I might be over-reacting, but there might be a new push for Irish unity soon. Besides Sinn Fein's success in the South, and the growth of Nationalist political strength in the North, there's also Brexit, and since a majority of N. Ireland voters voted to remain in the EU, there were definitely some Unionists who voted to remain (of 11 unionst MPs at the time, one opposed Brexit). Although the SF Deputy First Minister did at one point express opposition to a border between GB and NI, I think that might be because it was difficult for her to avoid since the First Minister and a large chunk, probably a majority of NI's business community oppose a border in the Irish sea (I've read that SF opposes it for different reasons than the DUP have for opposing it, but I just found something on the SF web-site indicating they might be sort of in favor of it) but SF definitely opposes a hard border in Ireland and and I think they probably realize that the EU will not accept a soft border in Ireland without a border in the Irish Sea. SF and the Social Democratic and Labour Party opposed Brexit. And the EU seems pissed about what London might be intending to do, and might strongly suggest that the situation be resolved by uniting Ireland (I believe it should be a 30 year process, but it should start ASAP).
UPDATE 3/5/20 I could swear I read somewhere that a senior DUP politician, perhaps Arlene Foster (leader of the DUP) said that a border in the Irish Sea would be the end of the Good Friday Agreement. I just found an article where a senior DUP politician says that the spirit of the GFA would be threatened by such a border. And I also just found an article where Foster said that there is so much opposition to such a border in the unionist community that there could be violence from that community, and although she didn't specify this, she's probably talking about loyalist paramilitaries. IF the DUP do walk away from the GFA because of a border in the Irish Sea, that could easily see a resumption of republican violence. There is a chance that a "hard border" in Ireland would see a small increase in republican violence, which would probably result in loyalist violence and/or repressive activity by the security forces. Hopefully the EU and America can put enough pressure on the British to resolve this by uniting Ireland. Unfortunately, as I write here, it's possible that Trump won't give a shit what SF wants (UPDATE 3/7/20 also, it was just reported that he made his now former Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney his envoy to N. Ireland, and as far as I can tell, he doesn't like Mulvaney, and that makes me think that as flawed as his approach to the conflict would probably be, he also just doesn't care).
UPDATE 3/5/20 I stumbled across an Irish Times article about a December 2019 opinion poll of people in N. Ireland by the University of Liverpool, . The first relevant paragraph is:
In the 2016 Brexit vote Northern Ireland voted by 56 per cent to stay in the European Union. Excluding don’t knows, those who refused to say and those who would not vote, the survey found that now 63 per cent would vote to stay in the EU compared with 37 per cent who would vote to leave.
The second relevant paragraph is:
On checks on goods travelling between Britain and Northern Ireland, and between the North and the Republic, 68.5 per cent of those who stated an opinion believed they would be unacceptable.
No comments:
Post a Comment