Brexit Impact on Northern Ireland

The protocol and Brexit have nothing to do with the continuing campaign of the New or Real IRA. They are an ever present threat.

The attempted assassination of our Foreign Minister, Protocol violence, Loyalist threats if they don’t get their way and political unionism’s dalliance with the LLC does relate

But yeh….the RA. 🙄

Wait, you think the British are seeking closer ties with the EU to thwart extreme republicans?

The British have proven they couldn’t care less about unionist or republican in Ireland Freddie

The national question is never going back in its box. But, just as hard Brexit was a considerable boost to republicanism (thanks, DUP!) so a pivot to a softer Brexit would, um, weaken that boost somewhat.

Mmm. The DUP can restore their credibility on power-sharing by, well, sharing power. So if the UK does make the compromises necessary to alleviate the impact of the Protocol and/or negotiate variations to parts of it (a very big "if", I grant you, but let's explore it) then the DUP has a choice - (a) bank the concessions, claim credit for them, announce a major victory and re-enter the institutions, or (b) adopt an absolutist position that so long as one jot or tittle of the Protocol remains they will never darken Stormont's door.

If they adopt (a) then, yeah, they rebuild credibility and effectively refute the claim that this whole schtick was just a device to avoid serving alongside an SF First Minister.

'Restore credibility' with whom though?

Certainly not with the nationalist/republican/Irish identifying people.

A lot of this will depend not on the UK's slippin' and sliding on Brexit (and what seems to be their strategy i.e. - kicking cans down the road on settling for a stable agreement. I can see us still discussing Brexit and finalising it in 10 years time) but on what happens here and whether or not SF can get into government.

If they do, most likely with FF, I can see a committment to a plan being produced as part of the deal and a poll for the electorate becoming undeniable. The SoS would be unable to resist IMO and a credible plan from Dublin will be a gamechanger for those who want a UI but are unprepared to vote for it now because it is largely an abstract idea in the abscence of a plan/proposal.

I agree on the credibility point which was really not what I was saying.

I also think the Dublin government will create a plan and then the polling will change dramatically bringing pressure on the SoS.

A published plan from government will also allow others to express support for the idea, I.E. The EU and the US etc.

It is the gamechanger IMO

That is one opinion from a notably jaundiced source.

Any plan/proposal will be designed with the best possible chance to succeed.

Same thing will happen here as is happening with academics like Colin Harvey's study on a UI and the Future Ireland project.

Belligerents will attempt to vilify and denigrade the authors of and contributors to a plan/proposal rather than take part and contribute themselves.

The "gamechanger plan from Dublin" idea has a bit of a "with one bound he was free" flavour to it, to be honest.

There are huge practical and pragmatic challenges to the unification of Ireland. The damage done to NI by a century of partition can't be magicked away. It's reasonable to point out — as I have myself, more than once — that partition took the most prosperous part of Ireland and systematically reduced it to a condition of abject beggary. But you then have to acknowledge that NI is in a condition of abject beggary — a state of affairs that is not going to be changed in one year, or even in ten years — and come up with a plan for effecting reunification which takes account of that. It's hard to come up with a plan that doesn't involve substantial financial transfers from outside Ireland, and that consideration alone means that a feasible plan is not something that Dublin can unilaterally produce, or could unilaterally implement.

And that's just boring old economic issues. We also have to consider the political reality that the likely scenario in which Ireland is united involves a large minority in NI who see themselves as British and, given their druthers, would remain in the UK. That's not a challenge that was faced in, e.g., the reunification of Germany. Any plan has to take account of this group, and has to be calculated to secure the assent of as many of them as possible. That means a plan which addresses their concerns and fears about reunification, a task which is impossible without talking to them, listening to them and taking seriously what they say.

And, as others have pointed out, there is the growing phenomenon of Northern Ireland identity. NI has existed for more than a century now, and its people's history and experience is different from that of both GB and IRL. The decline in British identity/commitment to unionism is not matched by a corresponding rise in Irish identity/commitment to Republicanism but more by a grown in NI identity, a non-aligned political position and an at best instrumental commitment to the Union. This is a constituency that is very open to supporting unification but whose support is not ideological and cannot be taken for granted. Any notion that NI will simply be erased in a united Ireland is probably not going to appeal to them.

The upshot of all this is that the most feasible plan for unification, the one most likely to attract support in a border poll and assent after a border poll, and the one most likely to succeed when implemented, is one that is produce both north and south, with the widest possible input, and with support from GB, the EU and the US — and I don't just mean political support.

The notion that a plan produced by an SF/FF Dublin government will cause the SoS to fall over backwards, and will sweep the boards in a border poll, looks to me like wishful thinking with strong Brexity energy.

We changed from an ultra Catholic doctrine society to a liberal one with rights for all in about 5-10 years and haven't looked back (only yo deal with the abuses carried out by the governments who fostered and ignored those abuses)

One of the main party's in government was against rights for gay people as recently as 2009 for instance and did a complete volte face a few short years later. Change does and can happen.

There are other examples of opinion changing dramatically too. It will be no different in a UI. In fact I would suggest that normalisation will happen quickly if rights and equality are properly addressed and dealt with in any plan/proposal.