The normalisation of Northern Ireland

[Some user]

If power sharing goes ahead now that the pro-St. Andrews parties have been widely endorsed and the extremist fringes (namely UK Unionists and Republican Sinn Fein have been eliminated) one wonders what lies beyond the turmoil of power sharing in the North. The main parties on both sides seem to agree that the current arrangement of power sharing is not sustainable as a long term method of governance.

A normal Western democratic society shouldn’t have parties that are split along sectarian lines. Prods, Muslims and Catholics could potentially vote for Labour, Tories or Lib Dems in the UK. The same thing is unimaginable in NI so what lies in store for the province in the 5-10 years beyond this current period of nit picking before they finally sign up to power sharing.

One assumes the Unionists might be slower to adopt non sectarian parties as this might result in them being out manoeuvred by nationalists and suddenly part of a united Ireland. Interesting times ahead.

[Poc Fada]

Will be interesting to see if they can get an agreement on a government by the deadline next Monday. I think the DUPs surge at the polls was largely down to unionists saying 'we agree with how your taking the republicans apart but get a government up and running'. The vox pops from most DUP candidates before and after the election seemed to concur with this. They'll just try to squeze as much as they can out of Sinn Fein.

Also, I thought the nationalist population was supposed to be increasing to the point where we'd see the gap close between the nationalist and loyalist vote. Doesn't seem to show any sign of decrease....is a United Ireland achievable within the next 30 years?

[jungle]

I wouldn't hold out too much hope. If you look at Belgian politics, which is completely split on language lines, you can see that it's very hard to make such a deep division disppear.

[cartoon]

NI is split on religious lines so I think there's hope. The one thing it has going for it is that NI citizens cant tell each other apart in day to day life. Its not like they are split by language, colour or dress code in everyday life. Its the same as down here with Catholics and Prods with the exception that our Prods consider themselves Irish.

If prosperity arrives with some clever political leadership there'll be little talk of sectarian divisions in 100 years IMO. Next mission is for NI to take on the euro!

[KolaKubes]

Was interesting listening to the DUP chairman wittering on about being "a democrat".

Not such a fucking democrat when it came to bringing down the Sunningdale agreement though, eh?!

My tuppence, when things normalise up there the border will disappear de facto but we might never see a proper United Ireland, not in our lifetime at least.

They'll find that independence and a "Nothern Irish" identity solves a lot of their divisions.

But the Unionists will have to drop this continual suckling at the tit and strike out on their own.

[cartoon]

The other important thing to note is that NI is not like Kashmir with two countries claiming it. The British Government declares to have no strategic or economical interest in the north. ROI does, therefore all it takes is to, as you rightly say, make NI virtually the same as the south in all but name.

They should find that doing business on an 32 county basis works out in their favour. That €50 billion Hain and Brown are offering the DUP and Sinn Fein to get things rolling will go a long way if used properly.

Listening to Hain on the news this morning though I can see him fudging the Monday deadline though. At long last its all down to words and not bombs.