Stormont Election 2022

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119036225#Comment_119036225

I haven't looked up the data to back this opinion up, but my take on the Alliance and west of the Bann constituencies is that it's harder to tempt floating unionists to vote Alliance as there is a greater risk of all-nationalist representation in those constituencies if votes are messed up.

I don't think it's that the Alliance message doesn't resonate out west, it's just a riskier vote for people. Some of those elections in the past have been really, really close.

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037012#Comment_119037012

I'd say you are a tad optimistic there on the NI border, Denmark has had a steady border for quite a while, Spain if we exclude the moving island (as that's part of an agreement with France) has had none for quite a while as well as Switzerland.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037156#Comment_119037156

Yeah I'd say the 101 year old border in Ireland isn't anywhere close to being the oldest border in Europe.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037156#Comment_119037156

The Danish border is almost exactly the same age - June 15, 1920 and the ROI-NI one is from the Government of Ireland Act 1920 which was November 1920.

Portugal-Spain border is unchanged on land since 1864, there was a water change in 1926.

Brussels Sprout

I can't imagine the Benelux borders or the Norway-Sweden, Sweden-Finland borders have changed much either - or Switzerland's borders for that matter.

retalivity

Sweden-Norway border has been in place since 1751, although it was an internal border for nearly 100 years when the kingdoms were united

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037196#Comment_119037196

Belgium was only invented in 1830 and they altered their border with the Netherlands in 2018 (and not for the first time). Luxembourg is a good shout I'd guess (edit: 1839)

CrabRevolution

Would the Treaty Ports have counted towards the Ireland-UK border....? Did they remain UK sovereign territory or did they simply get the use of them?

BluePlanet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119036805#Comment_119036805

I'm wondering where Brandon Lewis the British SoS for NI gets his numbers from.

SF 27 + SDLP 8 = 35 Nationalists

DUP 25 + UUP 9 + TUV 1 = 35 Unionists.

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Alliance Party 17, but their official position is to not declare Unionist or Nationalist and to park the question of constitutional change. Now we all know that they are mostly unionist, but to what %? It's not fair to consider them all unionist when they don't delcare.

PBP 1, I don't know if they register as Nationalist in the NI Assembly.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037156#Comment_119037156

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borders_of_Denmark#cite_note-3

"A Danish-German treaty of 1922 settled a number of minor issues relating to maintenance of the border, fishing in the Flensburg Fjord, issues relating to the dykes relating to the Vidå part of the border and local affairs relating to communities on the new border"

Slightly younger than our border.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_protectorate_in_Morocco

The Spanish Border with Morocco changed in 1956.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Airport

Building work at Geneva Airport in 1960 saw a change in the Swiss/French border, through an exchange of territory.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037308#Comment_119037308

The 2 Independents are unionists, which is where the 37 comes from.

O'Neill

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037308#Comment_119037308

PBP are under the 'other' designation along with Aliance.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037329#Comment_119037329

Building work at Geneva Airport in 1960 saw a change in the Swiss/French border, through an exchange of territory.

This was a pure technicality and is pretty irrelevant to your general point.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037547#Comment_119037547

Actually, not, it may be just a historical anomaly, but the bad blood between Ireland and the UK has meant that the Border Commission never got going, and leading to the situation whereby the border has remained completely unchanged, in comparison to other countries where technical adjustments are often made and more fundamental changes occurred at other times. San Marino and Andorra would be older, but hard to find a member of the EU with a border as fixed as ours.

CrabRevolution

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037763#Comment_119037763

There's EU countries the other side of the San Marino and Andorra borders, not like they exist alone.

While your assertion about longevity of borders is factually wrong and of dubious significance anyway, NI does hold a rare status of being one of the only borders in Europe where there's serious discussion held as to whether it will even exist in a few years time.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119038415#Comment_119038415

I don't know about that. Schengen developments may see other borders disappear much more quickly.

CrabRevolution

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119039675#Comment_119039675

No matter how deep Schengen integration gets (and if anything that integration has slowed in recent years), the actual borders won't change.

You're just making stuff up at this point to try and make it look like the NI border has some magical unchangeable property to it.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119039843#Comment_119039843

I am not making things up. I have produced evidence and facts in relation to other borders, it seems that only Andorra and San Marino borders are older in terms of change. Some of the changes may only be technical, others may be more fundamental arising from WW2 and the fall of the Berlin Wall, but none of that changes the fact that it is among the oldest unchanged borders in Europe.

You may hold the opinion that it is unremarkable, but you can't change the facts.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119039843#Comment_119039843

Yeah I'm not sure how the conversation ended up down this detour about how long borders last but unlike other countries, there is a clearly defined pathway for removing the border in Ireland that has been agreed by all of the relevant parties and set in an international agreement for a generation. You can certainly argue about whether or not we go down that pathway but the fact that it even exists shows that there's nothing set in stone about that border.

pixelburp

I'm not sure either how this segue got to where it has got either; there is nothing especially remarkable or indeed permanent about the NI border that might make a merger of the two countries especially problematic along the border. It was a totally artificial construct in the first place. Were a UI to happen spontaneously tomorrow, very little would change along the border beyond some obvious changes like the switch of road speeds to KMs, and maybe a few outlier cases. The N54 would, presumably, no longer suddenly become the A3 for a KM or two anway.

cj maxx

This artificial 'border' has to go. It divides communities and relatives from each other. The main obstacle is if Dublin can afford to give ni-ers the same level of financial help , free GPs , hospital etc, bins etc.Dublin privatised all the health care in the south because they didn't want , or couldn't afford, to pay for it . Or an ideological plan by FF.

That is the major issue , but go it must.

54and56

So as far as I can see there is nothing in the Queen (or Charlies) speech proposing legislation which disapplies or removes the NIP or giving power to ministers to do so. Where does that leave the DUP? Have they once again been duped into believing BoJo (or Frosty or Truss etc) was going to get them out of the corner they painted themselves into on the NIP but have once again been let down because when push comes to shove tory threats to unilaterally break the WA are nothing more than hot air designed to pander to the ERG/DUP et all without there ever being any intent to follow through as BoJo and co know that doing so would trigger a set of events which would make a very bad situation even worse.

bricksNDmortar

For those saying unionism didn’t try to sweep Sinn Fein by pushing a unity vote. They did and they failed. This is just one of the bitter shite they’ve hung in the shankill mocking Pat Finucane to incite unionism support

petronius

Sad to see Leo leader of Fine Gael the party which at its foundation considered calling itself the "United Ireland Party" portraying with glee a reduction in the overall Nationalist representation?

The John Bruton doctrine of being neutral regarding the north is sadly alive and well!

SDLP, what do they stand for anymore. Like the Shinners some very anti-catholic rhetoric ironically from some of their candidates?

Maybe FG and FF and SDLP should all merge! yeah like that would happen.

The Shinner's jackboots will kick you into line (or out) if you verge from the partys central command line!

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119041998#Comment_119041998

You were bemoaning the fact that there are no nationalist MLA's east of the Bann the other day. Judging from the above post it doesn't sound like you have any time for those parties yourself. Perhaps the voters there simply share your own opinion of them.

petronius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119042076#Comment_119042076

I was moaning about constituencies with no Nationalist MLA's, and that Nationalism lost MLA's and I blame the SF/SDLP for alienating many nationalists, and I blame FF (since FG seems to support alliance now) for not organising in the North not the alliance with SDLP which I am sure nobody noticed!

cj maxx

Alot of Nationalist simply forgot to vote SDLP further down, the only focus was on returning a Nationalist majority. Which meant SF.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119046800#Comment_119046800

If they gave the SF candidates higher preferences than the SDLP candidates then there's an extremely high chance that their ballot never got near the SDLP candidate - it most likely was sitting in an elected SF candidate's pile at the end of the counting.

cj maxx

True enough

Charrychar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119046800#Comment_119046800

This all just seems wishful thinking, we’ve been looking at Sinn Fein every election North and south making similar excuses to how they got so many votes.

The amount of votes Sinn Fein got is barely any different to their previous elections, people have been forgetting to vote SDLP for the last 25 years not just this election. There needs to be real steps taken to quell the rise of SF and not just these lame excuses every election Sinn Fein have trying to claim it was just a fluke. If we don’t accept reality then we will never be able to do with the problem.

Last election in the Republic they got 24 percent of the vote and everyone was saying it was a fluke, the same thing was said the election before that. SF are currently polling around 35% of the vote now in the republic and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they got over 40% of the vote by the time the next election comes around especially with their history of always doing better than the polls suggest.

This country is finished.