With the leader of the main Unionist party applauding speeches calling the GFA 'iniquitous' and 'deceit' are the upcoming elections a test for the seminal agreement?
It's hard to know what will happen if the DUP manage to get their vote out and maintain the majority vote.
Obviously then, because only 29% voted for a party that was pretending to say it didn't want a border poll, when it really did, you are in a small minority of people who believe that it is "the inevitable solution to the failure of partition", and that maybe you should just accept the at least 71% who clearly don't see that.
Well suffice to say SF/PIRA once told us they would never enter any government while NI was under British rule, yet low and behold here we are.
My point is, as you have ignored that there are many people in the North happy with the status quo. If they weren't, we would have changed it by now.
Where did they pretend they didn't want a border poll - link please?
Did you miss/sleep through the GFA process?
There are many people happy with the status quo for sure, never denied that.
Nobody is going to change for an 'idea', they will consider a planned alternative though. And that is the next step.
They pretended that the election was about cost of living issues not a border poll, and haven't shut up about it since, that's all the evidence required.
Absolutely correct... the only people who seem to be unhappy now is they paying the bill...
If there are significant numbers of 'Nationalists' switching vote to the Alliance (and other 'Others' like the Greens) that complicates the picture though; could be masking a small but real rise in the CNR voting bloc. If so the 43% in 2017 could be a better reflection of the size of the Nationalist vote than the 38% this year. Of course whether those people would actually vote for a UI if push came to shove and thus whether they can actually be meaningfully be deemed 'Nationalists' is another question.
They need to start doing that in the whole island instead of sitting on the ditch...
And again you ignore that they are in Stormont today discussing those issues and calling on others to begin tackling them. Not a mention of a Border Poll.
Political parties can have a number of things on the go at the same time blanch...normal ones anyhow.
There is no true picture of how many would vote for a UI until they have something real to consider.
You will now see pressure mounting to properly prepare.
No decent opposition is going to allow government to sit on their hands much longer.
The couldn't care less are always the biggest obstacle to change. They will vote no in most referenda. That is why a border poll will fail until such a time as there are enough people who care enough to vote over 50% for nationalist parties. That is reality.
Unfortunately, Sinn Fein are not a normal political party, so that doesn't apply.
But, hey, let them keep talking about a border poll, it will put more people off them.
It's tough to come up with answers when you rubbish is challenged ain't it?
What we just witnessed was blanch trying to dictate, yet again, what shinners should do and say. Them days are over blanch.
SF have to use moderate language as of course the election was about daily life in NI... They are now talking about a border poll as they now have a mandate of sorts... What really irks me is MM on radio this morning saying exactly what you just posted... Nothing to do with the South..
Seems it's the ones dead against any talk of a border poll are the ones doing the most talking about it!
Blanch and Co managed to lose the SDLP 33% of their seats, trying to distract from that.
First of all, I'm an Irishman and proud of it.
Second "And that is the next step" - what is this famous next step? What next step do Sinn Féin and others likeminded suggest that will lead eventually towards this border poll??
No, Martin this morning gave details of what the Irish government is doing to promote relationships on the island. What he queried and rightly so, was what the main proponents of this border poll were/ are doing towards this objective, other than just raising it??
The Irish government holding a Citizens Assembly and then presenting a plan for a UI. Long overdue for a people who constitutionally aspire to a UI.
Your original post below, introducing the scarcely believable possibility of Tory govt integrity. Your topic dude:
"The British Government can leave any time they want but they wont as they need to resolve the problem they created and allowed to feater over their lack of interest... forst opportunity they be out... there no way in my view they let this opportunity slip...
Johnson isn't the babooning fool people seem to think he is..."
In response, in case I wasn't clear, the Tories do no give a damn about NI and the problems they've created there. They have no seats, only headaches. They only really care about appealing to the English (and partly the Welsh/Scottish) electorate and will willingly plunge NI into political chaos solely to get re-elected.
Also Johnson is an idiot, and quite a spectacular one.
It won't put people off them in NI where's there's strong support for a Border Poll. Nor in the Republic where there's overwhelming support for reunification in consistent polls. I would posit that the party that is now comfortably the largest on both sides of the border know exactly what they're doing.
Like the posters on here, they are refusing to even discuss the logistics of a united Ireland.
I agree with you they are trying to find a way out and the weekend result will help with this... great... Well he may be a fool but he conned everyone with the protocol... i think we should just help the UK to leave and we have i grand country ran by Leo and MM...
He started off by talking about what SF went to the people with day to day life before the election... nothing to do with him... we know all the promote relationship stuff as its been talked about since 1998... it was nothing but GFA when brexit was happening... whats going to happen with NI in the next 10 years... thats todays question... the other stuff in the past...
It’s representative of a softening of Unionism, but not at this point a material decline in the number of people who would vote to remain in the Union. I think as Fintan O’Toole put it, in today’s Irish Times, a United Ireland is not close because of this election — but it is closer. Indeed, I’d go as far as saying that the process began some years ago and has been ongoing constantly since (indeed, one imagines this reality fed into the DUP’s fetishisation of Brexit and the hope for a renewed economic schism in Ireland).
What this election indicates to me is that we are seeing the potential emergence of a widespread brand of Unionism that isn’t entirely ideologically opposed to that direction of travel — but they remain pro Union for socioeconomic reasons (and yes, I imagine also from their British identity). But where traditional Unionism views co-operation and integration with the South with supreme suspicion, these softer Unionists look at the socioeconomic benefit first and foremost rather than the ideological (whereas, with Brexit, the DUPs priorities were opposite).
So no, I don’t think Alliance-voting Unionists are Nationalists in waiting, but I think they represent the potential acceleration of all-island co-operation and integration that makes socioeconomic sense for the island. It’s not that Alliance-voting Unionists are going to vote for a United Ireland within 10-15 years but it may be a signal that the environment for unification will appear much less intractable over the course of that time period.
You mean the process where the PIRA surrendered and enter a British Institution?
At the end of the day, there isn't a clear majority for a UI now.
He just lied......as per. Took no intellect to do so.
And MM/LV will be politically dead by the time a Border Poll succeeds, probably circa 2030.
Next step for SF - for starters a progressive coalition as the next government. By which time hopefully things will have evolved in terms of discussion about a future Ireland post-reunification.
The thing that you (and Sinn Fein) don't seem to understand is that nobody else outside of the hard core Little Irelanders care enough about a united Ireland to waste any time planning for it.
None of the unionist parties will go for it, and the Alliance will tell Sinn Fein to shut up, sit down, and get on with the business they should be doing on the cost of living.
What has led to that softening of Unionism is the exit from the EU, and the wish to retain beneficial socioeconomic ties with the EU. However, while that softening of Unionism will give the appearance of a less intractable approach to unity on the island, the socioeconomic benefits of access to both the UK and the EU markets given by the Protocol will paradoxically push unity further away, while bringing the appearance of it closer.
Now, if you want something that would accelerate unity in that context of increased North-South socioeconomic co-operation, the UK deciding to rejoin the EU in 20 years time could be the catalyst, as the socio-economic benefit to the North of remaining in the UK would be gone, and this would be after 20 years of good North-South co-operation.
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