MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Northern Ireland calls for a referendum on a united Ireland
Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness called for a referendum on a united Ireland shortly after the UK voted to leave the European Union. Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesScotland now Ireland, Does Wales and England qualify for the title United Kingdom?....lol. The phrase of the week.....short sell on England and the surrounding kingdoms. Definitely in the currency market.
Jun 25th, 2016 - 01:57 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Well if the Martin McGuinness opinion carried the vote, we would see quite a novelty...The Island 'nation' of Ireland!
Jun 25th, 2016 - 04:52 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Who would ever have thought we would see such a strange thing (outside some fake political construct devised by the Englsh)?
The agreement included and required the republic of Ireland to drop all claims,
Jun 25th, 2016 - 11:06 pm - Link - Report abuse 0is this not true.
It would be a stupid move for Ulster to forgo the subsidy the get from Britain -- but a great thing for the British not to have to subsidise them, or become involved in their senseless squabbles. The Irish have been known to do stupid things -- we can only hope (and the same goes for the Scots).
Jun 25th, 2016 - 11:36 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Shut it Paddy...can't you understand that the Remainers in Northern Ireland were voting to remain in Europe...not reunification with Ireland...
Jun 26th, 2016 - 12:49 am - Link - Report abuse 0I think the UK government should give Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales simultaneous referenda on independence from the United Kingdom.
Jun 26th, 2016 - 09:37 am - Link - Report abuse 0It won't be the end of the world just as Brexit isn't the end of the world.
The outcome will be one of the following combinations:
- Kingdom of England
- United Kingdom of (insert remaining countries)
There'll be shock, recriminations and the 24-hour news cycle will make out it is armageddon..... but it won't be.
@6 skip
Jun 26th, 2016 - 11:11 am - Link - Report abuse 0Even if that happened the result would still be the UK.
Regardless of what the idiot McGuinness says the majority of both Northern and Southern Ireland don't want to be unified.
Why?
Well for the North they don't want the Catholic Church dictating what they should do. Plus they know that they'd lose the NHS, trade and benefits of being in the UK.
Southern Ireland don't want NI because they can't afford them, and they don't want the headache that people like McGuinnes would bring. Violence and instability.
The majority of people in NI whilst they voted to remain in the EU would still be part of the U.K. outside the EU than forced into poverty with Southern Ireland and be in the EU.
The Irish aren't stupid. They know that the only reason Southern Ireland isn't in the same financial turmoil that Greece is, is because the UK loaned them £7 billion with no strings attached. The EU never loan more unless there are plenty of strings attached. Which in the case of Greece has made things worse.
#4
Jun 26th, 2016 - 11:20 am - Link - Report abuse 0What an arrogant statement. In the history of England they are always doing stupid things and still do but they are too stupid to realise it.
I am fine with referendums, but you don't just get to have them when it suits, you cant have one every 18 months until you get the decision you want, there is a little thing called Parliamentary Democracy. Scotland had its independence referendum knowing full well the EU referendum was happening and they chose to stay in the UK knowing this fact.
Jun 26th, 2016 - 12:57 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The result may not be to their liking but that is not a democratic platform for another referendum, that is up to the UK parliament which the Scots chose and voted to defer to in their referendum choice in 2014.
Therefore another referendum is not in Sturgeon's gift to give, the Scottish people told her that in 2014.
Please get your facts straight and ammend your headline Macro Press....FACT ...Northern Ireland has NOT called for a referendum on a united Ireland , McGuiness has called for one .....not Northern Ireland !!
Jun 26th, 2016 - 01:08 pm - Link - Report abuse 07 - the church doesn't run ireland, what decade are you living in. There's gay marriage equality in ROI, ...but not in NI.
Jun 26th, 2016 - 01:21 pm - Link - Report abuse 0There's also an equally good public health system. So no, public health care isn't lost either.
Any UK trade benefits are replaced by EU trade benefits. Any benefit of being in the UK is replaced by benefits of being in the EU.
Roi does indeed want NI if you'd care to check the many consistent public polls.
Quality of life in ROI is higher than in NI so your poverty notion is kind of backwards.
Yes Ireland took an interest bearing loan from the UK, how you interpret this as anything more than what the UK or most other countries does daily with their own deficits remains to be explained. Had UK not been chosen as creditor surely a different country would have been.
All of that aside, I think NI will be remaining dependent on the £10 billion annual running costs it receives from whatever's left of the UK for some time.
With unhindered free access (as per accord), all of the benefits and none of the overheads I'll agree with you, the Irish aren't stupid.
Oh yes, and now that UK has in theory a land border with the EU you'll need to put some controls in place for immigration purposes. There's two options I can see, a 350km manned land border with ROI, or the ever so slightly cheaper and ever so slightly more reliable presenting of passports for travel between Belfast and GB.
So Dublin Belfast train: no passport as per accords.
But Belfast GB flight: passport.
Cost to UK (if it still exists): £10 billion p.a.
Cost to ROI: €0.
@8. The important thing is that, one way or another, we (England) always win. Case in point. Remember the Darien Disaster? Scotland trying to compete with England. Failed. As a matter of interest, when Scotland went bankrupt, why didn't it run to its usual French pals? What did Scotland bring to the Union? Debt. When(If) Scotland votes for independence, I will be demanding that it leaves the Union with exactly what it brought. Debt and the land. And that all Scots in the UK are repatriated. Can't have a ready-made fifth column. And, before you come out with comments about hatred, racism or anything similar, I'd like you to research all the comments Scots made about England and the English in 2014. Amazing how quickly some things can come back to bite, isn't it? By the way, there was one particular “popular” comment that was repeatedly made. The one about the Scots paying more tax than the rest of the UK. So I researched it. It turns out that the geographical territory of Scotland pays 0.2% more tax than the rest of the UK. This is accounted for by the tax on the revenue from gas and oil fields. Scots don't actually have to put their hands in their pockets, or sporrans, for it as it's paid by the oil companies. And there's another one. Did you notice that, throughout the campaign, Salmond & Co always referred to the Scottish oil industry? Then, after the vote, when the price of oil dropped through the floor, Sturgeon was amazingly quick to rush to the UK government demanding that it act to support the UK oil industry. Do you think that might be termed hypocrisy?
Jun 26th, 2016 - 01:37 pm - Link - Report abuse 0#12
Jun 26th, 2016 - 07:53 pm - Link - Report abuse 0England always wins ? You have a selective memory. Are you related to Alf Garnet ?
Suez debacle. Did “England” win that one. As you don't recognise Scotland as anything to do with the UK. I will absolve my country from any blame.
The USA told you to get out or else the pound would fall through the floor and no help would be forthcoming. England left with their tail between their legs.
Did you win in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The Battle of Medway against the Dutch. LOST
First Scottish War of Independence and the Second. LOST
Gallipolli LOST
Cartagena LOST
Islandlwana LOST
Singapore LOST
ETC.
As to the Darien scheme, England made sure it failed. It did not want to upset it's Spanish chums.
theguardian.com/uk/2007/sep/11/britishidentity.past
You will demand...you sound like an Argentinian..are you ?
Good one Clyde!
Jun 26th, 2016 - 09:54 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@ 13 & 14 Not really
Jun 26th, 2016 - 10:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“I absolve my country of blame”......... got a familiar RG ring to it too ?
Come on you two are better than that !
Up until about yesterday I used to think that referenda were a good idea - trust the people and all that. It is becoming increasingly obvious to me that “we the people” cannot be trusted. Now, at the very time we should all be pulling together, to ensure the best possible outcome, all that we are doing is proving Juncker and his anti democratic cronies right !
I never thought I would see the day..........
Vestige
Jun 27th, 2016 - 11:31 am - Link - Report abuse 0You don't know anything about Ireland, North or South.
I have family in Southern Ireland and the Catholic Church holds huge influence and meddles in the government. The Irish constitution is written to give the Catholic Church supremacy. The Protestants in NI would NEVER agree to that and they're in the majority.
The 'equally' good public health system isn't as good or equal as the NHS. Mainly because it isn't free and has its hands tied by the Catholic Church, meaning Drs have allowed people to die because they're afraid of being prosecuted.
No the Repubic of Ireland couldn't afford NI, and the government knows this hence why the don't push for unification.
The Repubic of Ireland is poor. Once you leave Dublin and get out into the countryside you realise just how poor.
As for 'other' countries offering to loan Ireland money, where were they? Only the EU offered but they had the same strings attached that Greece and Cyprus did.
Only the UK offered to loan them money with NO strings attached.
So next time you comment try and do some actual research first so you don't come off looking like an idiot.
If you look at my post again you will see that I am answering that idiot xenophobe in his own kind. He thinks that Britain is England and that no other part of the UK is worth a damn. So, as far as he is concerned England did everything so it was just a reminder that they did not win everything. I am just throwing his jingoistic rhetoric back in his face.
Jun 27th, 2016 - 11:47 am - Link - Report abuse 0Referendums are expensive. We can't afford to have one every other week.
Jun 27th, 2016 - 12:32 pm - Link - Report abuse 016 -
Jun 27th, 2016 - 06:01 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Time to take your own advice.
Fifth amendment to irelands constitution means no special place for any church.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland
Oecd better life index puts Ireland level or slightly above uk. With 7 ranking categories higher than uk, out of a list of 11.
(About level with austria and above france and spain)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland
Yes GBs loan to Ireland was indeed interest bearing, and beneficial to GB as Chancellor Osborne said so himself in parliament.
And yes, ROI has a universal health care system on par with the NHS. Its called the HSE and its ranked one place below the nhs on a list of the worlds health systems by the World Health Organization.
On mobile, but will happily prove any of your baseless claims wrong (with citations) later.
....oh yes and the case youre referring to with you nonsensical claim about the church tying doctors hands, well the hospital went on record to say Catholic ethos wasn't a factor.
Rather the cause was a legal issue due to laws echoing back to a time when Ireland was run by a certain other colonial country...ahem.
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