 31% of the NI population who worked for the civil service, aren't just working for Northern Ireland. HMRC have a large tax office there, for example, that covers certain aspects of tax collection for all of the UK, not just the North.

I think it's fair to say that a post-Brexit Britain wouldn't allow their tax affairs to be managed in a foreign country. They're already kicking up a fuss over where the passports would be printed.

Those civil servants would either be added to the welfare line, or worse, "re-deployed" into positions where they could while away their time until retirement.

Nekarsulm

Aegir wrote: »

that isn't comparing like for like though. The 31% of the NI population who worked for the civil service, aren't just working for Northern Ireland. HMRC have a large tax office there, for example, that covers certain aspects of tax collection for all of the UK, not just the North.

Correct, Aegir, and that raises the question of what employment could they find post reunification?
Great Britain would just relocate those type of jobs back to England or Wales.

redcup342

Sleepy wrote: »

So, if we remove all the duplication, what will replace the jobs of huge numbers of public sector workers made redundant? Who will pay their redundancy (no small bill) and their unemployment benefits? Based off the the figure of 30-odd percent of the NI population being employed in the public sector, you'd be making 10-15% of the population redundant (or worse, continuing to pay them to do unnecessary work).

There'd also be massive bills to be footed for the merging of public bodies etc. You just have to look at the billions Irish Water has cost to centralise the management of the public water infrastructure away from our Local Authorities to get an idea of the scale of this kind of work. Imagine merging that with NI Water, then doing similar with the Electrical Network, Road Networks, Civil Service etc. We'd be seeing bills in the 100s of billions and neither the British exchequer, nor the EU are going to cover all of it.

In the midst of accepting this new region with circa 15-20% unemployment and massive unification costs hard-line unionists will inevitably cause violence, civil unrest and political instability in the region. This would limit the prospects of the North to attract foreign investment to virtually zero whilst also damaging the prospects of our country, an economy that's *heavily* dependent on FDI to attract more (or even retain existing) multi-national employers.

Voting for unification is a terrible idea for the citizens of Ireland. It's akin to Brexit in the UK: putting petty flag waving nationalism before common sense and economic prosperity.

Perhaps some day in the future, when the North has proved it's capable of supporting itself, the issue could be revisited but attempting to do so now would just be removing a leech from the UK and attaching it to ourselves.

Germany did pretty much the same thing with the DDR.

I'm still paying this bloody Reunification fund and I'm not even German :rolleyes:

Capt'n Midnight

Sleepy wrote: »

I think it's fair to say that a post-Brexit Britain wouldn't allow their tax affairs to be managed in a foreign country. They're already kicking up a fuss over where the passports would be printed.

Oh the poor deluded fools.


The fact that the UK government offshored the passports to save a few quid and the French govt didn't tells you lot of what you need to know about all the myriad gotcha's of Brexit and the attitudes of the governments.

They'll be sold down the river and all the personal data will end up in India being sold for a fiver a pop. ( Based solely on what actually happens in India to their PSC card. Ok in fairness it costs closer to £6 to get the UIDAI details, nearly tenner a if you want to be able to print out a copy of the Aadhaar Card )

Facebook have already said they'll only apply the GDPR where legally forced to do. So expect everyone else to follow the leader. So UK citizens data will be up for grabs and without EU data protection.

EU has already said that UK will not be allowed access EU only-databases.



Of course this will be interesting seeing as how most people in NI are entitled to be EU citizens , if not already.

Aegir

Aegir wrote: »

The UK can’t just “cut them free”. A state can’t just decide that one part isn’t worth the hassle any more and get rid of it.

Tell that to the French, who decolonised from Algeria quite quickly in 1962 and had some 900,000 self-declared French settlers, the Pieds-Noirs, "return" to France permanently also.

Not a welcome analogy at all for people who want to assert the legitimacy of the British state keeping this small remnant of its Irish colony. But here's one of many books comparing the self-declared French settler-colonialists in Algeria and the self-declared British settler-colonialists in the northeast of Ireland.

timthumbni

Deleted User wrote: »

Aegir wrote: »

The UK can’t just “cut them free”. A state can’t just decide that one part isn’t worth the hassle any more and get rid of it.

Tell that to the French, who decolonised from Algeria quite quickly in 1962 and had some 900,000 self-declared French settlers, the Pieds-Noirs, "return" to France permanently also.

Not a welcome analogy at all for people who want to assert the legitimacy of the British state keeping this small remnant of its Irish colony. But here's one of many books comparing the self-declared French settler-colonialists in Algeria and the self-declared British settler-colonialists in the northeast of Ireland.

We aren’t going anywhere chum. Despite your wishes. As for self declared the GFA allows anyone to be Irish, British or indeed both. I await prople like you to try and force me away. Snigger....

timthumbni

timthumbni wrote: »

We aren’t going anywhere chum. Despite your wishes. As for self declared the GFA allows anyone to be Irish, British or indeed both. I await prople like you to try and force me away. Snigger....

That's a lot of certainty for a people whose power in Ireland has been declining since the 1780s. Like so many others on the Brexit side of things you also seem to think the UK, or any state, is constant. Your current UK is only 98 years old, dated to the Government of Ireland Act 1920 that partitioned Ireland. All four of my grandparents were born in the 19th century so, for me, 98 years is nothing in Irish history. That a minority of people in NI describe themselves as 'Protestant' is also a fairly fundamental change in things given the 'Protestant state for a Protestant people' reason for establishing NI. As is the rapidly growing 'Catholic' population, and the economic and political consequences of leaving the EU (against the wishes of the majority of people in NI, mind you).

The real question here is: when are the currently described 'Unionist' community going to cut the best deal, or will you just keep your communal head in the sand while new realities - declining post-Brexit British state finances, most obviously - force a deal on you when you've a weaker hand?

facehugger99

30 years ago people were confidently predicting unification within 20 years. Seems to be one of those movable feasts that are always about 20 years away.

Far more likely that humanity will transend its obsession with artificial borders before unification becomes a reality.

At the moment, GB picks up the tab and polices the place. Long may that arrangement continue. I'm not going to stand for my taxes being diverted from much needed investment in the Republic to satisfy a few sentimental nationalists.

And I'm very far from alone.

Capt'n Midnight

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Oh the poor deluded fools.


The fact that the UK government offshored the passports to save a few quid and the French govt didn't tells you lot of what you need to know about all the myriad gotcha's of Brexit and the attitudes of the governments.

Rather than being a drama queen, why don't you go and educate yourself on EU tendering guidelines.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/public-tenders/rules-procedures/index_en.htm

The UK government is just doing what it is obliged to do under EU law. This obviously won't apply to government departments, because they are aren't outsourced and when the time comes, they will not have to adhere to EU law

Mr. CooL ICE

Mod: Closing as there are far too many political threads in AH these days.

This topic is already being discussed in Politics cafe here and as part of the Brexit thread in Politics here. Please read the respective charters before posting.