Il referendum sull’Irlanda unita non deve essere “un’altra Brexit”, dicono gli analisti | Accordo del Venerdì Santo
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/24/a-united-ireland-referendum-must-not-be-another-brexit-analysts-say
di martinmarprelate
11 commenti
100% correct. What’s being voted on needs to be hashed out and agreed so that everyone knows what the outcome will be. That means they need to start having those discussions urgently and put a mutually agreeable plan in place so that when the time comes everyone knows what’s happening.
It’s basic common sense.
Hardly takes an analyst to tell you that.
While they make many valid points, there’s a fundamental difference between this and Brexit.
Brexit was (according to its proponents) about freedom and sovereignty: breaking free from the EU so that could do things they supposedly previously couldn’t, to lead to greater prosperity. In other words it was a means to an end.
United Ireland is the end goal. Success is as simple as not seeing an international border on the island. The details of how to administer that is a secondary thing.
This is correct of course, but the issue is that the unionists absolutely will not come to the table to discuss what a future united Ireland would look like before a referendum has passed.
We absolutely need to be completely clear about what form the new Ireland would take before we vote. Issues like the flag, anthem, parades, government need to be sorted before we vote. But the unionists will not engage will this debate until they have no other choice. They will fight tooth and nail to keep the union, but once it’s clear that a referendum has passed and there is no going back, they will only then likely demand concessions. I worry that a Brexit style outcome is somewhat inevitable leading to endless discussions, after the referendum, about what form the new Ireland will take.
Any rational person understands it can’t be another Brexit scenario. However, I can see why some wouldn’t want to dig too deep into the planning for it. Such planning could, and almost definitely would, overturn some facts about it that could negatively affect the popularity of it. Right now proponents of UI keep it mainly ideological. But imagine when the potential full costs are revealed and made crystal clear to our tax payers; when your average worker learns they’re going to have to be loaded with the likes of another few USC amounts of tax from their pay package. It will sour people.
Honestly Everytime this comes up I can’t see the benefit, elements of the unionists would likely become extreme and we have even go back to lots of violence. There are still over 20 miles of “peace walls”. Even if this went through by some miracle, who would trust the current political parties to plan and execute this well in anyway. They can’t even build a train line or a hospital. Then There would be the inevitable major arguments like Irish language signs and schools and whatever else. I just don’t see any real benefit to it. Northern Irish people can in most ways be part of Ireland, I get the desire but practically doing this will be an absolute shit show.
Can we not just cut Northern Ireland lose and let them figure it out for themselves?
No?
I believe that the good intentions of learning from the mistakes of brexit will be hijacked by ‘unionists’ who want to move the goal posts.
Let everyone recognise that in the good friday agreement calls for consent for a united Ireland must be “freely and concurrently given” in both the North and the South of the island of Ireland.
Steve baker, tory minister said he wanted a supermajority before approval. Ian Paisley & DUP want a supermajority required. Apparently 50%+1 is good enough to support Brexit and dragging northern ireand out of the EU, against the votes of NI voters, but not good enough for a united ireland decision. The people mentioned above who claim to be democrats and parliamentarians.
Quite simply the british government has comitted to respecting the wishes of the majority of the people of ireland in the GF agreement. And anyone who is in support of democracy should repect that commitment & the results of such a poll.
Why is the conversation always about a United Ireland or Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK? There will always be a sizeable minority that don’t want either. Why make something that is currently London’s problem, Dublin’s problem simply because a very very very long time ago we were one nation?
The romanticism that Nationalists have towards a United Ireland won’t last long when a government that already struggles to manage a 26 county Ireland has to manage a 32 county one and all the additional economic, cultural & religious implications that has.
United is like..kinda.. more of a state of mind…man
>The pair have analysed the political, economic and cultural rationales for any constitutional change in a book, For and Against a United Ireland, published by the Dublin-based Royal Irish Academy under its project Analysing and Researching Ireland, North and South (Arins).
Okay so the article is just a book ad, basically.