8 ms·

With emerging talk of Irish unification and Scottish independence after the referendum, some legacy he is going to leave behind.

tehwalrus 10y ago
Irish unification would be a silver lining to this awfulness.
- anonymousDan 10y ago
  As someone from Ireland I'm really not sure I could be bothered dealing with all the shit that could entail. Would prefer if they just went independent and joined the EU as a separate country.
  - matthewmacleod 10y ago
    Unfortunately Northern Ireland doesn't have the economy or infrastructure to realistically function as an independent state at this point. You never know about the future, but it's likely not on the table any time soon.
    - lostlogin 10y ago
      Which is ironic given how long foreign rule has had to sort the place out.
      - hardlianotion 10y ago
        Not really. Northern Ireland is quite small.
    - Grishnakh 10y ago
      Why does it need to be large to function independently? There are a bunch of far smaller nations in the EU/Europe: Luxembourg, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, etc. If Northern Ireland became independent, it could just join the EU (regular Ireland is also an EU member), so they wouldn't have to maintain their own currency at least, and would benefit from the free trade. If Luxembourg can function as it is, I don't see why Northern Ireland can't do the same.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - de_Selby 10y ago
    It would also represent an economic hit for the Republic of Ireland.
    - fnord123 10y ago
      This may be offset by the fact that Ireland will be the English speaking country in the EU in which multinational corporations can maintain a base of operations.
  - tonyedgecombe 10y ago
    It would be rather ironic if after all the troubles the North said they wanted to reunify and the South said fuck off.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      Something similar happened in Belgium a while ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_Belgium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_Belgium It's still pretty much an unresolved situation at the present, in the longer term it could go either way.
- reitoei 10y ago
  A lot of people from both sides of the border don't want unification.
secfirstmd 10y ago
Never going to happen. The Britain transfers about GBP £11 Billion a year into Northern Ireland, to keep it afloat. The Republic could never afford that and the people in the Republic would never vote for it. Never mind the Unionist community up North.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> With emerging talk of Irish unification and Scottish independence after the referendum, some legacy he is going to leave behind. As much as Sinn Fein might like to think they could exploit the pro-EU majority to push Irish unification, it seems to me that NI still has a unionist majority, and that those who are in the pro-EU/unionist overlap are predominantly going to favor staying with the UK instead of Ireland at the cost of the EU over joining the EU at the cost of unification with Ireland.

tehwalrus 10y ago

Irish unification would be a silver lining to this awfulness.

anonymousDan 10y ago
As someone from Ireland I'm really not sure I could be bothered dealing with all the shit that could entail. Would prefer if they just went independent and joined the EU as a separate country.
- matthewmacleod 10y ago
  Unfortunately Northern Ireland doesn't have the economy or infrastructure to realistically function as an independent state at this point. You never know about the future, but it's likely not on the table any time soon.
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    Which is ironic given how long foreign rule has had to sort the place out.
    - hardlianotion 10y ago
      Not really. Northern Ireland is quite small.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    Why does it need to be large to function independently? There are a bunch of far smaller nations in the EU/Europe: Luxembourg, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, etc. If Northern Ireland became independent, it could just join the EU (regular Ireland is also an EU member), so they wouldn't have to maintain their own currency at least, and would benefit from the free trade. If Luxembourg can function as it is, I don't see why Northern Ireland can't do the same.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- de_Selby 10y ago
  It would also represent an economic hit for the Republic of Ireland.
  - fnord123 10y ago
    This may be offset by the fact that Ireland will be the English speaking country in the EU in which multinational corporations can maintain a base of operations.
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  It would be rather ironic if after all the troubles the North said they wanted to reunify and the South said fuck off.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    Something similar happened in Belgium a while ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_Belgium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_Belgium It's still pretty much an unresolved situation at the present, in the longer term it could go either way.
reitoei 10y ago
A lot of people from both sides of the border don't want unification.

secfirstmd 10y ago

Never going to happen. The Britain transfers about GBP £11 Billion a year into Northern Ireland, to keep it afloat. The Republic could never afford that and the people in the Republic would never vote for it. Never mind the Unionist community up North.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> With emerging talk of Irish unification and Scottish independence after the referendum, some legacy he is going to leave behind. As much as Sinn Fein might like to think they could exploit the pro-EU majority to push Irish unification, it seems to me that NI still has a unionist majority, and that those who are in the pro-EU/unionist overlap are predominantly going to favor staying with the UK instead of Ireland at the cost of the EU over joining the EU at the cost of unification with Ireland.