Talk

Flip

1 2

Brexit

Ireland

44 replies

MustStopAndThinkBeforePosting · 27/06/2016 05:08

I feel I am moving on from the anger and bargaining stages of my grief at the death of what I thought my country was, so perhaps may be moving closer to acceptance.

However, nobody seems to be talking about Ireland. Any NI mn people who can share some wisdom?

My understanding is that being able to have free movement between NI and ROI has been a vital part of the peace process and that anything that the UK does to "take back control of our borders" is going to disrupt that in a serious way. Is that right? And is it really likely, as I have heard, that such a disruption could actually reignite all the violence and horror that we thought was over?

Might it be feasible to give Northern Ireland some kind of dual status whereby it can be considered part of Eire for the purpose of EU membership and rights and freedoms thereof, but also simultaneously also have a status of being part of the uk? Or is that pure fantasy?

I'm worried but genuinely don't know whether my worries are realistic...

OP posts:

Report

mathanxiety · 27/06/2016 06:53

I think NI and also the Republic have been shat on from a great height. Scotland too, but in the case of NI there is the justifiable suspicion that people in England and Wales completely forgot about their existence.

NI peace process sacrificed to English nationalism (or actually nativism would be a better word imo).

Self rule for England - is England ready? The prospect of the breakup of the UK.

Do you know how many years of bloodshed happened over the question of 'dual status' or status in general - status of NI and status of its individual citizens? People died trying to give an answer to that. That sort of musing is why NI feels royally kicked in the teeth right now, no matter what side of the question of 'status' people are on. It shows how little of events in NI is known in the UK, how easily NI's future could be decided on a pub napkin as it were, in haste, on an ad hoc basis, with no proper thought given to it, or to the consequences - just like Brexit really.

All of the questions in your OP forget the part where NI speaks up for itself. Might it be feasible to give Northern Ireland some kind of dual status whereby it can be considered part of Eire for the purpose of EU membership and rights and freedoms thereof, but also simultaneously also have a status of being part of the uk? Or is that pure fantasy? - you are concerned, and that is a good thing, but NI has never been shy of trying to make its own arrangements, and certainly has an opinion, or rather several opinions.

I'm not taking a pop at you personally, MustStop. I am Irish, and there is a sense of frustration in Ireland that the hard won peace has now been jeopardised, apparently without anyone even noticing what was at stake for the province. NI really was an afterthought in all of this, and some groups that have staked a lot on the idea that their identity and their hopes and dreams can now be expressed without fear in NI are feeling they have had the rug pulled out from under their feet. There is more anger about this in NI than there is in Scotland. 'Status' is an extremely loaded question.

If I were in NI I would be looking at Dublin and hoping to hear sensible and well thought out responses to the Leave decision, positive proposals that pushed hard for continued EU framework to support the Good Friday agreement and the fragile prosperity it has brought. If I were a Unionist I suspect I would be swallowing hard and maybe repeating 'Federal Republic of Ireland' to myself in the privacy of my bathroom, just to see how that sounded.

Traditionally, the response to uncertainty in the province has been to reach for the weapon you keep stashed in the shed and to posture really hard, with extreme voices on both sides taking over.

I sincerely hope this won't happen, and that sanity will prevail, but at the moment there is a vacuum in Westminster, so this will be a huge test for NI - can people there set a course for themselves, can people there commit fully to presenting a unified front to Brussels and possibly working out a deal of the sort Sturgeon talked about as an alternative to independence?

Independence is not a viable option for NI. It is too small and its economy is small too. It has been heavily dependent on EU money. There has to be a future with either the UK or with Ireland. A very far out possibility is a connection with an independent Scotland. The idea of political association with Ireland is unacceptable to the Unionists, and the idea of continued political association with a UK that is not in the EU potentially returns the nationalists to where they were in 1950 in terms of expressing their sense of national identity that was so important.

NI stands to lose everything it has recently gained by exiting the EU, and returning to the armalite as a means of settling matters.