A nation once again, after Brexit? Well, perhaps, maybe, someday July 17, 2016
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
Micheál Martin throwing some fairly contingent stuff out today, according to the Guardian:
The leader of Ireland’s main opposition party said he hopes Brexit will move Ireland closer to reunification.
Micheál Martin said a reunification referendum should be called if it becomes clear a majority want to see an end to Irish partition over the UK decision to leave the EU.
The Fianna Fáil leader added that Northern Ireland’s 56% majority vote to remain within the bloc could be a defining moment for the region. He made his remarks delivering the annual John Hume lecture at the MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal.
There’s a bit of aspirational rhetoric:
The remain vote may show people the need to rethink current arrangements. I hope it moves us towards majority support for unification, and if it does we should trigger a reunification referendum.
But he has to admit:
However, at this moment the only evidence we have is that the majority of people in Northern Ireland want to maintain open borders and a single market with this jurisdiction, and beyond that with the rest of Europe.
I think he’s both right and wrong. Wrong in so far as – at this point they remain two separate issues. Right in that in the future, following Brexit and possible ramifications of same on this island, the CTA and – and this I think might be even more important, some sort of serious push to Scottish independence, or even a semi-detached position for Scotland in the UK, things may change.
But that latter is still a while away and it seems dependent upon a range of matters going fairly specific ways. If there’s one thing the past is a guide to in relation to such issues it is that that little or nothing is predictable.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Hitching his horse to the bandwagon giving the way the wind’s blowing and the times are a-changin’, with FF rising in the polls.
After all they are THE republican party!!!
Re: the CTA – worked Ok when both UK and ireland were outside or inside the EEC/EU. I imagine it will be one of the negotiating points once the Uk is out and ireland is in. Changing circumstances and all that. Ireland would be very foolish indeed to make a fetish of it!
About the implications of brexit for Scottish and NI Unionists and lots of questions with no answers as yet https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2016/07/16/post-brexit-unionists-you-have-a-choice-to-make-eu-or-uk/
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Reblogged this on Truth Troubles: Why people hate the truths' of the real world.
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Tories seeking UKIP electoral support in the GE resulted in Brexit.
To the degree that the Tories feel they need to cater to that group for the next GE will likely shape their policy. Well to the degree that other Tory masters are unaffected. So be on the lookout for a new kind of passport for certain professional clades that grants easy EU travel rights.
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Little or nothing is predictable? I don’t agree.
Here’s something that’s 100% predictable – nationalists will be nationalists, unionists will be unionists.
I’ve heard and read people speculating recently about how developments such as the Brexit vote and moves towards Scottish independence might lead to a shift in unionist thinking and maybe some openness on their part to discussing some kind of united Ireland.
Here’s my answer to that: If you are a nationalist, are there any circumstances where you would be willing to contemplate Ireland becoming part of the United Kingdom again? No?
Well ditto unionists re a United Ireland.
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A thought occurred to me that if Scotland goes for independence, Ulster unionists might throw in their lot with Scotland and then the Irish republic might be enticed to join them in a Greater Anti-Sassenach Alliance. So instead of being a province of England we would become a self-respecting Celtic unified Ireland in an enlarged Great Scotland. Just thinking.
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The Scottish and Irish Reddit groups have already got started on that, botheredbarney 🙂
https://www.reddit.com/r/CelticUnion
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Thanks. Great minds eh?
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I’ve yet to see any support for my proposed capital in Douglas, though…
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Only Douglas I know is in Cork. Bit far south, no?
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Possibly a rotating parliament, moving regularly around Edinburgh, Stormont and Leinster House? The Isle of Man will still be good for holidays and TT races.
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Are we excluding our Q Celtic cousins in Wales, Cornwall and Brittany? Also should the Celtic crescent extend south to include Galicia and on to nth Africa a la yer man Bob Quinn’s Atlantean(?) thesis.
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I meant the one in the Isle of Man, Joe 😉
That Celtic Union forum linked above has already had a split to the Gaelic Union, who want to make sure the Leave-voting Welsh don’t get notions!
Maybe once the Plurinational State of Bretonic Nations is set up, the negotiations can start.
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A friend of mine had the fine suggestion that any Irish & Scottish union needs to be called “Dal Ríada 2: Dal Harder”.
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🙂
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I would think Iain Banks writing on the city has effectively ruled out Douglas. No?
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““Dal Ríada 2: Dal Harder”.”
Political union with India would of course lead to ‘Dhal Riada 3: The Lentilling”
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I’m going to put an end to this silliness by establishing a new union called
Da’ll do now: Stop it.
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From Paddy Healy in Glenties
Response of Micheal Martin FF is even more inadequate than that of Sinn Féin
JUST A BORDER POLL BUT NOT YET!!!
(See critique of SF position immediately at link below and Statement of Seamus Healy TD after Brexit Vote)
RESPONSE OF SINN FÉIN TO BREXIT VOTE IS GROSSLY INADEQUATE
The demand of Sinn Féin for a border poll within the 6-counties as a
response to the UK vote for BREXIT is pathetically inadequate. There
is an in-built Unionist Majority in the 6 counties. (Following the IRA
ceasefire in 1997 and the Good Friday Agreement the following year,
Sinn Fein promised its supporters there would be a united Ireland by
2016.)
As pointed out by Seamus Healy TD in his statement (at link above), there must be a new drive towards the restoration of the unity and sovereignty of all-Ireland in order to deal with the outcome of the UK vote and the demise of all vestiges of Irish sovereignty north and south.
This should begin with an Organised 32-County Campaign ahainst austerity, the British Cuts in the north and tha Fiscal Treaty in the South
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It’s okay, David Davis is on the case
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/07/brexit-minister-david-davis-thinks-republic-ireland-part-uk
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It’s an ‘internal border’. Not a real border, like the one say between Britain and a real country, like France.
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‘Southern Ireland’ 😦
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I read Nigel Lawson quoted during the Brexit campaign to the effect that he never really understood why southern Ireland had broken from the Union and that he hoped that the misunderstanding that led to the breakup of the Union would be healed one day and we’d be welcome back with open arms…
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He probably wonders much the same about the rest of the empire. You, rightly, suggested above that unionists would no more willingly give up the union than republicans would rejoin. The equivalent impossibility for many english people is understanding why other wouldn’t wish to be just like them.
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Sure everybody knows, contrary to what a compass tells you, that Donegal is in The South.
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Gerry Adams welcomes Fianna Fail support for Border Poll
Gerry Adams maintains unity vote stance despite Brokenshire remarks
PUBLISHED18/07/2016
Belfast Telegraph
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has dismissed the Government’s insistence that Brexit will not prompt a vote on Irish unity, claiming the EU referendum has left the island facing an “entirely new dispensation”.
The veteran republican also welcomed remarks from the leader of the Republic of Ireland’s main Opposition party – Fianna Fail’s Micheal Martin – voicing support for a potential border poll in the context of Northern Ireland voting to remain in the EU.
Mr Adams reiterated the need to examine “new relationships on the island” after newly appointed Northern Ireland Secretary of State James Brokenshire used his first engagement in Belfast to stress that the referendum result in the region – 56% backing Remain – did not provide adequate reason to call a vote on reunification with the Irish Republic, an EU member state.
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FF playing the green card – another big surprise.
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BREXIT: the Positions taken by Sinn Féin, Socialist Party and PBP(SWP) were unprincipled
Sinn Fein, SDLP, UUP advocated remain. DUP, SP, SWP advocate leave
The question was whether the imperialist UK should leave its union with the imperialist Franco-German Alliance
It is not permissable for genuine republicans and/or socialists to take sides between imperial powers.
The duty of Irish Republicans and/or socialists is to plot a course towards a fully sovereign united Ireland and workers’ power as advocated by James Connolly.
The incorrect positions taken cause confusion and provide an obstacle to the formation a united movement against austerity north and south, a movement which would provide resistance to current British cuts in the north and the Fiscal (Austerity) treaty in the south
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Enda now also channeling his inner republican and saying border poll ‘shouldn’t be ruled out’.
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He’s gone as far as to tell the EU this.
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He’s probably assuming unification would be rejected. You’d want to be careful making assumptions about the outcome of referendums.
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FF play the green card – and then so do FG – the Green Tories playing ‘I’m a better nationalist than you are’
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Few people know that it’s Fine Gael THE REPUBLICAN PARTY and they treasure that Republican bond between all people of this island.
Maybe they can crib from May’s recent speech.
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There has been a bi partizan approach from FF and FG for almost 30 years now. Rather than out greening each other its more like something has changed in the background and they are continuing that bi partizan approach.
Happened a month after the referendum. So something happened between those two points. Either interested parties in the north are on to them who wouldn’t usually be on to them, london has given them the nod or its the europeans trying to squeeze the brits in negotiations on britexit. Will become clearer as this thing progresses.
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Of course it’s an attempt to capture the soft republican vote. And perhaps the polls indicate that it’s working.
Depressing.
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Even if it’s the right thing to do, it could only be done for cynical reasons?
Yeah, that would be a pretty depressing thought.
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Tory Think Tank Urges Move to Reduce CorporationTax Rate to Zero in UK
Irish People Have Been Placed in Mortal Danger by policy of FF, FG, Lab in Government over past decades
Full Commenthttp://wp.me/pKzXa-ua
In the wake of the Brexit referendum, then Tory Chancellor Osborne announced move to reduce the UK corporate tax rate down to 15%. Now a Tory think tank urges further reduction to zero.
Restoration of All-Ireland Unity and SOVEREIGNTY is urgently required to tackle these dangers
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The Phoenix Magazine Finally Accepts That Sinn Féin Is Heading for Coalition as a Minority Partner With Fianna Fail
In addition to Implementing British CUTS in the North, SF is now Willing to Implement Austerity in the South under the Fiscal Treaty
Full Phoenix Article http://wp.me/pKzXa-tz
Sinn Féin’s “Transitional Leadershp”-Extracts from Phoenix Article
Sinn Féin’s new 10-year plan, currently being put to members at meetings around the country, has yet to be fully decoded by the media. When the penny drops it will be seen that apart from hints of “transitional leadership”, the real change is in Sinn Féin’s attitude to future coalition.
The party is preparing to drop it’s condition –unrealisable in the foreseeable future –that it be the largest component in any such arrangement.—–
In recent years,the left, inside and outside the party have argued that Sinn Féin would be more than willing to clamber into a coalition government regardless of its political programme and the balance of forces within any coalition. The counter argument was that SF would only enter coalition government if they were the majority party and could impose their socialist programme on Fianna Fáil or whoever else was willing. A fall-back position was that an alliance of the let including SF, would be larger than FF and that this would also allow for such a coalition.
Now, the argument goes, the balance of forces simply does not allow or such an alignment. Furthermore things are not looking so good in the north with an austere Tory government along with an obdurate DUP producing stalemate on most issues, economic and political. The only way to break the logjam, Adams et al argue, is for SF to be in government south as well as north and the only route is via a coalition with FF. This would entail negotiating for left wing taxation measures and a strong nationalist position on the north.
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a bit short sighted of them. Coalition governments get a honeymoon period. The electorate are nice like that.
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IS IRELAND’S ABSENCE FROM INTERNATIONAL ANTI-AUSTERITY CONFERENC DUE TO IRISH GOVERNMENT SUPPORT FOR GERMAN IMPOSED AUSTERITY?
Full Comment http://wp.me/pKzXa-ua
“Now the leaders of France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Malta are planning to meet in Athens next month to forge a new anti-austerity alliance with the aim of wrestling back control of the ECB, which sets Eurozone fiscal policy, from Berlin.”
‘Brussels CAN’T drag us into recession’- Italy in fightback against German-led EU austerity-Daily Express
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