The saviour of the Union

[T Fearon]

Trevor Ringland is a member of the Conservative Party these days ( though that may change before the day is out!). I see Reg Empey is now pedalling the lie that unionist minded people who vote Alliance are now imperilling the Union.

Always wondered why Dobbies and B and Q were jam packed during polling days

[Orior]

http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/usercertificate.php?id=31034952&qid=461812&uname=Willie%20Fraser

[camanchero]

No they are not, the debate is solely going on around the poll. Before we get to that stage there is a lot of ground work needs doing.

dont know about a lot of ground needing to be covered just yet.
I think these things will work themeselves out in the longer term, right before reunification.
the Economy in the south/jobs etc will be lucrative for those in the north with ever decreasing british gov funding. the longer this goes on, the less people will have to lose and will accept whatever 'offer' is given to them at the time.
The British gov has not really started their economic/jobs withdrawal just yet, but it cant be far away.

ideally the south will improve certain things like health servie- did I hear inda kinny and fg say they wanted to bring a free health service into play in the south ? I dont think thats happening even if some crazed election promise. sure the hoor cant even deliver the promisory notes deal - and its been on a plate for months...

for all those (not mentioning certain SF supporters) who slag off the southern economy, well its only the bank deal thats hankering the full recovery now. plenty of businesses are booming down here.OK many have left our shores, but there are still loads of jobs for the educated...

If a reunification was on the doorstep, then I'd fear that free health service would be phased out.
the dole might go down also.
not sure how a lot of the northern contingent would survive without these makey uppy jobs and boards up there.
but as most of these employed by these schemes are educated, their skills are somewhat transferrable.

[imtommygunn]

NI is to be honest very much a false economy of a place and a union would I fear highlight this dramatically. A few things would have to be looked at:

- NHS - how will that work?
- General infrastructure owned by the government (e.g. water). How is that transferred over?

A large proportion of the people of NI are employed by the civil service. Now where do all those jobs go? Are there requirements for all those jobs? Take departments like the CSA - how do the south do such things?

Per capita has NI not got the highest civil service employment rate - and by a long way? They are to some degree funding NI with civil service jobs I'd have thought?

Then you have to consider the funding bodies - e.g. Invest NI. If Ireland becomes one entity from a government viewpoint then how does InvestNI exist? Does it cover the whole country and thus less is invested in NI and more across the board? Or where do these "peace" funds go in general?

It has to be considered that a lot of jobs, particularly tech jobs, coming into NI are being heavily funded by Invest NI.If that goes or gets weakend there are bad times.

Where do the PSNI then go is another factor?

Also there is the fact that there are people who would go to war before seeing a united ireland and there would be a bloodbath.

How quickly would Britain release us is another factor.

The list could go on.

You'd nearly think it would happen tomorrow reading some comments... I wouldn't expect to see this in my lifetime or probably for another couple of generations at least. Million miles away.

[Puckoon]

The British gov has not really started their economic/jobs withdrawal just yet, but it cant be far away.

What is this opinion based on? Have they started at all, and what makes this action imminent?

[Orior]

Willie Frazer Blasted into Space shocker!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21230691

Afterwards, a jubilant Mr Frazer said "As I accelerated into space my thoughts were with the victims of IRA violence and juicy ripe bananas"

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

Per capita has NI not got the highest civil service employment rate - and by a long way? They are to some degree funding NI with civil service jobs I'd have thought?

It's hard to get firm figures, but the general percentage of public sector employment in NI I believe, while the highest as a region in the UK is not absurdly ahead of quite a lot of Britain. There's also calculating as to whose job counts as public or private, for example in NI Translink are a state-run company for public transport and its employees fall into the public bracket, and in the last number of years it has gone though moderate peaks of profits and losses. Whereas in Britain, the only public transport company still in public hands is Transport for London, elsewhere bus and train services are run in private hands - yet that still doesn't stop them getting a sh*tload of subsidies from Westminster each year, but these employees are classed as private.

One article I've read suggests that in places like Northern Ireland it isn't so much in being dependent on the public sector for employment, but rather that the private sector is fairly weak, whereby public sector employment deployed across the UK is fairly evenly distributed in terms of service provision e.g. health and education being two of the biggest, but private sector employment is spread disproportionally - though you could say that within the UK as a whole a lot of this is down to the governments in Westminster developing economic policy focused on London & SE England at the expense of elsewhere. How such a scenario concerning current-day NI would affect it in a theoretical future 32-county united Ireland  is speculative.

Away from the UK, public sector employment as a percentage of the work force is still fairly significant in the likes of Germany, Sweden, Norway and France. Nearly as high as NI in a good load of cases.

Connacht is heavily marginalised within the 26 county Republic, even with a Western Taoiseach and Tainiste (that makes no difference, and so it should be). If the 6 counties were to join, I see this being further compounded. There is a danger in my opinion that Connacht voters may see the province further isolated withing a larger Irish state as a factor when they come to vote. Regional government may not only be a deal breaker for the people of the North but also the people of the West.

[Franko]

Mayo, how would you vote if a 'border poll' were to be called in the 26?

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

Mayo, how would you vote if a 'border poll' were to be called in the 26?

I'd vote yes except if it involved the Republic joining the U.K. or becoming a 32 county Kingdom of Ireland. I don't hace a vote anymore and would not do so until I have that right again. Even in 32 county Rep. U would push for Connacht statehood in any confederation or federation.

[muppet]

Per capita has NI not got the highest civil service employment rate - and by a long way? They are to some degree funding NI with civil service jobs I'd have thought?

It's hard to get firm figures, but the general percentage of public sector employment in NI I believe, while the highest as a region in the UK is not absurdly ahead of quite a lot of Britain. There's also calculating as to whose job counts as public or private, for example in NI Translink are a state-run company for public transport and its employees fall into the public bracket, and in the last number of years it has gone though moderate peaks of profits and losses. Whereas in Britain, the only public transport company still in public hands is Transport for London, elsewhere bus and train services are run in private hands - yet that still doesn't stop them getting a sh*tload of subsidies from Westminster each year, but these employees are classed as private.

One article I've read suggests that in places like Northern Ireland it isn't so much in being dependent on the public sector for employment, but rather that the private sector is fairly weak, whereby public sector employment deployed across the UK is fairly evenly distributed in terms of service provision e.g. health and education being two of the biggest, but private sector employment is spread disproportionally - though you could say that within the UK as a whole a lot of this is down to the governments in Westminster developing economic policy focused on London & SE England at the expense of elsewhere. How such a scenario concerning current-day NI would affect it in a theoretical future 32-county united Ireland  is speculative.

Away from the UK, public sector employment as a percentage of the work force is still fairly significant in the likes of Germany, Sweden, Norway and France. Nearly as high as NI in a good load of cases.

Connacht is heavily marginalised within the 26 county Republic, even with a Western Taoiseach and Tainiste (that makes no difference, and so it should be). If the 6 counties were to join, I see this being further compounded. There is a danger in my opinion that Connacht voters may see the province further isolated withing a larger Irish state as a factor when they come to vote. Regional government may not only be a deal breaker for the people of the North but also the people of the West.

If you are suggesting Connacht people might vote against a 32 county Ireland on the basis of their own marginalisation, you are nuts.

[camanchero]

The British gov has not really started their economic/jobs withdrawal just yet, but it cant be far away.

What is this opinion based on? Have they started at all, and what makes this action imminent?

dont think any real move to transfer jobs etc has ben started yet.
my opinion is formed from hearing occasional comments from british politicians and from declarations from british politicians from over 30 years ago that they would prefer to move out of he north of Ireland but just cannot until there is a referendum that they can use to do so.

the more that britain gets into financial difficulty, the more they will look for solutions such as this...
thats all really. but it makes sense and financial sense too - but then again sense isnt always applied to the north of Ireland...



also - I'd think a lot of southern Irish people would vote against reunification presently. The northern brethren (taigs) have peed a lot off down here, let alone how people look at the unionist/loyalist mentality !

[glens abu]

I don't think  Jude Collins believes that this man can save the Union.

Is Mike Nesbitt a bit mad?  Does he spend his evenings threading daisies in his hair and claiming to be the reincarnation of one of the Wooden-tops? I doubt it. But at the same time there are different kinds of madness and different degrees of madness, and I'm beginning to think Mike may need, um, help.


Consider if you will his political path. Having assumed the UUP leadership, he's been casting around for an issue that'd give his party credibility. So far he's been spectacularly unsuccessful. Which is a pity, really, because Mike clearly wants to be seen as a moderate, rational sort of unionist, one who eschews the flag-waving, croppies-lie-down approach to things.  It's also a fact that he's perhaps the  first leader of the UUP not to be an Orangeman (there is no evidence either way on Edward Carson). And he's a graduate of Cambridge University.


So when a golden opportunity to present unionism's case to the people who most need to hear it -  republicans  - became available at the Shinners' Europa conference last Friday, you'd think Mike would have leapt at the chance. Uh-uh. First it was yes, then it was no. Instead  Mike backed into the unthreatening arms of the Belfast Telegraph. There he  explained how if we got our past right, we'd be in a key position to make progress with the future.


Spot on, Mike. So what about the past? What's called for?


Well, Mike sees any fruitful future dependent on one thing: that republicans concede publicly that their campaign of "terrorist murder" was unnecessary to get to where we are today, and that they should apologise for what they've done. Or to put it another way, the best way for two antagonists to make peace is for one of them to admit he was totally to blame for everything.


The interesting thing is, I was at the Sinn Féin conference and do you know, none of the unionists who spoke, either from the floor or in the group sessions, mentioned the need for republicans to take all the blame. In fact they seemed much more focused on the future, on unionists finding a secure place in a world where nobody seemed to want them - not Britain and not the south of Ireland either. What they wanted, they said, was people sitting down and presenting a clear articulation of the advantages of the union, and ditto from those who believe in a united Ireland.




That struck me as an eminently sane approach and sharply divergent from the UUP leader's position. Which would suggest that Mike might, despite being smart and having been to Cambridge, be a bit out of touch with  the real world. Which is madness of a sort, isn't it? Or maybe he's been out in the sun too long. Posted by Jude Collins at 12:13:00 pm 

[Applesisapples]

I'm not so sure Mike is out of touch on this. It is a common thread with all Unionists that the troubles started in 1969 and it was themuns that did it.

[AQMP]

Yes, one of the barriers to progress here is that for a large number of Unionists (of all shades) the "war" is still going on...in their heads.