Why #Brexit won't lead to a United Ireland, and won't wreck the Northern Ireland Peace Process

[JimRSmith]

I wrote this against the backdrop of a car bomb, which fortunately hurt nobody, going off last week in Londonderry. Nevertheless, let us hope that this proves to be an isolated incident, unrelated to what I am writing about.

As we are an international community on G@G, I have used the terms 'Eire' and 'Northern Ireland' throughout, for maximum clarity.

Eire is an independent country, otherwise known as the Republic of Ireland, which is remaining within the European Union, whereas Northern Ireland, often known as Ulster, which is a slight misnomer, is a constituent country of the United Kingdom, which is leaving the European Union.

Why do I believe a United Ireland isn't around the corner?

Because it's not just about demographics. The long term direction of public opinion in Northern Ireland is that the country should remain part of the United Kingdom, despite the relative growth of the Catholic community. Plenty of Catholics do not want a united Ireland.

Maps of how the peoples of Northern Ireland self identify

What is it about?

Economics

Northern Ireland is economically in a weak position. At the moment, the UK subsidy is 30% of NI's income, made up both by direct subsidy and government jobs. Remainers are squealing about a theoretical worst case scenario of a hit of 6% of British GDP over 15 years from leaving the EU - to Eire, the cost of unification with Northern Ireland would be five times this, overnight.

Although now in growth again, the government of Eire already spends far more than it raises in taxes, and many of these sources of revenue are now under threat from the EU, such as Ireland's low rate of corporation tax. US companies make up 14 of Ireland's top corporations by turnover, and pay 80% of business taxes. That could all stop overnight, and certainly can't be relied upon as a long term source of government income.

We also need to consider how expensive it is to live in Ireland, versus Northern Ireland, and that wages are not commensurate. In July 2017, the cost of living in Belfast was 23% cheaper than in Dublin, which is a lot, considering the two cities are about a two hour drive. It's no coincidence that some of the busiest branches of major British retailers are in small towns on the border, such as Newry and Enniskillen. For those interested in such things, this is an interesting read...

Culture

Northern Ireland and Eire are home to very different peoples, and that's before we get to the religious divisions. This is along the lines of the cultural differences between the Southern United States and the North East. The two often get on each other's nerves, in a similar sort of way. There is already a considerable degree of scepticism in Eire about Northern Ireland, and local issues such as parades, flags, organised riots etc.

The Protestants have historically justified fears of Eire's intentions towards them. The Catholics feel that they were abandoned, whilst at the same time, there is recognition that certain aspects of the UK are better than their equivalents in Eire, notably the NHS.

Were all of this to be absorbed into one country, the result would be something substantially different to the Eire of today. Sinn Fein, a party rightly despised by most people in Eire would suddenly become the largest party in the Irish parliament, which would also contain a substantial Protestant bloc, which could one day hold the balance of power. Unity would push together disparate peoples who have a century's hole in their common political history, and the probability is that the theoretical united Ireland, would become more like Northern Ireland.

Coming to a Dail near you?

Why I don't think Brexit will change that much

Whilst it is true that the UK's vote to leave the European Union has prompted this situation, and it is also true that Northern Ireland voted to remain within the European Union, there is no good reason for the border between Eire and Northern Ireland to have become weaponised by the EU.

There is no intention to create a 'hard border' from the British side. The pressure is coming entirely from the EU, who have argued that an open border is so important that Northern Ireland should remain subject to European structures, such as remaining within the EU customs union, being subject to rulings from the European Court of Justice etc. and that the border should instead be placed in the Irish Sea, between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

The irony that their proposal to 'maintain peace in Ireland' has enraged Northern Ireland's majority Protestant community appears to have entirely passed them by.

The two political entities on Ireland already function separately, with different tax rates, different laws and different currencies. A separate customs regime should also not be considered an insurmountable hurdle, either. It is being presented as such, for political reasons, by the EU, and a remarkably inept Irish political leadership, which seems intent on setting back relations with the UK, its largest trading partner, by several decades.

So, in short, whilst I'm sure people will be able to present polls where a simple question is asked about Irish unity, which might show a temporary tick up in support, once all the actual facts have been taken into account, I struggle to credit this as any kind of meaningful change...

[nightdrot]

While this is VERY well researched - you know your stuff - and while I do think the predictions of Armageddon are wildly overdone, I am not sure that you have made a particularly strong case. The funny part is that your conclusion is stronger than your argument for that conclusion.

Let me stipulate at the outset - as I have before - truth in advertising, I am an American who is an Anglophile, a history buff and have worked in politics including international issues. (Heck, I know all three stanzas to "God save the Queen." Even most of my British friends don't know all three stanzas.) I supported Brexit, not that it is any of my business.

With my credentials thus proffered and my sins confessed, I am not quite sure why the things you laid out conduce to maintaining the peace process. Mind you they don't necessarily wreck it, but they don't really sustain it either.

You start with Northern Ireland not being in the best of economic health. Taking it as a given - unless both sides are utterly mistaken - that Northern Ireland has benefited from freer trade between the Republic, the violence in the former came as much because the Catholic minority that were not doing as well economically as the Protestant majority as from any sense of nationalist grievance.

It is hard, to be sure, to pull those two threads apart. However, it is not unreasonable that had the Catholic minority been doing well, they would not have channeled their energies into Irish nationalism - and thence to violence. This is especially true as religion was - and is - slowly becoming less of a force in Europe overall.

Thus, end the free trade regime and regulate the border, and it is likely that old grievances will fester anew. That will provoke sympathies among some on the Republic's side and it does not take too much imagination to see the peace process unravel. Not a certainty, to be sure, but much more likely.

Indeed, not for nothing has the Republic of Ireland (and to a lesser extent, Spain, over the question of British Gibraltar) been the tail that wagged the EU dog. The British Parliament balked at the "backstop" because it would have set up an economic division in the United Kingdom that the free marketers objected to in principle - Adam Smith said, "The merchant has no country." - and the nationalists objected to on constitutional grounds.

In that you are mistaken. There was indeed, assuming no final agreement between the UK and the EU, every intention to restore the "hard border." Partly as a salve to concerns to the UK's constitutional unity, partly as a cudgel to drive the EU to a final deal.

Indeed, Prime Minister May should have wielded the threat of a restored hard border more effectively than she did. Ireland - and again Spain to a lesser degree - was the force driving the EU to take a stand on the issue.

As a practical matter, it makes little sense for the EU to sacrifice the whole of its trading relationship to the UK over Northern Ireland and Gibraltar. No fact begins with "if." However, had both Dublin and Madrid felt that they might lose everything, it might have facilitated the EU taking less of a hard stance than it has.

In any case, on the Irish side, they did not take the hardest line that they did just because. It might be that the Irish have not fully considered the implications of unification, but an open EU border allows them to have their cake and eat it too. They don't face the downsides of political unity, but they get the economic benefits.

Brexit certainly won't lead to a united Ireland. Indeed, that is the point to some degree. However, it could quite conceivably reawaken the forces that led to "the Troubles." Times are different, and history does not always repeat itself.

However, to believe that Brexit won't wreck the peace process is to believe that neither Britain nor Ireland (nor Spain for that matter) really know their own national interests. That is not likely.

Still, my provisos aside, a great "My Take."

[JimRSmith]

I think we'd have done better out of these Brexit negotiations with you representing the UK, as opposed to the people who actually did...

[nightdrot]

Ha. Thanks. I'll apply but I doubt that an American who can remember "God save the Queen" will be looked upon as an adequate substitute for the good people at the Foreign Office.

[HikerDude]

There seems to be so much regional animosity within the UK. I read a thread not long ago about Northern Ireland that was rife with Englishmen spouting the most inane bile about people who are ostensibly their countrymen. Interesting times.

[JimRSmith]

I can understand why it might look that way.

But I think most of it is simply the frustration of the provinces with the London liberal elite.

If you can remember the address of that thread, would you mind posting it? I'd like to take a look, if I could.

[HikerDude]

I don't remember where it was, or even if it was on this site (I think it wasn't). What surprised me about this thread in particular was how bitter and angry the Englishmen seemed towards the Ulstermen, the loyalists who have risked so much to maintain a connection between Northern Ireland and the crown, as it were. That makes so little sense to me, like New Yorkers hating the rural Americans who risk their lives to defend the nation in the military.

I think something similar is happening in the US, where there is an animosity between people in the capital cities (we have two: New York and Washington, while the UK has London as both cultural and political capital) and those in the smaller cities and rural areas. I think a divide has always existed between the two, but I think it's to the point now in the US that civil war seems increasingly likely because of the degree of impasse.

[JimRSmith]

Right, you've hit the nail on the head - that's pretty much exactly what it is.

Metropolitan London liberals loathe Ulstermen for being loyal, religious, patriotic etc. From what you've described so well, I can guarantee that would be the identity of the people who were abusing them.

They're exactly the same people who claim that people who wanted to leave the EU are either uneducated / racist / stupid etc without realising that people who voted to leave might well have done so because it was in their own best interests.

Yet in many cases such people only ever leave London when they fly abroad, and understand almost nothing about what makes the rest of their country tick. It's very sad.

[HikerDude]

Ok, that makes sense, and it is sad. I wonder what it is in the minds of those in these capital cities that makes them believe they hold some elevated place in the society from which to look down on all others. I honestly don't understand it, but I think what you said may be the key to it: they never even get to know the rural people on whom they look down. That's why the Left seems to be the much more intellectually sclerotic side of the aisle these days. They demand a purity of thought and a sort of orthodoxy that is frightening to me. That, I think, keeps them from reaching out and trying to understand their countrymen, and leads them to label those who seem so different as uneducated or racist. Anything too different triggers all their alarm bells.

[Christiangirl99]

1. Eire is not the Republic of Ireland, Eire is Ireland North & South. Eire is Irish for Ireland. Ireland is divided into two separate states one the independent republic of Ireland the other the other northern Ireland which is in union with great Britain. Ulster comprising of other counties not within Britain such as Donegal, Cavan and monaghan left to the Republic of Ireland in 1921 so the unionists would have a majority in the north.
upload.wikimedia.org/.../Ulster_counties.svg
upload.wikimedia.org/.../Flag_of_Ulster.svg
Flag of Ulster.
2. Demographically there is no real poles taken as to whether or not Irish nationalists/republicans want a United Ireland. Another factor on the demographics of northern Ireland is that the last census taken was not released, catholics& Irish Nationalists/republicans could actually be more in the majority in 2019.
3. A majority of people in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU including a lot of Irish protestant farmers who realised without the EU there's no farm subsidies.
4. The cost of living may be higher in Dublin but then again wages are significantly higher too and work more plentiful in the Republic of Ireland with a huge amount of people in Northern Ireland actually working in the Republic of Ireland or for a company based in the Republic and thanks to the EU they can do that and still pay their tax and national insurance to HMRC. So much money is brought into northern Ireland through work in the south and so many depend on it which is why it would be such a disaster for northern Ireland to have a hard boarder.
4. There's no real culture difference between North or south or irish Catholics & Irish prodestants in the north. Irish Catholics by in large don't look back in any kind of reverence of the IRA & Irish prodestants/unionists look back in shame & disgust at how their ancestors treated Irish Catholics. Organisations like the Orange Order are dying out, its members are all middle aged men, fewer youngsters are joining their orange bands and despite holding hundreds of marches few watch them and the marches are so small they often march single file spaced out or march in circles. Irish prodestants/unionists & Irish Catholics/nationalists/republicans like in the south & in the rest of Britain largely reject sectarianism. Ulster unionism is really dying out, the young are turning away from it and former unionist heartlands like the giant housing estates in Belfast are half empty with Unionist paramilitaries struggling to hold onto to their territories with Russian and polish gangs dominating them.
Irish culture continues to grow in Northern Ireland, southern Ireland, Britain and worldwide. There's a real renaissance of Irish culture.
5. Sinn Fein are not the monsters you would paint them as, they are the party that for 30 years worked to get the IRA to lay down their arms. Like Gerry Adams always said the unionists are more afraid of the politics than the gun. At the end of the day Sin Feinn spoke up against Irish opressionat the hands of the unionists. Both leading Parties in the Republic of Ireland Fein Na Gael and Finna Fail were both formed out of Sinn Fein and both probably with the Irish Labour party are looking to gain a foothold in Northern Ireland.
6. EU human rights laws are important to many Irish nationalists/republicans because of the human rights abuses of the past at the hands of the British government.
7. Only staunch extremist unionists are enraged by maintaining the peace. Originally they didn't want the peace and were shocked when the IRA first lay down their arms. The British government wrote a blank cheque during the troubles for security which meant more police and money for paramilitary organisations like b-specials, UDR, RUC reserve. During the troubles they were able to keep Catholics out of jobs and then they got a 2nd job harrassing Catholics at night.

[Christiangirl99]

I think by in large the people in Northern Ireland would like to leave Britain to reunify with the rest of EIRE and remain in the EU, just like Scotland would if given the choice but one things for sure the bad old days of the troubles will never come back.

[JimRSmith]

Wrong. No credible polls have ever shown that people in either of those countries would like to leave the UK to remain within the EU. In fact, if you check, support for Scottish independence has been dropping ever since the Brexit vote.

[Christiangirl99]

The Scottish independence vote hinged on the UK remaining in the EU. Scotland voted to stay in the EU as did northern Ireland.

[JimRSmith]

Where's your evidence that the Scottish independence vote hinged on the UK remaining in the EU? What one of your mates told you, down the pub?

[Christiangirl99]

The fact that the Scottish national party who's main aim is Scottish independence has been winning elections by landslide in Scotland and happens to be the 2nd largest party in the UK demonstrates this perfectly.

[JimRSmith]

Did you miss the bit in 2017 AFTER the Brexit referendum when the SNP lost a third of its seats? I'll refresh your memory for you.

www.BBC.co.uk/.../uk-scotland-scotland-politics-40192707

And it isn't the second biggest party in the UK, either. Far from it. Where do you get these 'facts' of yours from?

[JimRSmith]

And still trending downwards.

[thechesseman]

Not being tied into EU politics and being able to negotiate fair practices with China will raise UK GDP. We just did it in America and our GDP is rising faster than it has in 40 years. Making the Chinese not leave lead in the dog food they sell you will raise your national manufacturer competitiveness. These ideas can be applied elsewhere to raise your GDP. With Canada realizing half of all oil being dumped on the natives is caused by cheap Chinese pipe, new certified pipe from the states will stop these environmental disasters and raise Canadian GDP by 20% over the next ten years because people don't like getting poisoned but they sure do like money. They're looking at job and wage growth they haven't seen in 50 years either. The EU just won't negotiate fair business practices with other countries because for some stupid reason China at the world's 2nd largest economy is still considered a third world country. With that much money you'd think communism is winning and everyone over there gets great healthcare, all the food they can eat, two cars, and a 3 bedroom house. Nope, just as corrupt as any other socialist program I've seen.

[MarketData]

I believe your level of complacency is reflected by HM Government. Of course they may just be whistling in the dark now that they're going back to try to unpick the backstop that was key to the Withdrawal Agreement.

But I'm not too worried. I'm sure there will be a fudge available at the 11th hour, if not they can just buy more time from the EU and kick the can further down the road.

[JimRSmith]

I wouldn't say I was complacent. I'm concerned that the joint decision of the EU and the Irish government to weaponise the Irish border against the UK was very ill-advised, and could cause problems. I think it doesn't *have* to, however.

I tend to concur with your second paragraph, though.

[Christiangirl99]

I dont think the EU or Rep of Ireland weaponised the boarder, I think the UK government is using it as a distraction. The population of northern Ireland is smaller than many English cities with much less revenue, its not a real concern. The EU is basically saying you want to leave then leave, its the UK desperate for a deal while the Republic of Ireland is trying to get the best deal for its
1.875 million Irish citizens that live inside the UK.

[JimRSmith]

@Christiangirl99 We're not desperate for a deal. No Deal is gaining rapidly in popularity over here due to the EU's ill conceived hi-jinx.

[Christiangirl99]

I dont think the EU cares one way or the other.

[MarketData]

MPs just voted not to leave without a deal. That means they have to take whatever deal is available.

[JimRSmith]

If a deal's not agreed, No Deal will happen by default. Unless something happens to extend Article 50, which is entirely possible, we'll leave at the end of March, deal or no deal.

[100lbguy]

Just hope there is a deal, no deal is the least we want from Brexit from both sides, businesses wil lose their shit over the uncertainity, EU citizens in UK and UK citizens EU will panic like fuck and many other disastrous stuff will happen if there is isn't a deal in the short term. it would not be chaos in the streets though just quite disastrous overall.

[John_Doesnt]

They may take our lives, but they will never take our freedom!!! Because they will vote against it 800 years in the future.

[DaMack999]

How is small island like Britain worth more in British Pound. While U. S has more army power and land power.

[Mynamejef696]

I don't know I just hope they don't go the mass immigration route like other european country's

[Anon-ymous1]

I appreciate the detail you put into this post.

[BronzedAdonis]

Interesting

[SpunkNugget]

Not really. Most of it is personal opinion and innacurate. Religion is dying both north and south of the border and is definitely not the reason for division anymore. Most people In the north are happy as they are. If you ask them what nationality they are they will say Northern Irish. Not English, not Irish. They are their own thing. Of course you still have minority groups causing violence but they are also disappearing slowly (as people involved In the troubles age).
On the other hand there is lots of misinformation in the Republic about the north. Lots will say they want a united Ireland. But they don't realise most of the north don't want Union and they also don't understand that Dublin can't afford the north as OP pointed out.

[BronzedAdonis]

@SpunkNugget didn't read

[JimRSmith]

@SpunkNugget considering that 'most of it is personal opinion and inaccurate', apparently, you seem to agree with rather a lot of it...

[TsubasaCorrupted]

Very well done!