My limited understanding is that roughly half the population of NI is of the opinion that NI - as an entity - should not exist.
Given that, I can't see any official flag being widely accepted, no matter the design.
Given that, I can't see any official flag being widely accepted, no matter the design.
We just had an election, 35/90 assembly seats went to Nationalist (NI should not exist) candidates, the rest went either to Unionist (NI should remain part of the UK) or 'Other' (there are more important things to worry about) candidates.
Unionism is still the biggest designation in Stormont.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-61363246 has a good chart of voting trends.
If they don't vote, then they are content with how things are, no?
Even then, assembly seats are assigned based on constituency - which can be politically marred by things like Gerrymandering.
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Based on one recent poll - reunification appears to get 46% favor in those who are decided: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/majority-of-people-...
By two seats, so by a 2.2% lead. 37 Unionist, 35 Nationalist, and 17 Alliance, and 1 Other.
What makes you say the Tory government has ever implied that England matters at all?
Oh @happymellon, don't get your crumpets in a twist. The Tories honestly only seem to care about themselves and about England to the extent it helps them remain in power or rich.
If it’s going to be shitshow, the Irish government would rather it be the UK’s shitshow.
They’re also a bit leery about having the DUP as a political party.
Most of the tension comes from groups in Belfast, not Dublin.
The government and people of Ireland are not the same. The government may have intense reservations about taking on a place guaranteed to need huge subsidies for decades at best. Doesn’t mean the people won’t vote for unification. More’s the pity.
https://factcheckni.org/topics/economy/how-dependent-is-stor...
Yes, there is a lot of concern in the ROI about how the Irish state would fund everything, especially if it would be necessary to deploy military. Ireland has a minuscule military (neutral, non-NATO etc), and obviously is a much smaller economy than GB. However, there is talk that the EU would support reunification.
> They’re also a bit leery about having the DUP as a political party.
Exactly. As I understand it, the DUP would have a larger influence the the Dail (Irish parliament) of the theoretical reunified Ireland, than they do in Westminster. Since they are a reactionary, conservative party, which doesn't exist in the ROI today, it's certainly a concern.
The attitudes and situation has changed a lot in recent years, especially because of Brexit. Here's a good read:
https://old.reddit.com/r/northernireland/comments/uar1yc/any...
In a condominium, Northern Ireland would become a joint territory of both the UK and the Republic of Ireland. It would be institutionally complex, but I can't see why it couldn't be made to work in practice, if the constitutional decision was made to implement it.
It would be similar in some ways to Andorra – just as Andorra has two joint heads of state (the Catholic Bishop of Urgell in Spain, and the President of France), Northern Ireland would have two joint heads of state (the President of Ireland and the King/Queen of the UK). I doubt they'd call them "Co-Princes" though, as Andorra does–too mediaeval-sounding. And, unlike Andorra, I'm not talking about Northern Ireland being an independent sovereign state – it would still be a subnational unit, just a subnational unit belonging to two sovereign states simultaneously.
While such arrangements are quite rare, they are allowed under international law, and have existed in the past. A notable example is Vanuatu, which prior to independence in 1980, was a joint British-French territory (New Hebrides). However, New Hebrides is in some ways a bad example - pre-independence it had two separate governments, one British and one French, with immensely inefficient duplication–two separate police forces, two separate prison systems; even two separate immigration departments–if the British one refused you a visa, you could always have another go with the French one. Initially, the only shared institution was the Joint Court, with three judges–one British, one French, and a third neutral judge to act as a tie-breaker, appointed by the King of Spain. In the later years, they introduced a third joint British-French government, and transferred some powers to it-but the separate British and French governments still remained, and continued their inefficient duplication right up to independence.
If there were ever a Northern Ireland condominium, I would expect something far more streamlined, in which Ireland and the UK appoint a joint administration in Belfast to run non-devolved matters, to which the current powers of the UK ministers would be transferred, while the existing devolved institutions would continue to exist under that joint administration's supervision. The Irish and UK national Parliaments would each separately have the power to disallow secondary legislation made by the joint administration, and primary legislation in non-devolved matters would be proposed by the joint administration, and then only enter into force once both national Parliaments had separately (and identically) enacted it.
Another major difference is that New Hebrides was a colonial situation, in which the indigenous population were denied political power – and, as was common in European colonialism, even the citizens of the colonial powers found themselves denied in the colonies political rights they would have had in they'd remained in the mother country. I think a solution for a Northern Ireland condominium could be for Northern Irish MPs to be members of both the Dáil Éireann and the House of Commons simultaneously. They could also play a special role in providing democratic accountability to the joint administration, through a "Northern Ireland Grand Committee" (and possibly subcommittees thereof) which would simultaneously be a committee of both national Parliaments (all its members being simultaneously members of both). And the final court of appeal for Northern Ireland would have an equal number of judges appointed by each national Supreme Court, from among their own members – maybe with (like the Joint Court of New Hebrides) a Chief Justice being appointed from a third country – these days, rather than turning to a third country's monarchy to appoint a neutral arbiter, you might give that power to the Secretary-General of an international organisation, such as the Permanent Court of Arbitration, or the Council of Europe.
Probably never going to happen – I expect the status quo to endure for a few more decades, followed by eventual Irish reunification – but a condominium is an interesting idea to ponder.
I'm not a resident of nor am I affiliated with Ireland or Northern Ireland at all so my gut-feel may be way off :)
The SDLP leader, Colum Eastwood, publicly repeated the condominium/"joint authority" proposal in 2017, as an alternative to direct rule from London due to the collapse of the Northern Ireland Executive, but the DUP and UUP opposed the idea. (I'm not sure what Sinn Fein had to say about it.)
> I think it would be seen by the unionist parties as a huge leap in the direction of re-unification, and they won't want to cede an inch. And given their recent momentum Sinn Féin could be confident that they'll gain some kind of mandate for reunification proper without relying on this compromise.
A pattern I see in Northern Ireland: the First Minister and deputy First Minister are formally equal in power, but the first has the more prestigious title. When Sinn Fein had the deputy role, they wanted to change the titles to give them equal prestige – such as by renaming both to "Joint First Minister" – the DUP refused. Now that Sinn Fein is supposed to get the First Minister role, suddenly DUP is expressing interest in changing the name – Sinn Fein is refusing, essentially saying "If you didn't want to compromise with us then, why should we compromise with you now?"
So I think you are right: unionists will oppose any compromises on the constitutional status question until the point at which it becomes obvious they are going to lose. Then the nationalists will say to them: "if you'd come to us in decades past, we quite possibly would have said yes, but why should we compromise with you now?"
In the past that’s meant they were fully part of the UK in the same sense and Scotland, Wales, and England.
Of course, that doesn’t mean much now.
Scotland, Wales, and England all have very different relationships with the UK.
But none of the other “nations” of the UK are anywhere near being condominiums.