NI Assembly Elections - A rerun of the GFA referendum?

They were able to do it with Brexit 😉 The political chaos that ensued in the UK after that vote was carried out suggested that there was no plan. Well, there definitely was no plan laid, because UK referendum law is an absolute shambles where you don't have to make any concrete proposals or give real detail. So it seemed that voters were basically in favour of Brexit in principle, i.e. in favour of it whatever it meant in their own minds, based on whoever they were listening to.

So, I suppose the same thing would currently apply in NI in the sense that when you put the UI question to them, their opinion of it is based in their imagination. Would approval go up if a plan were put forward? I don't know, but one thing I'm fairly certain of is that any plan put forward will not get cross-community agreement. But such a plan would at least need cross-border agreement with the Irish government, since there are two sides to the border poll. In fact, if a border poll ever passed, Dublin would have to be in the driving seat. That would be easiest if it were an SF government down here as well, but that's obviously not a given.

Anyway, Sinn Fein are always saying that it's time to have a real conversation about a UI. I say maybe they should put out a detailed plan of their own, to the extent of what the SNP did for the Scottish referendum, down to what thickness of paper civil servants shall use, and then tweak it from there.

A UI essentially means one of two things - it either means NI being absorbed into the Republic of Ireland, either fully or left as a devolved region, or it means a new country altogether with a new flag, constitution, set of institutions etc. In the latter scenario, I could certainly see the Irish government wanting a big say in how that's all implemented. Not just the politicians, but the very people of 3/4s of this island will demand that.

I doubt we'll see it before the next general election and that's only if Sinn Fein can capitalise on their current high poll numbers. It seems the will isn't really there with this FFG government to get their hands dirty with the question and while the majority of people in RoI may be in favour of a UI, I don't think the issue is a daily concern like housing. Therefore, a CA can put proposals to the government, but I think the government will still drag its heels and not receive too much public blowback for doing so.

Both SF and LePen have opposed all EU trade deals. Eg the proposed EU trade deal with Canada.

Both have opposed the Lisbon treaty,Nice Treaty etc.

Both want similar EU rules on state aid.

Both believe in economic nationalism and protectionism.

Both have similar viewa on CAP.

Both are against NATO.

Both were against the single currency.

Both were against EU enlargement. Eg Poland joining.

:)

In old enough to remember SF saying they would never administer British rule. :)

Well the cross-border agreement seems pretty much a given, especially if SF are running the show both north and south. But we had that with the New Ireland Forum nearly 40 years ago. And I'm not seeing that any substantial progress has been made since then in Irish nationalism coming up with an offer that can gain any buy-in from the PUL community.

This guy IMO pertinently poses the question "If not now when?" in that regard

Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland is not a phrase I normally hear, much less on my yankee media feeds. Did I miss something? ;)

Well, they ran a whole election campaign saying that it wasn't about a Border Poll but about the cost of living, and they haven't stopped talking about a Border Poll ever since without ever saying a single word about what they want to do about the cost of living. Sinn Fein lie in election campaigns, that is known, but this has been breathtaking.

Well done to Sinn Fein for getting the First Minister position (subject to no last-minute Unionist mergers) and to holding on to all their seats and increasing their vote slightly. I am surprised by that, but there are a few things to notice.

(1) The overall nationalist vote is down, from 39.8% to 38.1%, down by 1.7%.

(2) The unionist vote is also down, from 43.6% to 40.1% (also down by 3.5%, twice as much as the nationalist vote)

(3) The nationalist vote was 41.8% in 2016, 41.1% in 2011, 41.4% in 2007. After been steady for so long, why is the nationalist vote declining on a long-term trend? You have to go all the way back to 1996 to see a lower share of the nationalist vote, at 36.9%, which was the first elections to Stormont, when there was a strong extreme Republican resistance to voting. Sinn Fein have been extremely successful in cannabilising the SDLP, but they have performed very poorly in increasing the share of the vote held by nationalist parties generally.

(4) The Alliance Party are at an all-time high. The best I was expecting was to double their seats. They beat that, so huge congratulations to them.

(5) The Alliance Party did so well because exclusionary unionism focussed on the NI Protocol, which nobody on the ground was interested in. The focus since the results by Sinn Fein on a Border Poll will play into the hands of the Alliance in the long-term.