Northern Ireland General Discussion

[Oryxslayer]

The Alliance is to a large extent unionist, yes? I consider the Alliance to be a unionist party even if there are some members who support reunification.

Alliance is not a Unionist party.  It is fundamentally an anti-sectarianism party and its members and supporters hold a range of views on the constitutional issue; I suspect that pragmatic support for the status quo, combined with irritation at the disruption to the status quo caused by Brexit, is the median position in the party, but that is not what is meant by "Unionism" in a Northern Ireland context.

I find Alliance to be an interesting party because of what you're describing. Is it fair to says that its supporters are younger than those of SF/DUP etc, or does it cut across the age divides?

Yes for the DUP/UUP. No for SF. In general, the younger generation recognizes that life in Northern Ireland at present sucks, and really want to move on. Currently those who came from (formerly) Unionist families are more likely to look towards the Alliance for a non-sectarian answer to the regions stagnation.

 SF has been good as seeing the same problems as Alliance - just more intense given historical economic imbalances between communities - and promising the larger Catholic youth population that joining the Republic will solve all the problems. Which makes one wonder if a reckoning is going to take place this decade. SF appears poised to form a future Dublin government off a similar youth-driven desire for reform, this time boosting a party perceived to be a comparably left alternative to the political establishment. It also helps SF that a large chunk of the Dail electorate don't remember the Troubles and perceive a change caused by  both geographic and temporal separation from those events. Actual government power means electoral expectations that likely won't be met if the government spends all their capital on the border question, and the polling lead could be blown in SF campaign on said legacy nationalism and not the reforms and modernizations desired. However,  focusing attention of the Republics problems will betray their Northern compatriots who would expect support and rewards from a SF led coalition, especially since Northerners have an oversized presence within the party thanks to historical developments. 

[Oryxslayer]

By this point, I view the Democratic Unionist Party (and other unionist hardliners) with the same scorn and contempt I have for the Republican Party here at home.  Sore losers the lot of them:

N.Ireland to miss deadline to break political impasse

Now that they are losing their grip on power, is the DUP deliberately trying to shred the Good Friday Agreement?  

The DUP never liked the GFA in the first place - that's the problem. And their mentality has only hardened as Brexit created the Irish Sea Border (or whatever name Sunak is calling it now) and as SF became the largest party in the last Assembly election.

Which is ironic, since the DUP supported Brexit in the first place, fueling the rise of Sinn Fein in the process.  
  

I think it's important to note that the actual size of the nationalist camp of voters hasn't exactly changed. From 2011 -> 2016 -> 2017 -> 2022, the vote for Nationalist parties is ~42% -> ~38.5% -> ~42% -> ~41%. For just SF and the SDLP, we see 41% -> 36% -> 40% -> 38%.

What has changed is that the fragmentation of the former Unionist block, and a very small growth of SF at the expense of SDLP. The growing Alliance has mainly pulled in voters who once might have been characterized as those with Unionist backgrounds post-Brexit. There are many reasons for this but they all stem from the unavoidable recognition that London doesn't give a F about Northern Irelands problems, in this case caused by Brexit. At the same time we have parties further to the right of the DUP gaining votes, leading to further fragmentation and the DUP taking their present hardline stance, something that appears to have been successful given their vote share in the locals.

And that's the seeming long-term direction we are heading in, towards increasing fragmentation and a expanding Alliance. What has happened for the Unionists just now eventually will happen for the Nationalists, since they nominally at the moment occupy first place. IMO that's coming soon when SF forms a government in Dublin and proceeds to care about their voters and 21st century issues in their country rather than reunification. SF in the Republic hasn't gained votes cause of nationalism, it's in spite of it, since they are the only party perceived by some to have answers to questions like housing and welfare. Dublin hasn't given F about Northern Ireland's problems for just as long as London hasn't, but they are the less visible of the two. But that's just my hypothesis.

[Oryxslayer]

Doesn't sound too dissimilar from the experiences of American colonialists when they visited the mother country prior to the war for independence:

The most effective cure for Northern Irish unionism? Attitudes in England

This is the saddest part (or most pitiful part) of Unionism for me; the NI unionist community are so deeply loyal to a people that by and large do not care about them. At all.

Though admittedly, you could also say that the ROI doesn't particularly care about them, either.

Irish republicans definitely care about them

This is the perpetual paradox of Northern Ireland. Everyone's identity is so tied to somewhere else but very few people in somewhere else care about Northern Ireland. Obviously there are small constituencies in both the UK, Ireland, and the diaspora that care about them, but that's what they are, numerously small.

The UK has never cared about Northern Ireland beyond the times it dominated national news through things like attacks in England or major policies like Good Friday. though they have always had a voice in Westminster, which means there have always been a handful of receptive others.

The same has always been true about the ROI, though this isn't well understood given the present narratives in effect. But the historical record doesn't lie. An easy way to see this without reading a bunch of books is the election results: The modern IRA only won seats in 1 election between the depression and the Good Friday negotiations. And never more then five seats until the Euro crisis transformed SF from the nationalist party into the party advocating serious changes to housing and welfare (and the way SF loses a future election is caring about the later and not the former).

The diaspora has never understood the peculiarities of the region. Those that did/do care are send money to a side care about it only in a simplistic superficial "good vs evil" way, not about the people or the economy  - same as the other two. Just about their conscience and their own ancestry.


Which is why there is no future for Northern Ireland that stays in this mindset. It doesn't matter who controls the land if the people are still going to not identify with it. Right now only really the Alliance is telling the truth of this lack of care beyond the Superficial, and how the only long term solution is building something different. Only time can tell if that works out. 

[Oryxslayer]

Neither Alliance nor SF in Northern Ireland really have a housing policy worth the name, so I'm not sure where you've got that from.

Mind you, housing is less of an issue here than it is elsewhere in the British Isles - although high compared to the historical norm, the multiple of house prices to earnings is lower than in either Ireland or GB and because the population is relatively stagnant, you don't need to build as many houses to stand still. Arguably the biggest housing issue* is the quality of a lot of the housing stock, especially in poorer districts of Belfast and Derry.

*As opposed to issues around housing schemes, which are generally not about housing per se but about either antisocial behaviour or not wanting to live near themmuns.

My understanding has been that housing is a much more salient issue in the Republic right now than in the North or in the UK - is that true?

It seems that the centrality of Dublin to the economy coupled with short supply is doing a number on housing and cost of living for the ROI. Reinforces my belief that in a hypothetical united Ireland (which again I'm not fully sold on), hopefully the island can have more poles of economic activity for Cork, Belfast, Limerick, Derry etc rather than just one megalopolis of Dublin.

This is correct. The issue of Housing demand he is referring to is a ROI issue and not a NI issue. A small example of why SF trying to pursue one policy via one party for two very different regions has it's issues