How can we integrate Unionism into a possible United Ireland?

Not a single mention of cessation of violence in the letter. Not a single mention.

It is the bits that I have highlighted that are the chilling aspects of the letter. No amount of sugar-coating the rest of the letter can hide it.

not very interesting at all. In fact, boring I will say. Your choice between the indo and slugger says much about your prejudices and the little bit of bolded text at the end trying to wind people up really is the icing on the oul cake.

Whinge about 'boring' elections so we can all whinge about **** governments after an election. Great stuff. But boring. Change the record.

'Nationalism hasn't grown in 20 years' is hilarious. Ask those people in the 'middle' (of the Irish Sea?) what nation they belong to and 90% will tell you the Irish nation. The middle ground in the north is not static, it is shifting inexorably towards a unified country.

https://twitter.com/KevinPMeagher/status/1521600165467070466?s=20&t=5JJHecQNoJ7FkBr6l66C8Q

I can only speak for myself but I am very much supportive or Irish reunification and of that view despite never having voted for Sinn Fein.

Anyone with any real interest in the welfare of this island will want to see an emphatic win for pro-Protocol parties. This is not a BP. Stop spinning the belligerent Unionist line.

Where did I say you said it? Do you want to see the pro Protocol parties win?

I get you. You couldn't care less about real issues. As long as the Shinners lose you are happy. You aren't fooling me.

Another strawman argument. The removal of the sectarian parties is an imperative. They don't offer a single thing towards the real issues. All they want is one-upmanship over each other. Just watch this week, when Sinn Fein lose votes but become the largest party because their sectarian twin loses more votes, they will celebrate that as if it is a victory!!! You see the one-upmanship over their sectarian rival is more important than losing votes and seats themselves. If Sinn Fein got 10 seats and the DUP 9, they would still be celebrating a victory. That is what is important to Sinn Fein and the DUP, not the real issues. You are being fooled again if you believe differently.

Michelle O'Neill admitted on tv that she couldn't do a thing about the cost of living issue so why vote for her party? Naomi Long told her what could be done. Give her party a vote.

Now now Francie, I would vote Green 1, SDLP 2 and Alliance 3 if in the North. That is the middle ground by definition.

You are a supporter of one of the two sectarian parties, and may I remind you of something I posted earlier:

"The big mistake exclusionary nationalism makes is that they think that the only opposition is their mirror image sectarians on the other side."

You are unable to conceive a middle ground, it is a typical problem of the fanatic.

I think this is an over-simplification. While I don’t think the Nationalist parties have done particularly well in pushing the merits of a United Ireland, they haven’t really had to because the demographic change and shifting geopolitical landscape have almost constantly (albeit slowly) shifted ever more in nationalism’s favour. Where Sinn Fein have certainly failed, so far anyway, is in presenting a compelling case to the Irish northern electorate that gets them excited and radicalised at the prospect of unification, rather than just being OK with a slow drift towards that.

The wider context of course is that the North has been slowly integrating further with the South politically and economically over many years and conversely drifting ever further away from the UK — a fact which has been made abundantly clear since Brexit and the abandonment of the Unionists by the British establishment. That this has happened is not due to any great strategising by.Republicans — but more so due to a combination of historical and ongoing Unionist intransigence, a desire in Westminster for Northern Ireland to please just f**k off and, yes, the demographics of the North lending well to the notion of ever closer union with the South.

The demographic point doesn’t necessarily mean that it should follow that Irish people in the North will suddenly start getting all Tiocfaidh ár Lá, but it does indicate that integration with the South will continue — because naturally that is not seen as a threat by Irish people in the North. And so as long as the demographics in the North lean that way, and as long as the British establishment continues on its path of wanting NI out of its hair asap, Nationalism is winning even if its political parties haven’t actually done anything to achieve that.

The idea that the 'sainted' parties of SDLP, Alliance, etc will not have to grapple with the fundamental failure of partition is a complete nonsense and an agenda driven one.

The British have once again, as recently as last night, shown that they care little for Ireland and will always use it as a pawn in their selfish aims. That is why those who care about the island should be looking for an unequivocal Pro Protocol vote today and not salving their own biases.

Take the Orange and the Green out of it and you are left with the same problems. Those problems or the effects of the failure of NI have now begun to once again to damage the whole island and could damage it even more. The Alliance (a repository for disgruntled Unionist votes) nor the SDLP (who like it or not do not have the trust or backing in sufficient numbers) etc can solve that fundamental problem.

Have you ever considered that the reason for the failure of Sinn Fein to present a compelling case for a united Ireland is not down to failings on their part, but down to the absence of a compelling case?

Of course, there will be more integration with the South, but after 100 years of complete divergence, how long do you think it will take for an organic process of convergence to reverse a designed programme of divergence. It will be more than 100 years anyway.

The biggest obstacle to unification is actually supported by Sinn Fein and opposed by the DUP, which is the Protocol. Yes, it puts distance between the North and rUK, which is why their short-term views are the way they are, but once the longer-term economic benefits of being in both the UK and EU manifest themselves, appetite for a united Ireland will fade away.

Complete divergence? We in the ROI have retained British-derived political and legal structures as rigidly as any Commonwealth country, something we didn't have to do. Things like this people don't even notice because they just take it for granted.

Your position is over-stated.

It might have been better if we *had* diverged more since that would mean we would potentially have uniquely native institutions instead of the carbon copies handed down from the 1910s and before.

Keep pretending that NI is as foreign as Timbuktu if it pleases you to do so.