Northern Ireland General Discussion

[PSOL]

Doesn't sound too dissimilar from the experiences of American colonialists when they visited the mother country prior to the war for independence:

The most effective cure for Northern Irish unionism? Attitudes in England

This is the saddest part (or most pitiful part) of Unionism for me; the NI unionist community are so deeply loyal to a people that by and large do not care about them. At all.

Though admittedly, you could also say that the ROI doesn't particularly care about them, either.

Irish republicans definitely care about them

[MaxQue]

Doesn't sound too dissimilar from the experiences of American colonialists when they visited the mother country prior to the war for independence:

The most effective cure for Northern Irish unionism? Attitudes in England

This is the saddest part (or most pitiful part) of Unionism for me; the NI unionist community are so deeply loyal to a people that by and large do not care about them. At all.

That is probably for the best for them. I doubt the intense protestantism, anti-catholism and the presbyterian antics would be liked at all by the average British person.

They are deeply loyal to a caricature of a certain type of sectarian Scottish Protestant that lived 70 years ago.

[Oryxslayer]

Doesn't sound too dissimilar from the experiences of American colonialists when they visited the mother country prior to the war for independence:

The most effective cure for Northern Irish unionism? Attitudes in England

This is the saddest part (or most pitiful part) of Unionism for me; the NI unionist community are so deeply loyal to a people that by and large do not care about them. At all.

Though admittedly, you could also say that the ROI doesn't particularly care about them, either.

Irish republicans definitely care about them

This is the perpetual paradox of Northern Ireland. Everyone's identity is so tied to somewhere else but very few people in somewhere else care about Northern Ireland. Obviously there are small constituencies in both the UK, Ireland, and the diaspora that care about them, but that's what they are, numerously small.

The UK has never cared about Northern Ireland beyond the times it dominated national news through things like attacks in England or major policies like Good Friday. though they have always had a voice in Westminster, which means there have always been a handful of receptive others.

The same has always been true about the ROI, though this isn't well understood given the present narratives in effect. But the historical record doesn't lie. An easy way to see this without reading a bunch of books is the election results: The modern IRA only won seats in 1 election between the depression and the Good Friday negotiations. And never more then five seats until the Euro crisis transformed SF from the nationalist party into the party advocating serious changes to housing and welfare (and the way SF loses a future election is caring about the later and not the former).

The diaspora has never understood the peculiarities of the region. Those that did/do care are send money to a side care about it only in a simplistic superficial "good vs evil" way, not about the people or the economy  - same as the other two. Just about their conscience and their own ancestry.


Which is why there is no future for Northern Ireland that stays in this mindset. It doesn't matter who controls the land if the people are still going to not identify with it. Right now only really the Alliance is telling the truth of this lack of care beyond the Superficial, and how the only long term solution is building something different. Only time can tell if that works out. 

[EastAnglianLefty]

There are now arguments about the financial details of the deal negotiated to bring Stormont back: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-68285797

On one level, it's certainly true that an across the board rise in rates wouldn't have good distributional consequences. But there's also an element to which local politicians are using that as a fig leaf because none of them want to take responsibility for raising taxes even from people who can comfortably afford it - the assumption is that there is a huge pot of money somewhere else and it would be unfair to make locals contribute to the cost of their public services.

[CumbrianLefty]

Doesn't sound too dissimilar from the experiences of American colonialists when they visited the mother country prior to the war for independence:

The most effective cure for Northern Irish unionism? Attitudes in England

This is the saddest part (or most pitiful part) of Unionism for me; the NI unionist community are so deeply loyal to a people that by and large do not care about them. At all.

That is probably for the best for them. I doubt the intense protestantism, anti-catholism and the presbyterian antics would be liked at all by the average British person.

They are deeply loyal to a caricature of a certain type of sectarian Scottish Protestant that lived 70 years ago.

This was pretty true even back in the 1970s and 80s.

[PSOL]

Doesn't sound too dissimilar from the experiences of American colonialists when they visited the mother country prior to the war for independence:

The most effective cure for Northern Irish unionism? Attitudes in England

This is the saddest part (or most pitiful part) of Unionism for me; the NI unionist community are so deeply loyal to a people that by and large do not care about them. At all.

Though admittedly, you could also say that the ROI doesn't particularly care about them, either.

Irish republicans definitely care about them

Words

Campaigning is different from governance, and SF is the most relevant social democratic force on the island poised to take power.

SF definitely cares a lot about Irish Catholics in NI or else they wouldn’t be doing so well with them as a group. A united island would also avoid harmful hard borders and make commercial activity easier as well as separating NI from England.

Alliance’s housing policy, among other policies, is not good compared to SF’s policies.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Neither Alliance nor SF in Northern Ireland really have a housing policy worth the name, so I'm not sure where you've got that from.

Mind you, housing is less of an issue here than it is elsewhere in the British Isles - although high compared to the historical norm, the multiple of house prices to earnings is lower than in either Ireland or GB and because the population is relatively stagnant, you don't need to build as many houses to stand still. Arguably the biggest housing issue* is the quality of a lot of the housing stock, especially in poorer districts of Belfast and Derry.

*As opposed to issues around housing schemes, which are generally not about housing per se but about either antisocial behaviour or not wanting to live near themmuns.

[LabourJersey]

Neither Alliance nor SF in Northern Ireland really have a housing policy worth the name, so I'm not sure where you've got that from.

Mind you, housing is less of an issue here than it is elsewhere in the British Isles - although high compared to the historical norm, the multiple of house prices to earnings is lower than in either Ireland or GB and because the population is relatively stagnant, you don't need to build as many houses to stand still. Arguably the biggest housing issue* is the quality of a lot of the housing stock, especially in poorer districts of Belfast and Derry.

*As opposed to issues around housing schemes, which are generally not about housing per se but about either antisocial behaviour or not wanting to live near themmuns.

My understanding has been that housing is a much more salient issue in the Republic right now than in the North or in the UK - is that true?

It seems that the centrality of Dublin to the economy coupled with short supply is doing a number on housing and cost of living for the ROI. Reinforces my belief that in a hypothetical united Ireland (which again I'm not fully sold on), hopefully the island can have more poles of economic activity for Cork, Belfast, Limerick, Derry etc rather than just one megalopolis of Dublin.

[Oryxslayer]

Neither Alliance nor SF in Northern Ireland really have a housing policy worth the name, so I'm not sure where you've got that from.

Mind you, housing is less of an issue here than it is elsewhere in the British Isles - although high compared to the historical norm, the multiple of house prices to earnings is lower than in either Ireland or GB and because the population is relatively stagnant, you don't need to build as many houses to stand still. Arguably the biggest housing issue* is the quality of a lot of the housing stock, especially in poorer districts of Belfast and Derry.

*As opposed to issues around housing schemes, which are generally not about housing per se but about either antisocial behaviour or not wanting to live near themmuns.

My understanding has been that housing is a much more salient issue in the Republic right now than in the North or in the UK - is that true?

It seems that the centrality of Dublin to the economy coupled with short supply is doing a number on housing and cost of living for the ROI. Reinforces my belief that in a hypothetical united Ireland (which again I'm not fully sold on), hopefully the island can have more poles of economic activity for Cork, Belfast, Limerick, Derry etc rather than just one megalopolis of Dublin.

This is correct. The issue of Housing demand he is referring to is a ROI issue and not a NI issue. A small example of why SF trying to pursue one policy via one party for two very different regions has it's issues

[EastAnglianLefty]

Neither Alliance nor SF in Northern Ireland really have a housing policy worth the name, so I'm not sure where you've got that from.

Mind you, housing is less of an issue here than it is elsewhere in the British Isles - although high compared to the historical norm, the multiple of house prices to earnings is lower than in either Ireland or GB and because the population is relatively stagnant, you don't need to build as many houses to stand still. Arguably the biggest housing issue* is the quality of a lot of the housing stock, especially in poorer districts of Belfast and Derry.

*As opposed to issues around housing schemes, which are generally not about housing per se but about either antisocial behaviour or not wanting to live near themmuns.

My understanding has been that housing is a much more salient issue in the Republic right now than in the North or in the UK - is that true?

It seems that the centrality of Dublin to the economy coupled with short supply is doing a number on housing and cost of living for the ROI. Reinforces my belief that in a hypothetical united Ireland (which again I'm not fully sold on), hopefully the island can have more poles of economic activity for Cork, Belfast, Limerick, Derry etc rather than just one megalopolis of Dublin.

It's a massive issue in Dublin, which has a London-style housing crisis with much lower levels of construction and an increasing problem in places like Cork and Galway. Still plenty of cheap housing out in rural areas and small out of the way towns, but that's for the same reason that housing is cheap in southern West Virginia.

In the north Belfast has the ingredients for a housing crisis, but its ecnomy isn't yet strong enough to really turbocharge it. Elsewhere there isn't really an issue with housing costs - even where the multiple is high, the problem isn't high prices but rather very low local wages.

[LabourJersey]

I know the Donaldson news is on the UK general thread, but I'm curious to hear from the NI posters about the ramifications for Stormont/NI here.