UK Election - The Unionist crossroad.

WolfeTone

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Listening to Steve Aiken, leader of UUP on BBC NI.
Articulate, intelligent, and strategic.

The Unionist state is dead. NI can only survive in co-operation with the rest of Ireland, and Britain.
Not his words, but signalling very much to the reality that world has moved on, NI needs to also.
The premise of NI future existence primarily on loyalty to the Crown is melting.
 
Delighted to see Nigel Dodds lose his seat. Unfortunately it was to SF/IRA. I think it’s been a Unionist seat since 1922 so it’s a crystallisation of the reality of changing demographics in NI. The Unionists will have to have a “Ride for the Union” campaign. They can use the other side of the old “Save Ulster from Sodomy” placards they have in the shed.
 
This election has shown that while England is moving toward an ugly and divisive politics. NI is moving in the other direction.

Belfast South has elected Claire Hannah and much to my surprise and delight the Alliance Party's Stephen Farry won in North Down.

The old 'turn the clock back 300 years' joke may need to be revised.

I thought that the 'Constitutional' question trumped Brexit as an issue in NI. It seems that in some areas at least that was not so. SDLP beat Sin Féin 2 to one in Derry. Wow!
 
This election has shown that while England is moving toward an ugly and divisive politics.
I don't think so. Corbyn's class warfare of the 1970s has been thoroughly rejected. Bojo got votes across the class divide.

Brexit will now disappear from the British populist scene. Yes it will be very messy just as the 7 year Canada deal was messy but that will be between technocrats - Brexit truly has been done so far as the masses are concerned - with that majority Bojo can extend the transition for as long as it takes. A good result for Ireland Inc.

Also Bojo is basically a liberal conservative, one nation conservative if you like - he is not a Donald Trump lookalike.

Also I wouldn't be pinning any hopes on the break up of the UK. Yes the SNP had a reasonably good result but that was in the context that Brexit might be stopped. There is no way that the Scots having rejected independence comprehensively in 2014 would ever vote for an independence which would break away from the UK customs union and join the euro.
 
2014 was 55.5% to 45.5% so it wasn't that comprehensive. Several more recent polls show it closer, some with Yes ahead. The 2014 No compaign was "better together", and stay in the EU. Who else would want to be chained to England (would it make you better??) and dragged out of the EU? The Brexit mess has shown there's no genuine union, just England and everyone else has to suck it up.

The SNP vote should be a decent indicator of Yes in the sense that SNP gained a lot so it should boost Yes vote. I'd say it could well carry if its run again.
 
Scotland would be crazy to leave the UK CU for the EU CU - 4 times as much trade done with the former as with the latter. And surely they wouldn't vote to join the euro. SNP would be making a big tactical mistake to link independence with applying to rejoin the EU.
 
Given that Bojo will have a trade deal done in 2020:p...... they'll know what the implications would be. They wouldnt have to join to Euro, that's not a precondition.

The benefits they'd see would be in terms of emigration law where they need and want emigrants, freedom of movement etc. Most of all they want to leave WM rule, would you blame them....., they want to keep their NHS. So if leaving the UK is #1 they are probably as well off to be in EU assuming the customs scenario EU to UK is not terrible. They would probably see some benefit in being EU aligned for service industry purposes, it could be a big bonus to the Scottish financial services sector (more than the bounce Dublin or Paris got) - possibly lost first mover advantage, but going forward.
 
Scotland was a raw material superpower yet it is one of the poorest regions of the UK. Wales was a raw material superpower before it and it is even poorer. If we had not gained our freedom we’d be as poor as Wales. The UK is essentially the colonies of the London region and all wealth flows to them. Scotland is too poor not to be free.
 
Scotland was a raw material superpower yet it is one of the poorest regions of the UK. Wales was a raw material superpower before it and it is even poorer. If we had not gained our freedom we’d be as poor as Wales. The UK is essentially the colonies of the London region and all wealth flows to them. Scotland is too poor not to be free.
The oil price was much higher in 2014 and also the oil markets had a very profitable decade up to 2014 riding out the financial crash. If Scotland was going to leave based on economics and going it alone then 2014 should have been the year. Now the oil price is not very high and north sea oil almost extinguished. We shouldn't look too much into the outcome of this election as first past the post and single seat constituencies means that winner takes all, hence 0 for the brexit party even though they were the biggest party elected in Europe.
 
Brexit will now disappear from the British populist scene. Yes it will be very messy just as the 7 year Canada deal was messy but that will be between technocrats - Brexit truly has been done so far as the masses are concerned - with that majority Bojo can extend the transition for as long as it takes. A good result for Ireland Inc.

I think you are right

Also Bojo is basically a liberal conservative, one nation conservative if you like - he is not a Donald Trump lookalike.
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I hope you are right

Also I wouldn't be pinning any hopes on the break up of the UK. Yes the SNP had a reasonably good result but that was in the context that Brexit might be stopped. There is no way that the Scots having rejected independence comprehensively in 2014 would ever vote for an independence which would break away from the UK customs union and join the euro.

It is not that simple
 
Demographics is Destiny. Brexit is just speeding up the inevitable.

Partition has been an utter failure for the entire Island. There was a mandate after the 1918 election in Ireland for full Independence from Britain that was ignored.

We need to start openly discussing how the north will integrate successfully with the rest of the island.

No point whinging about the cost. It's an inevitability at this stage so let's get on with it.
 
Scotland would be crazy to leave the UK CU for the EU CU - 4 times as much trade done with the former as with the latter. And surely they wouldn't vote to join the euro. SNP would be making a big tactical mistake to link independence with applying to rejoin the EU.
It will still be able to trade with the rest of the UK and as part of the EU will probably have excellent terms.
 
The oil price was much higher in 2014 and also the oil markets had a very profitable decade up to 2014 riding out the financial crash. If Scotland was going to leave based on economics and going it alone then 2014 should have been the year. Now the oil price is not very high and north sea oil almost extinguished.
Yes, that's the standard line used by the pro-union side and their masters in England.
The reality is that the profits from oil and gas flow out of scotland with the Gross Value Add to the Scottish economy per job in the energy sector are around £173,000 whereas the GVA per job from Whiskey is £210,000. That despite the massive input costs and even bigger profits from oil. That said the North Sea still has 20-30 billion barrels of oil to be recovered and Aberdeen is still one of the biggest oil services and manufacturing hubs in the world. Scotland is also a major manufacturer in Semiconductor, Med-tech and Electronics and or course they did invent the insurance industry.

Scotland outside the UK would have the chance to thrive, based on an unequalled history of invention, innovation, and science and supported by one of the best universities in Europe (far better than any university we have here).
They would be competing with us and they would probably beat us given that they have a better education system, a better work ethic, massive natural resources and a land border with England.
 
@Purple sounds like you are Scottish from the last contribution. I know we in Ireland love to have a go at the English and their customs etc. But I don't think it would be very good for Ireland if the UK broke up, as it is we benefit a lot from being neighbours to a very big country, an awful lot of graduates go to the UK for work and experience, our industries are not big or deep enough to provide this experience. We then would be dealing with 3 insignificant diminished countries . We would also be dealing with the a very unstable and possibly violent northern Ireland, our security services could not deal with that , as it is our army is diminished and the gardai can barely handle the gangland crime we have now.
 
I agree Joe; it suits Ireland for the UK to hold.
I was making that point; a free Scotland would be competing with us.

If Scotland leaves the UK then there is nothing anchoring Northern Ireland to the Union. That would mean a wave of violence here from Unionist terrorists, a threat to our democracy by the Shinners and having to share our country with regressive bigots from both sides of the tribal divide in the North as well as more than €10 billion a year to subsidise their welfare dependent sham economy.
 
That would mean a wave of violence here from Unionist terrorists, a threat to our democracy by the Shinners and having to share our country with regressive bigots from both sides of the tribal divide in the North

I quite like the Nordies that I know, and Duke is only unreasonable occasionally.

we benefit a lot from being neighbours to a very big country, an awful lot of graduates go to the UK for work and experience, our industries are not big or deep enough to provide this experience.

True, but it might do us good to broaden our horizons. We benefit from being near the EU as a whole. Lots of jobs there for English speakers with EU passports.
 
awful lot of graduates go to the UK for work and experience, our industries are not big or deep enough to provide this experience.
On that point specifically; outside of medicine I don't see a huge flow of Irish graduates going to the UK for experience, not in mechanical engineering, med-tech, IT or other high-tech industries anyway. Maybe in finance and that sort of thing but I don't see it in my area.
 
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