Northern Ireland
 

Sooner it's cut loose the better , head down :shocked: sorry about missing. N can't change now

Re: Northern Ireland
 

I can, and the missing R as well ;)

---------- Post added at 18:27 ---------- Previous post was at 18:26 ----------

Why would we need to cut it loose ?

Re: Northern Ireland
 

1) The unionist vote is split between the UUP and the DUP.
2) Just goes to show how much of the Catholic population supports the actions and aims of the IRA.

Re: Northern Ireland
 

1) agreed. Tot up the unionist vote across the 3 explicitly unionist parties and it stands at 40.1%. Sinn Fein has 29%. The system gives the chief executive position to the single biggest party, which may or may not be a party representing the views of the majority of the electorate.

2) not agreed. The Provisional IRA for which Sinn Fein was the political mouthpiece has long since shut up shop. Of course there’s still sectarian violence in Northern Ireland and a few dissenters have tried to appropriate the IRA mantle but Sinn Fein condemns violence whenever it occurs. Anyone old enough to remember the troubles should remember the word games Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and others used to play whenever the IRA blew something up. There is none of that now.

Re: Northern Ireland
 

McGuinness was a senior member of the IRA. The Catholic population still supports the IRA and its aims. Just look at the violence that occurs when an IRA cache of arms is found, and that's post-GFA.
Are we really expected to believe that the IRA disappeared completely. They just changed their name. Same people involved. As a certain somebody once said, "They haven't gone away, you know".
People didn't only start voting for Sinn Fein after the GFA.

Re: Northern Ireland
 

Martin McGuinness was a senior commander - possibly the commander - of the IRA operation in (London)Derry. He was also, in his later years, a friend of Rev Ian Paisley. That’s a story of reconciliation that should talk volumes.

As for level of Sinn Fein support, well in the 1982 attempt to set up a Northern Ireland Assembly they managed 10%. At the Westminster election in 1997 they managed 16%. It is only in the last 15 years that its support has risen to, and steadied around, 25%. This week they have achieved 29%. All of this progress has occurred a good number of years after it disavowed violence and the IRA disbanded.

If you seriously are asking whether the Provisional IRA still exists then you’re either too young to remember the troubles at their worst or are being wilfully amnesiac. Absolutely nothing occurring in Northern Ireland today comes remotely close. Yes, of course the older members of the Continuity IRA and the Real IRA are the same people as were once Provisionals. But do they have the same command structures, supply lines, funding sources, numbers of personnel? Of course they don’t. The Provisional IRA has gone in every meaningful sense of the word. Which is why 3,500 people were killed up to 1998 and only 158 so-called “security related” deaths from 1998 until today.

If you have alternative facts to back up what actually just look like lazy assumptions and prejudice, by all means share them.

Re: Northern Ireland
 

We're talking about the Catholic vote, therefore any %age figure has to be more than doubled. IE 10% = more than 20%, 29% = more than 58%.
Then people don't necessarily vote for the party they support but for the party that might have more success or to keep another party out. Eg if the NI had another vote UUP voters might switch to DUP.
The Catholics would've vote SDLP instead because:-
Link
Terrorism isn't so much about a particular attack, but the threat of further attacks. If there was to be no threat of further attacks, then any demands could be ignored. As such, threats from Sinn Fein about violence if they(ie the IRA) don't get their way should be treated as a terrorist threat. Where else is that violence expected to come from?

Re: Northern Ireland
 

Well, Piers Morgan tried to weigh in on this in the last hour:

Which is utter feckin rubbish, NI Barrister rubbished him with this response:

Re: Northern Ireland
 

The First Minister will be from Sinn Fein. That is the big change. Not sure that the UUP and DUP can get together put forward their own candidate and override that.

Re: Northern Ireland
 

Perhaps it's time for referendum on a number of issues . And perhaps people will shut up for a number of years.
1 Scottish independence
2 ni join the republic
3 Wales independence
4 Cornish independence
Perhaps the whole union getting a vote on each one .

Re: Northern Ireland
 

I don't think they can as the party with the most votes gets the First Minister. However the Deputy First Minister has no less 'power' so First or Deputy First doesn't matter.

Re: Northern Ireland
 

UVF, UDA, UFF, LVF, Red Hand Defenders, Orange Volunteers...

Re: Northern Ireland
 

I have Xbox friends who live in NI.


They are now expecting The Troubles Mk.2

Re: Northern Ireland
 

This post is such a crock of baseless assumptions and non sequiturs it’s genuinely hard to know where to start.

1. Your psephology is pure nonsense. I’m not accepting a word you say about %age support without a link to some credible evidence backing it up. All you’re doing is multiplying random numbers until they say what you want them to.

2. The Sinn Feinn-IRA link is extremely old news. What actually is your point here? It’s as if I’m arguing with someone who’s phoning in from 1980. It is an established fact of history that doesn’t add to your argument at all.

3. Please link to a credible source reporting a Sinn Feinn threat to resort to violence. I bet you can’t.

Re: Northern Ireland
 

oh come on, the Xbox isn't that bad ;)