Westminster Election 12th December 2019

Started by Ambrose, October 29, 2019, 02:24:04 PM

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oneflewoverthecuckoonest

reading the various hopes and predictions of our friends based in ulster, what staggers me is that most of you are blind to the bigger picture.
as a southerner, who does hope for a United Ireland in my lifetime, Brexit, by accident, is the best chance of that happening.

There may be short term pain with Brexit, but if Boris manages to scramble a win in this election and get his deal through, then unless you are brain dead, what then happens is that Scotland with close to 85% of MPs from the SNP will be gagging for another independence referendum and overtime as is becoming evident, the little Englanders could not care less about NI, and that will open the door to the Border Poll.

Has it not dawned on Northern Nationalists, that in the past week, it has finally dawned on the DUPers and loyalists that Brexit could spell the end of the union, and now as we have seen this week, especially the guy on the Spotlight Special the other night, spouting the narrative that the "Union is more important than Brexit".

If you want a status quo of the north for another 50 years, then continue to pray for some mechanism that overturns Brexit.

If you wish see to the promised land of a United Ireland, then pray that Boris wins enough seats to force through the deal, which in turn sets in train the disintegration of the union.

Taylor

Quote from: oneflewoverthecuckoonest on October 31, 2019, 12:36:16 PM
reading the various hopes and predictions of our friends based in ulster, what staggers me is that most of you are blind to the bigger picture.
as a southerner, who does hope for a United Ireland in my lifetime, Brexit, by accident, is the best chance of that happening.

There may be short term pain with Brexit, but if Boris manages to scramble a win in this election and get his deal through, then unless you are brain dead, what then happens is that Scotland with close to 85% of MPs from the SNP will be gagging for another independence referendum and overtime as is becoming evident, the little Englanders could not care less about NI, and that will open the door to the Border Poll.

Has it not dawned on Northern Nationalists, that in the past week, it has finally dawned on the DUPers and loyalists that Brexit could spell the end of the union, and now as we have seen this week, especially the guy on the Spotlight Special the other night, spouting the narrative that the "Union is more important than Brexit".

If you want a status quo of the north for another 50 years, then continue to pray for some mechanism that overturns Brexit.

If you wish see to the promised land of a United Ireland, then pray that Boris wins enough seats to force through the deal, which in turn sets in train the disintegration of the union.

I see your point about it being the first steps to a UI which would be the end goal but my immediate concern would be the short term pain you speak about.
Its ok to sit back and say that when it wont duly affect you - NI will be a complete mess, economically speaking, with many Brexit outcomes (hard or not).


WT4E

If I was a voting in a area where the seat was up for grabs id be changing my vote from SF to SDLP this time.

Franko

#63
Quote from: oneflewoverthecuckoonest on October 31, 2019, 12:36:16 PM
reading the various hopes and predictions of our friends based in ulster, what staggers me is that most of you are blind to the bigger picture.
as a southerner, who does hope for a United Ireland in my lifetime, Brexit, by accident, is the best chance of that happening.

There may be short term pain with Brexit, but if Boris manages to scramble a win in this election and get his deal through, then unless you are brain dead, what then happens is that Scotland with close to 85% of MPs from the SNP will be gagging for another independence referendum and overtime as is becoming evident, the little Englanders could not care less about NI, and that will open the door to the Border Poll.

Has it not dawned on Northern Nationalists, that in the past week, it has finally dawned on the DUPers and loyalists that Brexit could spell the end of the union, and now as we have seen this week, especially the guy on the Spotlight Special the other night, spouting the narrative that the "Union is more important than Brexit".

If you want a status quo of the north for another 50 years, then continue to pray for some mechanism that overturns Brexit.

If you wish see to the promised land of a United Ireland, then pray that Boris wins enough seats to force through the deal, which in turn sets in train the disintegration of the union.

The fact that Brexit was a a back door to a UI dawned on the nationalist population of the 6 counties a very long time ago. Before the referendum.  Believe me, we are all acutely aware of it.  The problem is the a border poll and a UI is essentially in the gift of the British gov't and people are not prepared to be pauperised for decade(s) until they finally accede to the the demands for it.

Are people like you aware of the demographic trends in the 6 counties?  If so, you should be aware of what most nationalists here are - a UI is very much achievable in the medium term - without decimating the (already poor) economy.

Rois

Quote from: WT4E on October 31, 2019, 12:55:31 PM
If I was a voting in a area where the seat was up for grabs id be changing my vote from SF to SDLP this time.
I'm in North Belfast where the SDLP has no hope, so switching my vote to SF is the only way to have a chance of unseating Dodds.  If it was Alliance in strong second, I'd switch to them instead.  As it is, I'd rather have no one than Dodds. 
Extraordinary times, extraordinary measures. 

oneflewoverthecuckoonest

Taylor and Frank.....what you are saying, I completely understand...I trade with companies in the north and travel frequently up there, so I am no stranger to reality.
However, your suggestion, that the short term pain would be hard to stomach, rings alarms bells with me......and those alarms are in the event of a border poll, just as we saw play out in Scotland, a percentage of Northern Caths/Nationalists, especially civil servants, may fear jumping from a safe job environment into the unknown of a UI and the leakage of the 5 to 7% could be the difference between the Union staying or a UI....in other words too many are selfish voters and are happy to ignore the bigger picture.

The smart arses in the DUP have walked into their own Brexit trap and it would be a dreadful irony if the nationalist votes(anti Brexit) proved to be the release mechanism for the DUPers.

Taylor

Quote from: oneflewoverthecuckoonest on October 31, 2019, 01:18:34 PM
Taylor and Frank.....what you are saying, I completely understand...I trade with companies in the north and travel frequently up there, so I am no stranger to reality.
However, your suggestion, that the short term pain would be hard to stomach, rings alarms bells with me......and those alarms are in the event of a border poll, just as we saw play out in Scotland, a percentage of Northern Caths/Nationalists, especially civil servants, may fear jumping from a safe job environment into the unknown of a UI and the leakage of the 5 to 7% could be the difference between the Union staying or a UI....in other words too many are selfish voters and are happy to ignore the bigger picture.

The smart arses in the DUP have walked into their own Brexit trap and it would be a dreadful irony if the nationalist votes(anti Brexit) proved to be the release mechanism for the DUPers.

There is nothing I hate more than the DUP but consider this..........

Brexit happens and the NI economy is decimated - you say this will be short term pain. Fair enough.

Say 5/10/15 years of an economy going down the shitter - is that worth the pain to get a UI?
Tough question for some considering during those 5/10/15 years many will struggle to put bread on the table.
A romantic view of a UI is great but the reality will be different for many families in order to get there.

Secondly, if a UI is on the cards and is going to happen one can only imagine the amount of innocent catholics that will suffer at the hands of 'themmuns' in NI.

Its not inevitable but it is a distinct possibility that the troubles or at least a version of them will return as we move towards a UI

BennyCake

Quote from: oneflewoverthecuckoonest on October 31, 2019, 12:36:16 PM
reading the various hopes and predictions of our friends based in ulster, what staggers me is that most of you are blind to the bigger picture.
as a southerner, who does hope for a United Ireland in my lifetime, Brexit, by accident, is the best chance of that happening.

There may be short term pain with Brexit, but if Boris manages to scramble a win in this election and get his deal through, then unless you are brain dead, what then happens is that Scotland with close to 85% of MPs from the SNP will be gagging for another independence referendum and overtime as is becoming evident, the little Englanders could not care less about NI, and that will open the door to the Border Poll.

Has it not dawned on Northern Nationalists, that in the past week, it has finally dawned on the DUPers and loyalists that Brexit could spell the end of the union, and now as we have seen this week, especially the guy on the Spotlight Special the other night, spouting the narrative that the "Union is more important than Brexit".

If you want a status quo of the north for another 50 years, then continue to pray for some mechanism that overturns Brexit.

If you wish see to the promised land of a United Ireland, then pray that Boris wins enough seats to force through the deal, which in turn sets in train the disintegration of the union.

This promised land is in your head.

First, the Brits have to agree to a border poll. And when will they admit there's sufficient support for a UI? They'll just keep putting it off again and again.

If a UI arrives, do you think it'll be all plain sailing? Economy, jobs, wages, healthcare etc... all tricky issues. Plus, you'll have loyalist violence to deal with, you can be certain of that. Then you have the flag/anthem issues, and of course the Dublin government bending over backwards for the unionists (who I think will be very well treated in a UI. Probably more so than in the UK).

oneflewoverthecuckoonest

lads the idea of a UI may be pie in the sky, nonetheless, one must start examining likely outcomes in the event materialising.

firstly, you must acknowledge that for Unionists, the loyal Union is everything in their life, the DNA profile is all Union, and nothing, socially or economically trumps the Union loyalty.  Yes, the Unionists are the descendants of planters from 250 odd years ago, unfortunately they are now here in NI for 6,7 or 8 family generations and bedded in and in most cases, they may have lost contact with their Scottish origins. In other words, they have no where to go for comfort.

If a Border Poll was conducted, one would fancy that the Irish Government would engineer a position in which both the EU & the USA were vested parties/safeguarders of the result. 
If that poll resulted in a decision in favour of a UI, then as suggested by Benny, there would be loyalist outrage and violence and plenty of innocent victims.
I would expect that the UK parliament would respect the result, and what could well happen is that either the EU(who will shortly have an EU army) or the US would step in as a peace keeping force to stem the violence....the irony here, being that the Brit army of the 70s gets replaced by a green leaning army.
What happens on the unionist front? so they all relocate and concentrate in North Down, Lisburn, Ballymena, and we end up with a kind of Cyprus arrangement?...in that like the Turks in Cyprus, they would never accept a Dublin government, yet refuse to leave their loyalist ghettos.

In the "you got to break eggs to make an omelette", when geographic territory changes, there are winners and losers in the process....Yugoslavia disintegrated quickly, yet Croatia and Slovenia rapidly got on their feet.  If a UI emerged, I would fancy on the economic front, the EU & Us lend significant support to help and that aspect may quell teething troubles.

You may not agree with the above airy fairy forecast, if you don't, perhaps you might lay out your vision for how the UI unfolds if a positive votes results from a poll, warts and all.

Rossfan

The new Anthem and new Flag of the New State ( a Confederation with 2 Home Rule areas -6 and 26 Cos) will be the easiest problem to sort out.
The day Scotland leaves the vile Union will be the first step.
Davy's given us a dream to cling to
We're going to bring home the SAM

seafoid

Quote from: oneflewoverthecuckoonest on October 31, 2019, 12:36:16 PM
reading the various hopes and predictions of our friends based in ulster, what staggers me is that most of you are blind to the bigger picture.
as a southerner, who does hope for a United Ireland in my lifetime, Brexit, by accident, is the best chance of that happening.

There may be short term pain with Brexit, but if Boris manages to scramble a win in this election and get his deal through, then unless you are brain dead, what then happens is that Scotland with close to 85% of MPs from the SNP will be gagging for another independence referendum and overtime as is becoming evident, the little Englanders could not care less about NI, and that will open the door to the Border Poll.

Has it not dawned on Northern Nationalists, that in the past week, it has finally dawned on the DUPers and loyalists that Brexit could spell the end of the union, and now as we have seen this week, especially the guy on the Spotlight Special the other night, spouting the narrative that the "Union is more important than Brexit".

If you want a status quo of the north for another 50 years, then continue to pray for some mechanism that overturns Brexit.

If you wish see to the promised land of a United Ireland, then pray that Boris wins enough seats to force through the deal, which in turn sets in train the disintegration of the union.
The NI economy is goosed so the longer it goes on the more likely a UI is. Throw in demographics. NI is doomed.

After the British government's partition of Ireland in 1920-21, the areas in and around Belfast in the north produced about 80 per cent of the whole island's industrial output. Now the Republic's output is 10 times greater than Northern Ireland's.

https://www.esri.ie/system/files/publications/OPEA173.pdf

page 6

Munster and Leinster GDP per head is about twice that of NI and Border, Midlands,  West

Table 1: Per capita GDP in US dollars, constant 2010 prices, constant PPP 2000 2014

RoI: Southern & Eastern        55,991
UK: Northern Ireland             28,159
RoI: Border, Midlands West    27,369

"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

BennyHarp

Quote from: oneflewoverthecuckoonest on October 31, 2019, 12:36:16 PM
reading the various hopes and predictions of our friends based in ulster, what staggers me is that most of you are blind to the bigger picture.
as a southerner, who does hope for a United Ireland in my lifetime, Brexit, by accident, is the best chance of that happening.

There may be short term pain with Brexit, but if Boris manages to scramble a win in this election and get his deal through, then unless you are brain dead, what then happens is that Scotland with close to 85% of MPs from the SNP will be gagging for another independence referendum and overtime as is becoming evident, the little Englanders could not care less about NI, and that will open the door to the Border Poll.

Has it not dawned on Northern Nationalists, that in the past week, it has finally dawned on the DUPers and loyalists that Brexit could spell the end of the union, and now as we have seen this week, especially the guy on the Spotlight Special the other night, spouting the narrative that the "Union is more important than Brexit".

If you want a status quo of the north for another 50 years, then continue to pray for some mechanism that overturns Brexit.

If you wish see to the promised land of a United Ireland, then pray that Boris wins enough seats to force through the deal, which in turn sets in train the disintegration of the union.

Hard to beat being patronised to by a "southerner".
That was never a square ball!!

Eamonnca1

There's a to-do list, and it needs to be completed in roughly this order:

1 - Resolve the parades issue. Get the residents and the Orange Order to sit down and agree on the terms under which Orange parades could be made welcome in catholic areas, because re-routing parades and avoiding each other like a divorced couple still living in the same house is not a long term solution. (OO to drop the sectarianism, drop the paranoia about 'popery,' drop the political activism, ban paramilitary bands from events, get involved in cross-community outreach, and reposition parades as historical commemorations rather than triumphalist celebrations. In return, residents won't object to the OO still being open to Protestants only, and won't object to a single union jack carried on a pole with a bit of dignity. For previously contentious parades, perform a ceremony in the middle of it where a protestant clergyman leading the parade shakes hands with a waiting catholic priest, exchanges gifts, or makes some sort of gesture of friendship. For the Apprentice Boys in the Lower Ormeau, lay a wreath at the Sean Graham bookies.)

2 - Desegregate the education system. Catholic church wants to control schools? Fine. Let them pay for it from the church collection basket, but taxpayer funding for the CCMS needs to be phased out. "Faith formation" (or indoctrination/brainwashing to give it a more accurate title) can be done on the church's own time and at their own expense. Sure the pews are half empty these days. One more generation will wrap it up.

3 - Desegregate housing. For "interface" areas where there are currently high walls and fences, is there some way the area could be re-architected with commercial development that's accessible to both sides? Replace walls with a space in which prods and taigs can mingle safely?

4 - Reform the southern state so that the catholic church is booted out of the education and health systems. If vital public services are being provided by churches and voluntary organizations it's a sign of a weak state. Strengthen the state.

5 - Give it a few years for desegregation in the north to take effect, for some heat to be taken out of the environment, and for the current generation of bigoted unionist politicians to retire and hopefully be replaced by more reasonable youngsters.

6 - Come up with some realistic and detailed proposals for how a UI would look. Will a state called NI continue to exist as a Special Administrative Region like Hong Kong and Macau after the handover to China? Could Stormont be retained in its present form with its convoluted power-sharing checks and balances to reassure unionists that they won't get a taste of their own "catholics need not apply" medicine?

7 - When everyone has calmed down, and it looks like reunification can be achieved peacefully and with a decent consensus in favour of it, only then have a border poll.

The shinners, on the other hand, seem to want to do it this way:

1 - Sit on your asses and allow the UK to crash out of the EU

2 - Have a border poll amid all the chaos of Brexit

If we do it the shinner way, it'd be a recipe for an entirely preventable civil war. A border poll at this stage, with the north in its current state, would unleash forces that nobody can control regardless of the outcome. The Brexit disaster has shown us that big constitutional shocks are not to be taken lightly. The drawing of national borders is a delicate matter. We should be a lot more careful about it than the Brits were in the 1920s.

SF are a pro-united Ireland party. But when it comes to the mechanics of achieving unity, they're not very sophisticated in the way they think about it. A lot of them still seem to be stuck in the 1980s mindset of moaning about how unfairly treated they are by the evil Brits, and not much thought is given to the unionists. They still don't seem to have gotten it into their heads that persuading the moderate end of unionism is the key to Irish unity, and the Brits are just bystanders who would be happy to let go of the place. It's like Peter Brooke's "selfish strategic or economic interest" speech never happened. SF seems to think that if they moan loudly enough about how mean the Brits are, and if we "demand" it loudly enough, the Brits will give the north back. They need to grow up.

five points

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on October 31, 2019, 05:07:26 PM

2 - Desegregate the education system. Catholic church wants to control schools? Fine. Let them pay for it from the church collection basket, but taxpayer funding for the CCMS needs to be phased out. "Faith formation" (or indoctrination/brainwashing to give it a more accurate title) can be done on the church's own time and at their own expense. Sure the pews are half empty these days. One more generation will wrap it up.
The NI public finances are bust already. Building a whole new set of schools would be ruinous.

Quote

3 - Desegregate housing. For "interface" areas where there are currently high walls and fences, is there some way the area could be re-architected with commercial development that's accessible to both sides? Replace walls with a space in which prods and taigs can mingle safely?
The phenomenon of "Catholic" and "Protestant" rural towns and villages is worse and more intractable than in the cities. At least city dwellers living in heterogenous zones get to meet and share facilities with "the other side" in city centres. That happens a lot less in the sticks.

Quote
4 - Reform the southern state so that the catholic church is booted out of the education and health systems. If vital public services are being provided by churches and voluntary organizations it's a sign of a weak state. Strengthen the state.
Its actually voluntary committees, not groups of priests and bishops, who run hospitals and schools here. Kick them out and you'll be left with the same politicians who have run our public services into the ground.

Quote
5 - Give it a few years for desegregation in the north to take effect, for some heat to be taken out of the environment, and for the current generation of bigoted unionist politicians to retire and hopefully be replaced by more reasonable youngsters.
No mention of bigoted republican politicians. The idea that all these on both sides will disappear in a few years is laughable.

Eamonnca1

#74
Quote from: five points on October 31, 2019, 05:17:57 PM
The NI public finances are bust already. Building a whole new set of schools would be ruinous.

Decrease funding to the CCMS, increase funding to the integrated sector. Same amount of money.