zippykona – Member
How many people want to co-own this with me?
http://m.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/43600727?search_identifier=3b4d9dd199334b57ca3c65c9709e1941

you do know campbelltown is in scotland, right? 😆

Came across this,

http://www.daft.ie/clare/houses-for-sale/ennistymon/drumeevin-valley-ennistymon-clare-1221539/

get in before brexit and hide, then claim a passport and residency.

I bet there’s a hundred of us that would chip in on that ^^^^

That flat in Cambelltown – the mortgate would be less than a Sky subscription!

The harder the Brexit the more likely reunification.

The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party

They seem to be forgetting the unionist bit.

Having a united Ireland referendum is the first move to starting the troubles again (no matter what the outcome).

It’ll be cheerio sunken boat story and GoT hooded fans. Hello bombs and bullets.

Let’s just keep plodding along, living mainly in the past and with a futile devolved government…

gerti – Member
Having a united Ireland referendum is the first move to starting the troubles again (no matter what the outcome).

don’t see that as the case at all. I think there needs to be a border poll and I think in the long term it’ll do sinn fein good to accept defeat gracefully, then come the next one win that, and it’s then legitimate. I’d doubt the unionists would accept an out right win first time. sinn feins job at the moment isn’t to win a referendum, it’s to normalise the concept of it, and legitimise it. (imo, why they are calling for one, knowing they will lose it.) Only need to be lucky once…

gerti – Member
Having a united Ireland referendum is the first move to starting the troubles again (no matter what the outcome).

Not necessarily. The vast majority in the Republic of Ireland are (philosophically at least) in favour of a united Ireland. In Northern Ireland it’s probably close to a 50/50 split in terms of what the demography would point at. However when you throw in the questions of wealth and future prosperity the issue become muddier.

If people in the Republic thought voting for a united Ireland would make them noticeably poorer then a certain percentage would probably abstain from voting, I still feel however that the older generations would turn out overwhelming in favour of uniting Ireland. In the North it would be more complicated and my feeling would be that 33% would vote “United Ireland” regardless, 33% would vote “Union” regardless but the remainder would be swayed by where they thought they would be best off going. On the surface, maintaining the status quo would seem like the best option for Northern Irish people’s pockets, however, a post Brexit, hard border, renewed troubles Northern Ireland is a possibility.

Conversely a newly united Ireland, as part of the EU with access to guaranteed billions in EU funding and no doubt a massive boom in global tourism to Ireland (tourism is already 5%gdp of Ireland) could be a more prosperous option for the undecided voter.

The Tories have made it absolutely clear they want an open border between the North and South. There is support all round for this including at the EU.

Molls yes its an option, as above its in the Good Friday Agreement and tequires a Referendum in Republic and Northern Ireland.

Personally I think we have opportunism from Sinn Fein is pushing their agenda in the wake of the Brexit vote but imho reunification is highly unlikely. Ever.

jambalaya – Member
The Tories have made it absolutely clear they want an open border between the North and South. There is support all round for this including at the EU.

Politicians, famously reliable and known for keeping their word. All it’ll take is one Syrian / Afghan / Terrorist to use Ireland as a back door NI and then England and it’ll be curtains.

Personally I think we have opportunism from Sinn Fein is pushing their agenda in the wake of the Brexit vote but imho reunification is highly unlikely. Ever.

It’s opportunism in so far that the Brexit vote and the unionist/loyalist support for the leave campaign showed everyone how hopelessly backward and clueless the unionist/loyalist political movement was and how deeply out of touch they were with the needs, wants and future of the people they were supposed to be representing.

The tiny group of fundamentalist christian loyalist leaders would happily see working and middle class people suffer so long as they could maintain any kind of tenuous “Britishness” despite it being obvious that Britain doesn’t give a toss about them.

Gerti +1. The Brexit vote and a united Ireland are two very different things despite SF vote on it.

There would be a swift return to the troubles if there was a United Ireland. The loyalist paramilitaries have plans in place for absolute mayhem if this was ever to be the case.

I think many generations down the line this could change but it won’t be in any of our lifetimes

Loyalists would be reduced to driving trucks into crowds of civilians in no time. They simply never had anywhere near the amount of weaponry held by the pIRA. They were never that sophisticated in the first place and without the collision of the RUC, they’d have struggled to wage any kind of campaigns at all.

Not saying there wouldn’t be trouble, but we wouldn’t see anything like in the past. Although the RoI’s army would struggle to deal with anything large scale.

Any change from the status quo does risk a real decent into bloodshed again. hard borders and the republicans kick off, reunification and the loyalists will.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-10866072

think about it.

As for the talk of no hard borders, politicians spout a lot of crap, and the Tories aren’t running the show anymore despite what they claim.

Republican terrorists had their pick of targets when it came to occupying British forces in Ireland. Loyalist paramilitaries would have to go after targets in the republic of Ireland where (unlike republicans in the north) they have absolutely no standing, support or community presence. Killing catholic taxi drivers and dealing drugs to their communities is about the level of loyalist paramilitarism.

Any move to a united Ireland or a semi autonomous non British N.I would presumably be played out over years or decades which would hopefully defuse the worst of the outrage from the loyalists.

DD as the past has shown paramilitaries didn’t need a massive arsenal to bring the country to the brink of civil war.

Think about where the key infrastructure, ports, airports and power stations are for example.

The potential for unrest is massive should there be a change. Also SF know a NI referendum wouldn’t have their desired result. That’s why they want an all Ireland vote.

jambalaya – Member
imho reunification is highly unlikely. Ever.

#jambafact! 😆 😉

BlindMelon – Member
There would be a swift return to the troubles if there was a United Ireland. The loyalist paramilitaries have plans in place for absolute mayhem if this was ever to be the case.

have you ever seen you average loyalist, murder gangs picking up innocents off the street is about the height of their capability.

I’m not claiming that they are anything more than thugs but they have the potential to cause absolute mayhem here. Just as republicans have placing bombs at schools like they did this week. NI is in a very precarious place right now.

And yes I’ve seen them, I live here.

DD as the past has shown paramilitaries didn’t need a massive arsenal to bring the country to the brink of civil war.

And I’m saying that loyalist paramilitaries were never sophisticated enough to mount the kind of campaign to cause the problems you’re envisaging. You need a lot of explosives to bring down power stations, ports etc. Counter-terrorism skills in the U.K. (for the U.K. would have no other option than to support the transition) is at a whole different level than even a decade ago.

The pIRA had Libya and NORAID money. Where would the loyalists get their weaponry? Putin?

I’m not saying they wouldn’t cause a little bit of mayhem, but it would be as unsophisticated as Islamic terrorism in Europe.

tbh the further we get away in time from the past the more likely a UI will happen, the dissidents refuse to understand, but normalisation is the best way forward. All the people active in the 70/80/90s are getting on now, I don’t think there is the same and republican “dissidents” and your hardcore loyalists are well away in the fringes imo, least the active sort, yes there’s potential for some violence, but anything like it was? can you really see that? Orange supremacy took it’s confidence from the fact it was backed by the state(whether willingly or ignorantly I’ll let people decide for themselves.), that isn’t really the case any more either.

tbh the further we get away in time from the past the more likely a UI will happen, the dissidents refuse to understand, but normalisation is the best way forward.

And that i think is the key, current situation is as close to unification as you get with two states. You can live, work, and travel and barely know. If you role back from this the general population really don’t win. You give a door for the idiots to come back into play.

The idiots are still there, and IMO aren’t going anywhere for a while yet, but giving them any ammunition to restart the troubles is a ****ing stupid idea!

Living in the West of Scotland, i’d love to see a UI. Mibbe make some of the phukwits on both sides, yet living here, look at our own country and the issues there in, rather than the rose tinted views they have of a country across the sea that most of them have never set foot in.

zippykona – Member
http://m.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/43600727?search_identifier=3b4d9dd199334b57ca3c65c9709e1941
Alright smarty pants down there!
Anyway Scotland will be independent before irish reunification.

just clocked the sneaky edit! 😆

There’ll be no return to the troubles of the past, of course you will have the random acts of criminals but you could have that in any part of the uk. Molgrips if you’re using Windows you can use charmap in accessories, I used to use it a lot before I learned the shortcuts for ° (alt + 0176 on the numeric keypad) and the likes.

Thing is, we know the tories are lying on borders, simply because they claim 2 contradictory things- that the border with an iScotland would have to be a sealed, hard border and that the border between NI and the Republic would definitely be soft. The only question is, which is the lie.

have you ever seen you average loyalist, murder gangs picking up innocents off the street is about the height of their capability.

Sorry, but only an idiot would think that.

Euro

have you ever seen you average loyalist, murder gangs picking up innocents off the street is about the height of their capability.

Sorry, but only an idiot would think that.[/quote]

85% of people murdered by loyalist terror groups were civilians. 5% were other loyalists, and 5% were members of the security forces and approximately 5% were republicans. It’s worth remembering that much of their activity was carried out with the tacit approval of security forces and/or direct collusion. Which you’d like to imagine would now be absent.

There’s no doubt they could kill people, and cause unrest but any infrastructure they would target in Northern Ireland is in their own back yard; ports, power stations, air ports etc so really, beyond killing more innocent civilians what would they do?

Euro – Member
have you ever seen you average loyalist, murder gangs picking up innocents off the street is about the height of their capability.
Sorry, but only an idiot would think that.

Explain what strategy and tactics the loyalists would employ? Go on, I could do with a laugh…

seosamh77

Explain what strategy and tactics the loyalists would employ? Go on, I could do with a laugh…

It’s just occurred to me that street protests, riots and civil unrest would probably be their most viable weapon in terms of causing unrest and holding the state to ransom ala the Fleg protests.

there’d be toys out the pram, no doubt. But it’d also be determined on how a transition happened, a long slow transition would render them impotent.

When Scotland does go independent, NI principle ferry/hgv links with England/rUK will be via a different country. It will be messy.

Explain what strategy and tactics the loyalists would employ? Go on, I could do with a laugh…

Glad you think it’s funny

Barricade the roads – bring the country to a halt. No need to hurt anyone (except the emergency services). Side splitting aint it? 🙄

sounds a comprehensive plan…

I didn’t think it needs explaining just how effective blocking the roads can be Joe. Maybe have a wee think eh?

It’s a very short term plan(it’s self harm also.), and like I say could easily be avoided by pulling the rug out from under them, very slowly. I’m not predicting an immediate declaration of a UI. Just saying that given brexit, it’s likely over the long term, talking 20/30 years here.

btw I disgree with taking all unionists towards a UI unwillingly also, I think it should be republicans/nationalists jobs to convince a large section of them to vote with them anyhow. Marginalise the extreme elements over time.

Ultimately, doesn’t really bother me that much anyway, long as there’s peace, a UI would be nice and imo, correct, but not at all costs. I’d be against an overnight change.

So aye I do think, I don’t think anyone is daft enough to create the circumstances for a return to the past. I think the EU-27 and British will be very sensitive to Irish needs. We’ll no doubt get some daft headlines along the road though.

I hope all those who think there would be no return to the troubles are correct. But having lived here all my life and seen the worst of this place, I struggle to believe our future would be peaceful after a united Ireland referendum.

gerti – Member
I hope all those who think there would be no return to the troubles are correct. But having lived here all my life and seen the worst of this place, I struggle to believe our future would be peaceful after a united Ireland referendum.

A hard border is as certain to deliver renewed troubles as a united Ireland. Ironically it’ll make little or no difference one way or the other to the loyalists of east Belfast or Ballymena, apart from what currency their dole comes in.

Nothing like a bit of stereotyping hey ‘funster’?