The downfall of Sir Jeffrey Donaldson

[kensalriser]

In the words of the late Jeremy Hardy..

“Northern Ireland is part of Ireland, not Britain, as can clearly be seen from aerial photographs.”

Works as a quip, but from another angle is profoundly ignorant. Is Portugal part of Spain? Is Denmark part of Germany? Are the Channel Islands part of France? Is Alaska part of Canada? Is Yemen part of Saudi Arabia? And so on.

 

[PaulRevereCSC]

I think you are showing your ignorance.

The Ulster Banner (which I assume your are referring to) is not an official flag...look it up.

The UN, US and many many more recognised sources don't list NI as a country. They do recognise the UK (as a country).

If anything NI is a province or region of the UK.
If you want to think of it as a country, go ahead, it's your right but it's not recognised as one.

 

[molee]

So much ignorance being called out. I shall stay quiet lest I make mine apparent. Oops, too late.

 

[Barrymagrec]

I think you are showing your ignorance.

The Ulster Banner (which I assume your are referring to) is not an official flag...look it up.

The UN, US and many many more recognised sources don't list NI as a country. They do recognise the UK (as a country).

If anything NI is a province or region of the UK.
If you want to think of it as a country, go ahead, it's your right but it's not recognised as one.

I don`t recognise the US as a country - it`s just a colony in revolt.

 

[KrisW]

I think you are showing your ignorance.

The Ulster Banner (which I assume your are referring to) is not an official flag...look it up.

The UN, US and many many more recognised sources don't list NI as a country. They do recognise the UK (as a country).

If anything NI is a province or region of the UK.
If you want to think of it as a country, go ahead, it's your right but it's not recognised as one.

"Country" has no legal meaning.

Northern Ireland isn't a sovereign state, but I didn't say it was. Like England, it's a component of the UK, which is.

The flag is still very much regarded as the flag of Northern Ireland by half the people living in NI. The other half never recognised it, ever.

I'm Irish (as in from Ireland), and if I'm honest it's a good day when I give a shiny shit about NI, but the ignorance of people from England in particular about what is a part of their own country (sovereign state) is always funny to see.

England is nothing more than the lagest constituent region in the UK. It might have a flag, although it's a flag that had almost no official use before the 1990s, but it doesn't have a parliament or its own anthem....

So, is England a country?

 

[Darren L]

It seems (after doing a Google search) that whether the UK is made up of four countries is open to interpretation and can differ depending upon source.
Indeed most sources seem to suggest that N.Ireland can be regarded as a Country, Province or other and that the UK is made up of four countries.
I guess if your adamant that this is incorrect you may get onto Wikipedia, etc and put them right.

 

[KrisW]

It seems (after doing a Google search) that whether the UK is made up of four countries is open to interpretation and can differ depending upon source.
Indeed most sources seem to suggest that N.Ireland can be regarded as a Country, Province or other and that the UK is made up of four countries.

Yes, "Country" is a word that has no legal definition. NI is too divided to even call a "Nation", something that definitely applies to England, Scotland and Wales. But in terms of "what it is", the answer is it's nothing more or less than what Scotland, England and Wales are.

Incidentally, the habit of referring to NI as a "province" comes from the fact that it was created from six of the nine counties of the Irish province of Ulster*. Nobody ever calls Scotland or Wales a "province".

__
* The other three counties in Ulster, Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, were excluded because including them would have resulted in a territory with a Nationalist majority, and the whole point of Northern Ireland was to protect a Unionist majority. Fermanagh and (London)Derry were nearly excluded for the same reason.

 

[-alan-]

This is the ignorance I was referring to. NI is one of the four component countries in the United Kingdom (read the cover of your passport), it does indeed have a flag, and "God Save the King" is the only official anthem in the UK. (Trying to choose an alternative in a society as divided as NI is impossible).

The trajectory is not necessarily towards unity.. an independent NI within the EU was also a possibility, as was an independent Scotland+NI union. We were all doing quite well before 2016, as joint membership of the EU allowed the zealots on both sides to frame cooperation between RoI and UK on Northern Ireland as "Intra-EU coordination", rather than "meddling" or "oppression". Even with NI in the UK, eventually the border would have become something minor, like the Danish/Swedish frontier, and everyone would have been fine with it, but oh no, David Cameron had to use the UK as a proxy in the petty infighting of the Tory party, and so we're back to the 1950s again...

@Finnegan Palestine is a deceptive and misleading parallel to NI, especially in the present day. It's a trope that Sinn Féin and company like to trot out, but it has always been hyperbole, and an insult to the experience of the Palestinian people, most especially in the present.

I agree with the EU dimension as a way out of the mire of division - it could have / can still if handled delicately (imho) provide a way to move things forward without either side having to be seen to win or lose over the other.

Fwiw, I see huge changes in the North over the last lot of months. You've now got the DUP and Sinn Fein sitting down together involved in real politics once more, and the leaders of both parties Emma Little Pengelly and Michelle O'Neill making a huge effort to work with the other side to get the place functioning like a normal society again. Two interesting ladies btw - both well connected at a family level to the darker side of the conflict up there, neither apologising for where they've come from, and both clearly committed to making genuine inroads into breaking down big chunks of the barriers that have divided the two communities for decades. That's all new.

The big unknown here for me is how Donaldson's fall from grace will affect Ms Pengelly, as she was placed there as party leader directly by him. It would be a real pity if the recent events help stall or reverse the progress that has been made.

(On the last point re the parallels with Palestine btw - a mate of mine quipped "Brits drawing lines on a map causes bother again.. whod'a ever thought, eh? )

 

[Ruairi]

Are you a Fenian?

Do you believe Argentina has any claim to the Falklands or that those living there want to be ruled by Argentina?

Lol. This is the language of bigots and hate filled supremacy.

 

[molee]

Lol. This is the language of bigots and hate filled supremacy.

It's worse than that though, a pedantic bigot.

 

[gordonscobie]

And yet the Falkland Islanders and the majority in Northern Ireland do not want to be given away to foreign powers...

The boundaries of Northern Ireland were drawn by the British with the intention of creating an inbuilt majority. Still illegitimate. Illegitimate then - when it was created - and illegitimate now.

 

[Sloop John B]

The boundaries of Northern Ireland were drawn by the British with the intention of creating an inbuilt majority. Still illegitimate. Illegitimate then - when it was created - and illegitimate now.

Even to a “Fenian” like me this is a fatuous oversimplification.

.sjb

 

[-alan-]

How so sjb ?

The gerrymandering of boundaries to create a Protestant majority was/is common knowledge. Wondering why you see the statement as an oversimplification ?

(Just asking btw, not trying to cause a row )

 

[Sloop John B]

The illegitimate now is the oversimplification.

.sjb

 

[cooky1257]

Given the left footers propensity to out shag their contempories and the historically recent right to actually vote the best solution to the evolving reunification is to redraw the map again along the original 'prod majority' lines.....how many counties would that leave as a rump British NI?

 

[Darren L]

Given the left footers propensity to out shag their contempories the best solution to the evolving reunification is to redraw the map again along the original 'prod majority ' lines.....how many counties would that leave as a rump British NI?

I can't see that working to be honest, there's towns and villages that are predominantly nationalist or loyalist dotted throughout NI.

I'm not sure the folks in the south of Ireland would want reunification either.
One of the main objections I've heard against reunification in the North is the cost for anyone on permanent medical treatment.

 

[cooky1257]

I can't see that working to be honest, there's towns and villages that are predominantly nationalist or loyalist dotted throughout NI.

I'm not sure the folks in the south of Ireland would want reunification either.
One of the main objections I've heard against reunification in the North is the cost for anyone on permanent medical treatment.

It was tongue in cheek mate.

 

[-alan-]

Given the left footers propensity to out shag their contempories and the historically recent right to actually vote the best solution to the evolving reunification is to redraw the map again along the original 'prod majority' lines.....how many counties would that leave as a rump British NI?

Tongue in cheek comment I know, but there was supposedly consideration given to a 4-county statelet at one point casting off Fermanagh and Tyrone as irreversibly lost to the unwashed papish hordes

 

[tones]

I think you are showing your ignorance.

The Ulster Banner (which I assume your are referring to) is not an official flag...look it up.

The UN, US and many many more recognised sources don't list NI as a country. They do recognise the UK (as a country).

If anything NI is a province or region of the UK.
If you want to think of it as a country, go ahead, it's your right but it's not recognised as one.

Coming from Northern Ireland, I've always heard it referred to as a "province", never a "country". This is a slight misnomer, as it is constituted by only six of the nine counties of the historic Irish province of Ulster, just as "Northern Ireland" is also a slight misnomer, as the most northerly point of Ireland is Malin Head in Donegal, one of the three Ulster counties omitted (the other two are Cavan and Monaghan).

The object at the time of Partition was to create a permanent Protestant majority. However, the Protestant strongholds are Antrim and Down, and the Irish hoped that the instituted Irish Boundary Commission would redraw the borders to remove the solidly nationalist Tyrone, Fermanagh and substantial chunks of Derry. However, this would have rendered the new statelet completely unviable, so they became part of the new Protestant/Unionist-dominated statelet against their will.

 

[Ruairi]

Given the left footers propensity to out shag their contempories and the historically recent right to actually vote the best solution to the evolving reunification is to redraw the map again along the original 'prod majority' lines.....how many counties would that leave as a rump British NI?

Lols. Even Belfast is lost to unionism. If it were up to me they could have Larnia and Carrickfergus forever but that's prob about it. They might as well fight the horses of the sea a la Cú Chulain if they want to hold on to the rest.