Who would you vote for if you lived elsewhere?

[Arsenal till I die]

You may have conducted a sectarian war, but I did not, so please do not include me in your, "statistics".

You may also have been occupying the place, but I was not; I was born there, as were over 1,000,000 others who do not wish to be part of a monothesitic, monocultural larger state.

I know. Imagine living in a country where the head of state has to be a Protestant, and an unelected one through bloodline at that.

[Antiochas III]

You may have conducted a sectarian war, but I did not, so please do not include me in your, "statistics".

You may also have been occupying the place, but I was not; I was born there, as were over 1,000,000 others who do not wish to be part of a monothesitic, monocultural larger state.

Ignore them mate. They may have a point if Dublin actually wanted a United Ireland, they don't.

You got to laugh, that those that claim to hate Britain the most want a British invention, a United Ireland

[FuzzyAffro]

Dublin and Irish people want a united Ireland and always have. N Ireland is a British invention.

[Audaces Fortuna Juvat]

As one who has actually lived in Dublin my experience was that, a small group of extremists aside, most Dubliners didn't give an airborne intercourse about Northern Ireland, and most even considered it to be a "different" country. They were too busy getting on with their lives to care about us.

[John Lambies Doos]

Dublin and Irish people want a united Ireland and always have. N Ireland is a British invention.

Not necessarily fuzzy. The ROI dropped the constitutional claim to the 6 counties under the good friday agreement

Half my family are irish and live in Dublin, wicklow and Tipp. Many of them and their friends do not want the 6 countys as they carry a lot of cost and serious baggage

[Antiochas III]

Dublin does not, it says it does but not a single move is made to strengthen the move towards a United Ireland during any government meeting.

Maybe because it would be against the majority of the Northern Irish wishes, but tbh think some more mundane like cost is the true reason for no real action.

[Arsenal till I die]

We don't want it, the south don't want it, maybe we should give it to Scotland..

[LongTimeLurker]

In days gone by they liked to think that they were side by side with Scotland and that we won't let them down so maybe better not to give them any ideas. As the Portadown News once joked the European Court in Strasbourg ordered NI to stop using dead languages for sectarian purposes and to stay at least 12 miles away from Scotland.

[FuzzyAffro]

Not necessarily fuzzy. The ROI dropped the constitutional claim to the 6 counties under the good friday agreement

Half my family are irish and live in Dublin, wicklow and Tipp. Many of them and their friends do not want the 6 countys as they carry a lot of cost and serious baggage

I have family there too. For pragmatic reasons ie it's a financial basket case and full of bigots a lot of people don't really care. But ultimately, the Irish people and Irish govt always have and always will want to reunite their country.

If you were to be able to say to them all other things being equal would you want a united Ireland it would get like 95% or more in a referendum in the Republic that they do.

Entirely naturally of course, it's the natural order of things.

[Geronimo]

The Green Party.

Natalie Bennett is a clanger merchant mind you. Glad of our Patrick

[Thumper]

Would be interesting to see how the balaclava wearers would react to a scenario where the DUP held the balance of power because of their abstentionism.

Unless the DUP's condition for supporting a vote of confidence in its partners was the de-establishment of the Catholic Church and the reunification of Ireland as Crown territory, it's not obvious how this would differ to any of the other two dozen elections in which the winner broadly disapproved of everything Sinn Fein stood for.

[LongTimeLurker]

There is also the question of what they could get if they ended their abstentionism and changed the arithmatic at Westminster. They are doing well in the opinion polls in the RoI at the moment with about a quarter of the vote when not so long ago high single digits was their natural habitat so they could also soon have a stronger voice on policy in Dublin.

[BerwickMad]

The Green Party.

Natalie Bennett is a clanger merchant mind you. Glad of our Patrick

Is it doing them any harm though? She had an absolute disaster with Nick Ferrari and her support went up. A lot of people are sick of polished politicians. Obviously you can't go on having disastrous interviews, but I don't think people who're going to vote Green really care if the leader gets attacked by a right wing lunatic like Ferrari.

[Geronimo]

Is it doing them any harm though? She had an absolute disaster with Nick Ferrari and her support went up. A lot of people are sick of polished politicians. Obviously you can't go on having disastrous interviews, but I don't think people who're going to vote Green really care if the leader gets attacked by a right wing lunatic like Ferrari.

Yeah, I felt her response to that calamity showed she was human and not another centrist robot. Policies are the most important thing too, I'd probably vote Green regardless of who's in charge.

[Co.Down Hibee]

Dublin and Irish people want a united Ireland and always have. N Ireland is a British invention.

no they don't, it's the last thing either of the 2 parts of Ireland need, the idea that the Republic is full of anti-British rebels is an outdated myth that is only believed outside of it, before I moved here I thought the same but if you spend any time there and get more of an understanding of how the countries feel you'd get a truer picture ,in actual fact I don't think Dubliners are too keen on Northerners anyway.

Personally I never voted in Scotland due to the fact that I left when I was 18 but if I had it would have been Labour as my family were all diehards, i don't think I voted when I lived in england and since moving here I always vote Green party due to 95% of our politicians being fairly vile.

[FuzzyAffro]

They do, though for pragmatic reasons aren't desperate for it any time soon. I think with the demographic situation in N Ireland (ie Catholics have more babies) it is inevitable that will eventually happen one day.

If Scotland left the UK, N Ireland would be kicked out of the rUK almost straight away I think, probably within five years. They really are a pointless drain on UK resources, take away one of the most prosperous regions of the UK (Scotland) and they would want N Ireland gone pronto.

Then it would be an independent country, and quite quickly in my opinion be reunified with the Republic.

[Co.Down Hibee]

They do, though for pragmatic reasons aren't desperate for it any time soon. I think with the demographic situation in N Ireland (ie Catholics have more babies) it is inevitable that will eventually happen one day.

If Scotland left the UK, N Ireland would be kicked out of the rUK almost straight away I think, probably within five years. They really are a pointless drain on UK resources, take away one of the most prosperous regions of the UK (Scotland) and they would want N Ireland gone pronto.

Then it would be an independent country, and quite quickly in my opinion be reunified with the Republic.

yes that would happen...politics doesn't work that way mate ,countries don't punt parts out ,they give them the options to leave through referendums and so on,

[FuzzyAffro]

They wouldn't kick them out, and I'm not trying to offend you. But they would find a way to engineer their exit.

Think about it, again no offence but N Ireland is a basket-case economically. It genuinely is heavily subsidised by the rest of the UK. Strategically it is of no value, and economically likewise.

So if Scotland left, which would hit the UK very hard economically, they would have some decisions to make. They would need to look at the economy, and jettisoning an economically unproductive part that is of no strategic value and not even part of a contiguous landmass would become instantly very attractive.

They would also need to look at the constitution, do they just carry on as before minus Scotland? Is there even a point in that? Or do they seek to reform the UK further, which would mean losing N Ireland, and potentially ending the union between Wales and England too.

So they wouldn't kick you out, but might have a referendum of their own on what the rUK should actually be. Which might include not having N Ireland as part of it, or a referendum across Wales, N Ireland and England about what they want.

Personally I think if Scotland becomes independent that would lead to a united Ireland and possibly independence for Wales too. And I fully support all those things, I think that would be the natural and right order for these islands being restored.

That is not to belittle the fact that the reason N Ireland is a financial basket-case is cause of British interference over hundreds of years destabilising the area, that is undeniably true.

[LongTimeLurker]

...and Wales is exceedingly unlikely to leave an rUK any time soon, so NI wouldn't have the only devolved parliament. What really needs to happen to put UI on the agenda is for the RoI to get its economy significantly stronger than the ®UK's. Fracking will keep giving the island of GB the domestic energy production advantage over the island of Ireland that it has enjoyed for the last 200 years so that's not happening any time soon.

[Antiochas III]

They'd have to back out of the Good Friday Agreement. That ain't gonna happen unless the will of people of Northern Ireland want it to happen. No Government in Westminster is going to oversee the loss of Scotland and then Northern Ireland within a short period of time especially of its own accord.