Duke, every friggin day I buy the newspaper and I read about yet more sectarian attacks in the North. Every day. I really don’t think you’re aware of the level of hatred which still exists between parts of these two communities.
What exactly are they supposed to do, call in their army?? (I mean, assuming that they have one by the time this scenario takes place.) Just MHO, but I can see Britain withdrawing from the EU completely before allowing what it would consider European interference in an internal matter.
In any case, a military presence (from wherever) might be able to prevent “open warfare” but preventing random acts of violence against individuals is another story.
With perhaps a few exceptions, the politicians won’t be the ones holding the weapons.
I would like to be as optimistic as you are, Duke, but I honestly doubt whether there’s a single person on this island who thinks the North could even begin to seriously talk about unification without a major outbreak of violence.
Ruadh. I stand by my statement that the border which Lloyd George bears considerable responsibility for establishing demonstrates that the principle of self-determination was the main (but not only) factor at work.
The OP asked for justifications for the existance of Northern Ireland. None of the criticisms you have offered regarding the current course of the Border and of the circumstances in which that course was decided (most of which are correct and some of which are substantive) obviously override those arguments which, as I have suggested, have been used to justify the existance of Northern Ireland. All you have done is to argue that the current course of the Border cannot be justified. That is a secondary issue, albeit a very important one. What you have yet to do is to offer any arguments as to why the existance of Northern Ireland is wrong in principle.
The drawing of lines on maps rarely solves political problems. Imposing borders, whether by brute force, negotiation or boundary commissions, never satisfies everyone. Indeed, the case of the Border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is all-too-typical of the tensions such ‘solutions’ create. We are now, with good reason, far less confident that this sort of approach works than most right-thinking men and women throughout Europe were in the early decades of the twentieth century. However, there are times when drawing some sort of line on a map is better than not doing so at all. We ought also to remember that the Irish Free State was created by drawing two such lines, the more important of which was the one which ran down the middle of the Irish Sea.
Then I’ll repeat my question. Why were the nationalist counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh included in the North? Where was the concern for the self-determination of the people in those counties?
No, I haven’t offered any arguments as to why it’s wrong in principle, in fact I haven’t even expressed the opinion that it is wrong in principle. My objection to “Northern Ireland” is based on the fact that it encompasses vast areas that do not want to be part of it (they’re even vaster today than they were at the time of partition, BTW). This is not the same as objecting to it existing in any form at all.
Sorry about the misplaced optimism. It’s hard to gauge the feeling in Ireland from the mainstream UK newspapers and a few former NI residents who don’t live there anymore.
But I don’t understand why you thought I was talking about reunification, which I don’t agree with. Rather, I was discussing joint administration, which has been quietly mooted by a few UK and Irish politicans over the past few years. Then again, I think Jeruselem should be jointly administered too, so maybe that’s just my catch-all solution to world trouble spots. Guess the bottom line is, I don’t know what’s to be done about NI either. Wish somebody did…or perhaps part of the problem is that everybody thinks they have the solution.
Because my comment about “bloodshed” which you disagreed with was referring to what will probably happen if reunification takes place, or even starts to look likely to.
I can’t see the loyalists accepting that either. Even the consultative role the Republic has been given in the North’s affairs has been fiercely opposed, mainly because it’s viewed as a stepping stone to unification.
You have to keep in mind that the demographics of the North are working against the loyalists. I believe the North already has a school-age Catholic majority and therefore it will not be more than a generation or two before the voting-age majority is also Catholic. Four of the six counties now also have Catholic majorities. Bearing in mind that Catholic/nationalist, Protestant/unionist are not strictly interchangeable, national identity does still generally fall along religious lines and the loyalists are well aware that they will probably lose their majority at some point in the not-too-distant future. They are not going to want to make the nationalists’ ultimate goal any easier by giving the Republic any genuine administrative power in the North.
ruadh. Your position, which has been cogently stated throughout, is indeed not the same as objecting to Northern Ireland existing in any form at all. However, to acknowledge this is to go a long way to answering the OP with a ‘yes’, as the implication in Pushkin’s question was that a justification is inconceivable. My point is that justifications can be conceived which, however flawed, cannot be rejected out of hand.
As someone who has no connection with either Northern Ireland or the Republic, I have to say I share your pessimism.
“the implication in Pushkin’s question was that a justification is inconceivable”
I actually like the idea of an independent NI separate from Eire and the rest of the UK- check out http://www.niindependence.com - its just that so many people seem to think its a straight yes or no answer.
The reason people seem to think it’s a straight yes or no is that most people in the North either want to be part of the UK or want to be part of Ireland. Independence has never really had broad support. Andy Tyrie, the former head of the UDA, was advocating it as far back as the early 1980s, but everyone else thought he was nuts - of course, back then there was a much greater concern than there would be today over the North’s ability to sustain itself economically.
One of the statistics posted on the NI Independence site really, I think, shows where the problem would lie: under the category “Ten most important identities”, Protestant respondents put their Northern Irish identity in third place (70%) just below their British identity (73%), but Catholics ranked it in lowly 7th place (44%), well below their Irish identity (64%). Without a significant increase in support from the nationalist community, an independent Northern Ireland would likely face many of the same problems it faces today.
Looking at the news last night and the latest internicene warfare amongst the loyalist paramilitaries it appears that there is a small group of individuals, who are known to all concerned, who are trying to bring back the bad old days.
I get the feeling that they are going to be brought forcibly to heel by the major players.
All we have at the moment is the peace of the Armalite but it does show how fragile things may well be.
Sorry, ruadh, I wasn’t intending to mislead, I was trying to make a point only about DLG’s involvement and the order of events rather than about the validity or otherwise of the border.
And they’re going about it all wrong, as usual. Nobody really expects Adair’s arrest to ameliorate the situation and it might well make it worse. There is a fear that the UDA may withdraw their tepid support for the GFA over it - let’s face it, many of them have been looking for an excuse.
Also it doesn’t appear that they have much evidence to hold him on and if he’s kept in prison anyway, it’s internment all over again and the republicans don’t want that either, for obvious reasons …
They don’t need any more evidence. He was in prison because he had been convicted by a court of a terrorist offence. He was relased under the terms of the GFA and re-arrested under the terms of the GFA. He is being treated no differently from any prisoner who is released on licence and breaks the terms of his licence agreement and I don’t see how re-arresting him to complete his sentence is a return to internment.
It might not improve matters to re-arrest him, but then neither will leaving him out to continue to flout his licence conditions.
Tom, the issue is that the government has (or should have) to prove that he HAS in fact broken the terms of his licence agreement. Rearresting him merely on suspicion (or merely to look like they’re doing something about the violence, as the case may be) doesn’t cut it IMHO - and I’m hardly alone in this.
From the Irish Times:
(emphasis added)
I see that Mandy today said that he does, in fact, have the evidence to prove it, and I hope that’s true (I, for one, have no doubt that he’s guilty), but the knee-jerk “lock 'em up” reaction has never done a damn thing for peace in the past and anyone who thinks it will now is delusional.
It’s patently not a form of internment without trial, since the man was tried and convicted of the offence for which he was serving time when he was released on licence.
In England & Wales, a person who was released on licence can be recalled to prison by the Secretary of State at any time either on the recommendation of the Parole Board or “where it appears to him that it is expedient in the public interest to recall that person before such a recommendation is practicable.” (Crime (Sentences) Act 1997, s. 32).
That is the difference between being released on licence and being pardoned; Adair is being treated no differently from the way in which any life prisoner released on licence would be treated anywhere in the UK. He is only being returned to jail to serve out the time to which he was sentenced in the first place. His conviction was not quashed. His sentence was not reduced on appeal. He was not pardoned. He has not served his time.
If this is “internment without trial”, then so is the case of any prisoner who fails to get early release for good behaviour (after all, they weren’t convicted by a court of bad behaviour), or for that matter any lifer who serves longer than his tariff.
That said, I have no more faith in Mandelson’s judgement than you do.
I should have said that I’m not trying to defend or attack Mandelson’s decision, I am only objecting to the “internment” description.
I was also going to say that he doesn’t need to be charged with or convicted of a criminal offence in order to be returned to jail, only with a breach of his licence agreement. Licence agreements can include, for example, prohibitions on visiting a certain place, or a requirement to live within a certain area. In this respect, the Irish Times’s unnamed source* has simply got the facts wrong.
[*I suspect that nine times out of ten, these unnamed “sources” don’t exist and the journalists are simply repeating something they heard down the pub.]
I’ll defer to your knowledge of English and Welsh law, but the only breach of his agreement that anyone seems to think he can be proved guilty of is associating with paramilitaries - and if that’s all they have on him, it raises another question of why he’s the only released prisoner to have his licence revoked when everyone knows many of them are doing exactly the same thing. The UDA have accused the government of singling him out, and it’s hard to argue with them on that point.
Can’t speak to the authenticity of the Irish Times’s “source” but I can tell you he’s just echoing what many other people (on both sides) believe, and this is clearly a case where perception is at least as important as reality.
Although the letter of the law may be fulfilled, the problem is that, to a certain group it does not.
There will be those who, for whatever reason, will see this as internment.
The balance is so delicate that such opinions matter.
Evidence of fresh offences would be better justification but whatever the reasons that Adair has been recalled they need to be put openly into the public domain.
Sorry about the misplaced optimism. It’s hard to gauge the feeling in Ireland from the mainstream UK newspapers and a few former NI residents who don’t live there anymore.