I’ve discussed this with you before. I didn’t say there’d be zero enthusiasm for it in the Republic, more that we can’t afford it right now.
Maybe they put principle before self-serving political calculation.
And it’s this sneering attitude that makes me support the nationalists (Welsh, in my case).
What’s ‘silly’ about it?
pdts
Almost.
By An Act for the Relief of His Majesty’s Popish, or Roman Catholick Subjects of Ireland, which was passed in 1793, the franchise in Ireland was extended to Roman Catholics. So far as I can make out, this was on an equal basis with Protestants.
The last pre-Union Irish parliament opened in early January, 1798. Presumably this meant that there were Roman Catholics voting at a general election in the previous month.
Did the candidates still have to be Protestants?
I’m not sure if there was a restriction on being a candidate per se, but it certainly remained impossible to take a seat (or vote) in the House of Commons if you were a Roman Catholic.
While the 1793 Act lifted many restrictions imposed upon Roman Catholics, it was quite careful to keep existing restrictions in place relating to any sort of public office.
You can see an echo of this today: despite being democratically elected, several Republican MPs can’t take their seats in the UK Parliament, because they (rightly, in my view) refuse to swear an oath of allegiance to the Crown.
Ridiculous…
I believe that Sinn Féin have stated that the oath of allegiance is not the reason for their MPs’ continued abstention from sitting at Westminster.
As I understand it, traditional Republican ideology views Westminster as a foreign body that has no right to legislate for any part of Ireland; standing as candidates for Westminster elections is a mechanism to allow the people of Northern Ireland to show their support for Sinn Féin’s policies. Cf. the 1918 general election.
That said, it’s utterly wrong in my view to force republicans-with-a-small-“r” to swear an allegiance that they disagree with. Either they are unable as a matter of conscience to take their seat, and thus cannot represent their constituents properly, or (in effect) they have to be liars or hypocrits. To me this is exactly the same issue as the way that atheists used to be prevented from taking a seat in the House, before the introduction of affirmations. Quite simply, it’s anti-democratic.
Which is what, exactlly? A hatred of self-determination?
There is a difference, though. As a red-stater, you have a financial interest in progressive states 1) staying in the union & generating revenue, as well as 2) providing an escape valve so your local queer folks don’t hang around.
Neither of those clearly applies to Tories in England.
Getting back to the OP. Why *are *the Tories so strongly committed to the union?
Note for American readers - the significance here lies in England and Scotland. Northern Ireland is not material in this context and the Irish Republic is irelevant (they left the union long, long ago - the clue is in the name). As I type the Scottish National Party is looking good for a majority in the devolved Scottish parliament - final results some time this evening.
I don’t have a good answer to the question. I have some sympathy with some aspects of Tory policy, but do not identify with them. They are a minority party in Scotland, with little obvious prospect of improvement. The union simply means that the Tories find it much harder to gain a majority at Westminster than they would in an English parliament. (Does anyone know where to find statistics on the vote in England in general elections - they don’t leap out from Google, surprisingly).
I don’t know why a major (and explicitly) English party would take such care to minimise its chances to rule in England. My hypothesis is simply the most obvious one. The Tories really are the Conservative Party. They are conservative people who naturally recoil from something as dramatic and radical as the major constitutional upheaval of Scotland and England becoming independent. Which I think is indicative of the problems the Tories face. Their leaders are all inevitably radicals - no one goes into politics to fight for ‘no change now’. But the mass of their membership is very slow to accept change.
I think what you’re saying is that Conservative politicians are committed to the union because their key constituency – Conservative voters – are so committed. Which is what I was getting at back in post No. 2.
As to why Conservative voters are nationalistic, I can only speculate. But I imagine the kind of person who wants to continue to think of England as the leader of a great nation, that dominates other nations within its realm. It would be a blow to the ego of the English Conservative to lose dominion over the other nations in the union, the same way that it was a blow to lose the Empire. It’s a matter of pride and is bound up in the way that English Conservatives think of themselves and of their country.
There could well be something in this, for many England was synonymous with the UK well into living memory, and maybe some still imagine it so.
I think the Conservatives would like the Union of the UK to remain for exactly the same reasons Americans prefer their Union of states, because a whole is always more influencial and powerful than the component parts.