Northern Ireland 2125?

Call your last few dozen posts a debate so, not an argument : in any case you clearly lost, as when confronted with the facts yet again you make childish comments, and in the previous post you make personal digs eg "You and your idols Britain".

And then you make more personal comments that I am "trying to out do (my) own self denigrating"! The facts I presented have nothing to do with self denigrating, thank you. I am perfectly happy in my own skin, and who I am, and I was born in Ireland, have an Irish port and live in Ireland.

There you go attacking the poster again, not the points made. There are plenty of good and bad people in Britain, same as there are plenty of good and bad people in Ireland. And Britain has made mistakes, same as Ireland has.

You wrote that here in Ireland "Taxes have paid for all of our infrastructure and more.", and you think the extra taxes that Irish people would have to pay in the event of a U.I. would be "an investment" in the infrastructure there.

Dream on. As I said, the vast bulk of our taxes go on social welfare, pensions, teachers and healh services salaries, paying interest on our national debt (one of the highest in the world per capita), paying for embassies abroad etc. Most of our infrastructure was built by others ( eg the British built railways, canals, harbours, legal system, lighthouses, most of our nicest buildings etc ), the EU and EEC built our roads and motorways, but fair play we are building a few things ourselves now eg the national Childrens Hospital. And our bike shed is lovely. With borrowed money admittedly. Our national debt is about 4 times what it was when the economy crashed in 2007. Britain is in worse shape than it was decades ago too.

The quote about West Belfast is from the link below, and it says West Belfast has "developed a dependency culture to the point that one in four adults are now in receipt of some form of disability benefit. In the UK, being declared disabled automatically entitles claimants to free cars and west Belfast has the highest levels of this form of free transport provided by the British government under its Disability Living Allowance 'Motability' scheme."

Do you really think, if and when it comes down to it, in the privacy of the ballot box, will many voters in west Belfast vote for a U.I. if it means giving up the free cars from the British government? And do they really want to end up, like us, paying for doctors here, €60 or 65 a time, a&e €100, VHI thousands etc?

But never fear, our taxpayers here can pick up the tab.

If there ever will be a border poll, the pros and cons of voting "Yes" would have to be explained by the Irish government -and the UK government - before hand, as it will be by others. People will not vote blind, without clear facts, like some did for Brexit again. In that context, the Irish govt cannot simply advocated for a U.I. as it is not that simple. They could not mislead the taxpayers and people of Ireland without explaining everything. It is not just the economy, it is NATO, nationality, rights, culture issues, flag, anthem, Irish language, pensions, taxes and many other things.

As someone else said, if the Irish government campaigned for unity, the UK government would similarly be expected to campaign to maintain the Union, as it would be absurd for one side to be neutral while the other campaigns strongly.

You constantly portray Unionists (and "partitionists" as you insultingly call them) as negative, but the way they see it is that it is more positive to be part of a G7 jurisdiction, with access to both EU and British markets, a huge trade advantage. Unionists are proud of their history and traditions, and are positive about that, and want to maintain that. Also many (not just in N.I.) also like N.I. being part of NATO, as most people in western countries are part of NATO, and others like Sweden and Finland have recently joined.

If there ever was a border poll, BOTH governments has indicated that decision is for the people of N. Ireland to decide, and there will be a poll here as well to make sure the people of this state / taxpayers are will to "take on" N.I., after all the costs, pro and cons are explained and debated.

So while individual politicians will be free to voice an opinion there will be no formal campaign by the Irish government. As someone else said, if the Irish government campaigned for unity, the UK government would similarly be expected to campaign to maintain the Union, as it would be absurd for one side to be neutral while the other campaigns strongly. Much more likely both sides would be relatively neutral, as they would have to explain the pros and cons of a Yes or No vote.

After Brexit, people will expect their government to explain all sides.

When you make comments about border poll vote like "Unionism and partitionists will oppose that idea of course." You say "Positivity versus negativity.", implying all unionists are negative people. As one would expect of course given the only belligerents you ever talk about are unionists. You have used that word dozens of times, it appears you think unionists have a monopoly on being belligerent and militant.

It is up to the people of N.Ireland to decide the future of N.Ireland. The government here admitted that, and amended articles 2 and 3 of our constitution to reassure unionists that a U.I. would not happen without the consent of a majority of the Northern Ireland electorate.

The "British government " - the government of the UK - has the right to argue for the preservation of the U.K. in a border poll campaign.

While the UK has always adopted and would adopt an "honest broker" role and not interfere with polling for example in N.I. ( it did not intere in the poll in 1973 in N.I. either ), past discussions and the nature of the UK's sovereignty suggest an active campaign would be within its rights, particularly if the Irish government were to campaign for unification. The UK government would have a duty to safeguard its commitments to NATO for example, and to its citizens, and would have a duty to inform them of financial and other implications.

Adfter Brexit, no government will get away with proposing and pushing for something without explaining EVERYTHING in detail, and its consequences first. Could take decades to amass all that information.

Not many people think of the implication for NATO in the event of a U.I. for example, but N Ireland (as part of the UK) is very important to NATO for its strategic location, providing access and defence of NATO submarine routes. I would imagine the US government would not like to lose access tp NATO facilities in N.Ireland. Many remember about 300,000 Americans used N.Ireland during the war, with significant numbers arriving from early 1942 to prepare for the invasion of Europe, at times representing about 10% of the local population.

Fundamentally wrong, as the government of the Republic can propose a U.I. or whatever it wants, but if the majority of the people of N.Ireland do not want to join the Republic in a U.I., then it stays part of the UK.

As someone else said, if the Irish government campaigned for unity, the UK government would similarly be expected to campaign to maintain the Union, as it would be absurd for one side to be neutral while the other campaigns strongly.

Both sides would be expected to outline the financial and other consequences first( could take decades to do that), because as we saw with Brexit, people are not going to vote for a pig in a poke again. A border poll would be more complicated than Brexit. There would also be the issues of NATO, flags, anthem, taxes, pensions, commonwealth for N.I within a possible new U.I., splitting of UK national debt etc etc

Only reason the trade border is in the 15 mile wide ( or whatever it is ) channel between N.I. and Scotland is because the governments ave in to terrorism : there were a few bombs by dissidents and Varadker promised plenty more in the case of a land border.

Anyway, the resulting trade deal where NI has access to free trade with both British and EU markets is now a major argument for N.I. staying in the union, as if there was a U.I. there would be NEW tariffs and barriers between Britain and N. Ireland.

If there was to be a border poll, both governments would have to tell people what would happen : how the UK national debt would be divided up, who will pay the extra costs of a U.I., will pensions be paid from current tax receipts as is the case currently etc etc. People are not going to vote for a pig in a poke after Brexit. So ain't gonna happen when people could not even decide on something simple like Irish language signs, when SF force Irish language signage in to unionist areas even if 85% of residents there do not want it. The PUL people know they would be discriminated against in a U.I.

The security services of N.Ireland were always too painfully aware of the threat of bombs assembled on the southern side of the border and used against border infrastructure, and indeed suffered sniping attacks from southern side of the border. Threat was confirmed by Varadker.

Main points of my post, which you ignore, were:

Anyway, the resulting trade deal where NI has access to free trade with both British and EU markets is now a major argument for N.I. staying in the union, as if there was a U.I. there would be NEW tariffs and barriers between Britain and N. Ireland.

If there was to be a border poll, both governments would have to tell people what would happen : how the UK national debt would be divided up, who will pay the extra costs of a U.I., will pensions be paid from current tax receipts as is the case currently etc etc. People are not going to vote for a pig in a poke after Brexit. So ain't gonna happen when people could not even decide on something simple like Irish language signs, when SF force Irish language signage in to unionist areas even if 85% of residents there do not want it. The PUL people know they would be discriminated against in a U.I.

If there's a border poll, it will happen because both the UK and Irish governments have agreed to hold it. The UK will be running it and the UK government will be proposing it in the UK parliament.

I would expect the UK government to campaign in favour of their own referendum.

The dynamic will be very much both the UK and Irish governments telling people that they've agreed on the issue and asking the people to support their proposal.

You are so deluded and haven't changed in the the years I've dipped in and out of boards, continuing to push your extremist republican views.We're nowhere near a ui and as other posters have pointed out the current situation of NI having the best of both worlds has pushed the prospect of a UI further into the realms of improbability.

I stopped reading after ‘extremist’.

You clearly do not understand the GFA. There is no mention of an automatic transition in the GFA. The purpose of the GFA was to get the terrorists to surrender their arms / semtex, and the Irish government to amend articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution. 

Another belligerent Unionist trope - how many is that now?

I suggest you read the GFA and the bit where BOTH governments commit to passing legisaltion in their respective parliament to give effect to the wishes of the people in the event of majorities voting for a United Ireland.

It's there in black and white.

If you'd prefer to think an agreement with the 'RA destroyed the UK's notion it could act as a sovereign state, go ahead.
As the realists know, the GFA was a much wider thing than giving you warm glows.

If there is a successful border poll, the next step - a transition to a UI is guaranteed by the two governments.

You can try and spin all you want, what I said is true.

The GFA guarantees a transition to a UI.

If you’d read it you would kniw that but clearly you’d rather believe the trope from belligerent Unionism.

Belligerent Unionism found out the hard way that the GFA is a very serious thing that try as they might will not be broken.