Towards a United Ireland

Iwasfrozen

SoulandForm wrote: »

After all that Ulster has given the rest of Ireland- who exactly is this "our" you are talking about?

The Shinners have no head but you seem to lack a heart.

Our is the republic of Ireland. Officially known simply as Ireland.

Heart has no business in politics.

Chuck Stone

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Except there in no requirement on Britain to provide this redundancy.

It would be stupid of England not to. I get it though. There's no point in trying to engage you in positive and practical arguments because your mind is closed to them.

It's a good thing the people in the north weren't as negative as you or we might not have had the PP and power sharing and an end to killing.

Iwasfrozen

Chuck Stone wrote: »

It would be stupid of England not to. I get it though. There's no point in trying to engage you in positive and practical arguments because your mind is closed to them.

It's a good thing the people in the north weren't as negative as you or we might not have had the PP and power sharing and an end to killing.

Why is it in Britain's interest?

SoulandForm

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Our is the republic of Ireland. Officially known simply as Ireland.

Heart has no business in politics.

The state is not is not the nation- the nation of Ireland includes all of the island.

Iwasfrozen

SoulandForm wrote: »

The state is not is not the nation- the nation of Ireland includes all of the island.

Who mentioned nation? Nations can and do exist across states, Eastern Europe and Africa are full of them.

shankespony

What about Ireland joining the UK, I know its not a common held belief but after 800years we fecked it up ourselves and in less than 100 years. We are forcing 1,000s to emigrate and nearly 600,000 out of 4.5m people have negative equity and or mortgage arrears/payment issues and this will impair the economy for years to come. I can't see any way out, no imaginative thinking, no leadership across any of the political parties or maybe we can just have unpaid internships that will solve all problems!!!
Our politicians are a joke and not accountable and any idea the Brits seem to have we adopt most of their ideas anyway. Anyone in NI thinking of joining the ROI would need their head examined IMO.

Chuck Stone

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Why is it in Britain's interest?

For the same reasons it's in Ireland's interest that Britain is stable and prosperous.

Iwasfrozen

Chuck Stone wrote: »

For the same reasons it's in Ireland's interest that Britain is stable and prosperous.

What reason is that?

Chuck Stone

shankespony wrote: »

What about Ireland joining the UK,

There's no appetite for it. It's not even on the political radar. There isn't even a pro-union party in the south and if one of the more established parties suggested it it would be political suicide.

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

What reason is that?

Stability and prosperity?

Are you trying to take the piss here? Genuine question.

Iwasfrozen

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Stability and prosperity?

Are you trying to take the piss here? Genuine question.

No I'm genuinely asking. Why does England care if Ireland is stable and prosperous? Presumably trade but where is the proof that Britain would lose more then 20 billion in trade profits a year if they dumped NI on us without paying upkeep?

shankespony

Fair point, but I don't think in all honesty we are fit to govern ourselves and in our short independence history have proved it. We pay through the nose for everything, education, dental, health, doctor, prescriptions, bin collection to name but a few. Yet why pay taxes what for? i feel its to prop up this bloated public sector and its pensions to their gravy train going. Sorry if im off topic but i left the country 2 months ago and its the political class , their banking and property cronies hadn't have fcuked it up i'd be home with my family instead i've had to emigrate. No one has gone to jail for it we've had a wee bit of posturing with Quinn & Fitzpatrick but the rest have gone to the UK to go bankrupt and are laughing at the middle class irish who just seem to accept it.

Chuck Stone

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

No I'm genuinely asking. Why does England care if Ireland is stable and prosperous?

The UK is up to its neck in the Irish economy. If Ireland fails UK businesses stand to lose tens of billions. The UK makes money from instability in some regions (selling arms to the Saudis) and stability in others - Ireland is in the UK's 'back garden' - it's in the UK's interest to have happy neighbours.

Look at this diagram and that's just banking and presumably doesn't include big UK businesses like Tesco, B&Q, PC World etc.

Presumably trade but where is the proof that Britain would lose more then 20 billion in trade profits a year if they dumped NI on us without paying upkeep?

You can't have evidence for the future. Evidence by its very nature is from the past. If we take the 7bn 'loan' as evidence of UK interests being served I think it's safe to extrapolate that any move towards a UI would be supported financially by England for a period of time.

Chuck Stone

shankespony wrote: »

Fair point, but I don't think in all honesty we are fit to govern ourselves and in our short independence history have proved it.

Short history. We shouldn't make judgements like 'unfit to govern ourselves' based on a short history. The UK went to the IMF in the 70's but we don't judge it by that 'time slice'.

We pay through the nose for everything, education, dental, health, doctor, prescriptions, bin collection to name but a few. Yet why pay taxes what for? i feel its to prop up this bloated public sector and its pensions to their gravy train going. Sorry if im off topic but i left the country 2 months ago and its the political class , their banking and property cronies hadn't have fcuked it up i'd be home with my family instead i've had to emigrate. No one has gone to jail for it we've had a wee bit of posturing with Quinn & Fitzpatrick but the rest have gone to the UK to go bankrupt and are laughing at the middle class irish who just seem to accept it.

I agree with much of what you say here but it's the nature of crony capitalism and not unique to Ireland.

Iwasfrozen

Chuck Stone wrote: »

The UK is up to its neck in the Irish economy. If Ireland fails UK businesses stand to lose tens of billions. The UK makes money from instability in some regions (selling arms to the Saudis) and stability in others - Ireland is in the UK's 'back garden' - it's in the UK's interest to have happy neighbours.

Look at this diagram and that's just banking and presumably doesn't include big UK businesses like Tesco, B&Q, PC World etc.



You can't have evidence for the future. Evidence by its very nature is from the past. If we take the 7bn 'loan' as evidence of UK interests being served I think it's safe to extrapolate that any move towards a UI would be supported financially by England for a period of time.

I'm not asking for evidence of the future obviously (that's called a prediction) I'm asking you to show me why trade to the Northern Ireland region (I say NI region because if trouble breaks out in a UI it will be our job to localized it and contain it, lest the violence spreads to our own people.) is worth more then 20 billion a year to the British tax payer which I severely doubt it is.

The 7 billion loan doesn't tell us anything because that's a loan, expected to be paid back, not a grant. Big difference.

Iwasfrozen

Chuck Stone wrote: »

I agree with much of what you say here but it's the nature of crony capitalism and not unique to Ireland.

You mean socialism, capitalism would have seen the banks fall. Not nationalised.

Chuck Stone

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

capitalism would have seen the banks fall.

Crony capitalism ensures they wouldn't.

And I wish it would have happened because bailouts were all about propping up a system of privatised capital accumulation at the expense of the public i.e. the failures of the system were socialised and its profits were private.

Iwasfrozen

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Crony capitalism ensures they wouldn't.

And I wish it would have happened because bailouts were all about propping up a system of privatised capital accumulation at the expense of the public i.e. the failures of the system were socialised and its profits were private.

The worst of capitalism and socialism combined

Chuck Stone

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The worst of capitalism and socialism combined

Absolutely.

Zombrex

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Decades you say? How long did it take Japan and Germany to recover from utter devastation? The north is small beans comparatively. I think you're being pessimistic.

Japan before WW2 didn't have anything like the problems Northern Ireland does, and it still took Japan decades to recover.

Germany still hasn't recovered from unification with the east, and German has a much better economy than Ireland.

But you are also missing the point. There is nothing Ireland would be doing for Northern Ireland that the UK isn't already doing. And that hasn't sorted out Northern Ireland. If the economic problems in NI could be solved by unification they can also be solved by remaining in the UK. So ask yourself why are they not being solved by that?

You think you have a magic stick that will make any Irish government suddenly devote massive amount of time and money to fixing Northern Ireland. What magic thing do you think will happen to the NI economy by joining up with Ireland that is unachievable by being part of the UK?

Chuck Stone wrote: »

OMG no! 'The will of the people' and democracy and all that - shure that's just a load of nonsense that is.

You are missing the point.

What are the TDs in the Dail going to do for the sorry state that NI is in that the MPs in London didn't do? Ignore them in a slight friendly fashion :rolleyes:

Northern Ireland's problems need to be solved in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland at the moment has the advantage of a chance to fix its economy and provide serious longer term economic stability without having to worry that much about how that has to fit politically inside a much larger economic policy. That process will take decades, and the last thing they need to do right now is get swallowed up into Ireland where they become just another set of counties.

Chuck Stone wrote: »

The economic problems have everything to do with the larger country.

Northern Ireland has a huge systematic unemployment problem. It has huge systematic education problem. It has huge systematic training problems. It has a huge systematic investment problems. The UK masks this problem by providing thousands of public jobs, which would disappear if reunification took place.

What Northern Ireland need is to tackle employment, education, training and manufacturing problems. I have zero idea where you got the notion that Dublin will tackle that any better than London will.

You are basically asking that instead of tackling the problems they have when they have the opertunity to do this with semi-automoy, they instead get swallowed up into a larger country where they become just another set of counties, despite the fact that they are anything else but that.

And for what? So you can say "We won" and change the colour of a flag :rolleyes:

Chuck Stone wrote: »

The very creation of the state was okayed by London. The London government done nothing to stop the mad dogs of Unionism from turning it into a sectarian cesspit. They did fuck all until Loyalists were prevented from marching the Garvaghy road by the BA sending the message that the days of domination were done. The London govt helped break it so they can help to fix it.

Marching down the Garvaghy road. Jesus Christ :rolleyes:

I'm sorry I thought you were having a serious conversation about the real and serious problems Northern Ireland has from an economic point of view.

My mistake, this is just another moronic "Brits out!" thread.

Zombrex

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

You mean socialism, capitalism would have seen the banks fall. Not nationalised.

True capitalism would have destroyed the economy of this country, and probably the EU as a whole. It would have produced decades of economic problems.

We might have learned a lesson from all that, which is always the capitalism argument that you have to allow things to self correct, but that isn't going to do much for the people starving in the streets.

An Coilean

Zombrex wrote: »

What are the TDs in the Dail going to do for the sorry state that NI is in that the MPs in London didn't do? Ignore them in a slight friendly fashion :rolleyes:

Northern Ireland's problems need to be solved in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland at the moment has the advantage of a chance to fix its economy and provide serious longer term economic stability without having to worry that much about how that has to fit politically inside a much larger economic policy. That process will take decades, and the last thing they need to do right now is get swallowed up into Ireland where they become just another set of counties.

Northern Ireland has a huge systematic unemployment problem. It has huge systematic education problem. It has huge systematic training problems. It has a huge systematic investment problems. The UK masks this problem by providing thousands of public jobs, which would disappear if reunification took place.

What Northern Ireland need is to tackle employment, education, training and manufacturing problems. I have zero idea where you got the notion that Dublin will tackle that any better than London will.

Well there is the fact that NI would have a much bigger voice in the Dáil than it has now in Westminster.
NI is only a dot on the map in terms of Westminster politics, in the Dáil it would have a much greater influence in guiding policy for its future at a national level.

Zombrex

An Coilean wrote: »

Well there is the fact that NI would have a much bigger voice in the Dáil than it has now in Westminster.

Which is like saying if you have to play a quiet difficult piano piece it is better to do it in a wind tunnel than a hurricane.

The problems NI are facing are very unique, systemic and long term focused. They are also very different to the problems Ireland face from an economic view. There is no reason to believe that any government of Ireland, with the focus on the entire island, will do any better at tackling the long term issues of NI.

NI priority should be as much local government as they can get and tackling the real economic issues they face with specific tailored solutions, not pipe dreams about how wonderful everything will suddenly becomes if they can just swap one foreign parliament that doesn't understand them for another.

It is funny how many people talk about the people of NI, but then want to sell them out in the name of ideology and neat maps.

Chuck Stone

Zombrex wrote: »

Japan before WW2 didn't have anything like the problems Northern Ireland does, and it still took Japan decades to recover.

Germany still hasn't recovered from unification with the east, and German has a much better economy than Ireland.

But you are also missing the point. There is nothing Ireland would be doing for Northern Ireland that the UK isn't already doing. And that hasn't sorted out Northern Ireland. If the economic problems in NI could be solved by unification they can also be solved by remaining in the UK. So ask yourself why are they not being solved by that?

You think you have a magic stick that will make any Irish government suddenly devote massive amount of time and money to fixing Northern Ireland. What magic thing do you think will happen to the NI economy by joining up with Ireland that is unachievable by being part of the UK?



You are missing the point.

What are the TDs in the Dail going to do for the sorry state that NI is in that the MPs in London didn't do? Ignore them in a slight friendly fashion :rolleyes:

Northern Ireland's problems need to be solved in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland at the moment has the advantage of a chance to fix its economy and provide serious longer term economic stability without having to worry that much about how that has to fit politically inside a much larger economic policy. That process will take decades, and the last thing they need to do right now is get swallowed up into Ireland where they become just another set of counties.



Northern Ireland has a huge systematic unemployment problem. It has huge systematic education problem. It has huge systematic training problems. It has a huge systematic investment problems. The UK masks this problem by providing thousands of public jobs, which would disappear if reunification took place.

What Northern Ireland need is to tackle employment, education, training and manufacturing problems. I have zero idea where you got the notion that Dublin will tackle that any better than London will.

You are basically asking that instead of tackling the problems they have when they have the opertunity to do this with semi-automoy, they instead get swallowed up into a larger country where they become just another set of counties, despite the fact that they are anything else but that.

And for what? So you can say "We won" and change the colour of a flag :rolleyes:

Marching down the Garvaghy road. Jesus Christ :rolleyes:

I'm sorry I thought you were having a serious conversation about the real and serious problems Northern Ireland has from an economic point of view.

My mistake, this is just another moronic "Brits out!" thread.

Rolleyes? We won? You're out of your depth here. Go back to the shallow pool.

Iwasfrozen

What ever about pools and eyes we need to give up on this unification idea, we have a good thing going on both sides of the border don't muck that up, the safety of our own people must come first.

Chuck Stone

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

What ever about pools and eyes we need to give up on this unification idea, we have a good thing going on both sides of the border don't muck that up, the safety of our own people must come first.

Au contraire Rodders. We need to give up on this partition business. We need to separate this island from the neighbouring one. We'll never have true peace and security while we have a foreign power in control of a part of the body of this island.

To Ireland, I. Our separated fortune shall keep us both the safer. Where we are, there’s daggers in men’s smiles. The near in blood, the nearer bloody.

pablomakaveli

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Au contraire Rodders. We need to give up on this partition business. We need to separate this island from the neighbouring one. We'll never have true peace and security while we have a foreign power in control of a part of the body of this island.

Why is it when we have NI as part of the UK there can't be peace yet when its part of a UI there will be peace?

If there is a UI then the Unionists take the Nationalists place as the minority in a country they want no part of. Republicans keep saying they can be convinced but why cant the Nationalist community not be persuaded to live within the UK?

marienbad

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Rolleyes? We won? You're out of your depth here. Go back to the shallow pool.

How about some semblance of an answer to the economic points raised ?

Iwasfrozen

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Au contraire Rodders. We need to give up on this partition business. We need to separate this island from the neighbouring one. We'll never have true peace and security while we have a foreign power in control of a part of the body of this island.

I disagree, as the years go on without reunification more and more republicans will be disillusioned. The calls will still be there but each year they'll get quieter as it becomes apparent the struggle is unwinable, only then will we have lasting peace.

Chuck Stone

pablomakaveli wrote: »

Why is it when we have NI as part of the UK there can't be peace yet when its part of a UI there will be peace?

You're an army person aren't you? Think about it. From a purely practical and geopolitical POV it is not good to have a foreign power have a foothold on your island. Ireland having a strong defence force is a total joke while we have no control over all the territory and ports on the island. Political borders are not natural. Islands and seas are natural borders.

If there is a UI then the Unionists take the Nationalists place as the minority in a country they want no part of.

Tough shit tbh.

Republicans keep saying they can be convinced but why cant the Nationalist community not be persuaded to live within the UK?

The Nationalist community weren't agitating for a UI back in the day. The Nationalist people of the north learned the hard way that the seeking of equality (not a UI) was a blood soaked endeavour that was frustrated with the backing of the foreign power.

Chuck Stone

marienbad wrote: »

How about some semblance of an answer to the economic points raised ?

Doesn't deserve a considered reply. Anyway - we're talking about the future and the future doesn't belong to 'no nay nevers'. Ask Ian Paisley.