Ah, we pine for those prelapsarian days before 2016, when power-sharing worked like a dream, and when unionists and nationalists joined hands in joyful dancing…
Except it was never like that. Power-sharing _never_ worked. What one side proposed, the other opposed. Just because. It was permanent gridlock. But then, it was deliberately designed that way.
The only way out is to reorient Northern Irish politics to a left-right divide, rather than a unionist-nationalist divide. And that will only happen when Labour decides to contest elections in Northern Ireland.
So quit bellyaching about Brexit, Mr. McTague, and tell Starmer to extract a digit.
The way the demographics are going, that seems like a real possibility within a reasonable timespan. What the EU will look like if/when it happens is another matter.
Nobody outside N Ireland seems to understand that we will never vote to be outside the Union as long as we are given the huge welfare support that is delivered from Westminster. This region is unfortunately economically weak and always has been. Belfast is a different world from the rest of Ulster and is still a Pygmy in comparison to most major English cities. Derry, where I now live, has an employment sector wherein nearly 60% of economically active people work for the state in one way or another. Go figure!
Benefits for OAPs, low-income working families and the unemployed are vastly higher in the Republic than in NI, but so are income taxes. It’s been estimated that applying the tax and benefit structure of the RoI to NI would leave over 70% of people in NI better off AND reduce the need for a subvention by about a billion. Whether the better off 30% would pay for it is moot….
More urgently for NI, it has some of the best grammar schools and the worst school dropout rates in the UK, with far fewer people with third level qualifications than the RoI. Regardless of whether NI remains in the UK or not, keeping working-class kids in education to boost economic activity, productivity and reduce dependency on HMG for a subvention ought to be the #1 priority for the Assembly.
More mixed than they used to be but still with a religious ethos (and generally strong academic results). I was always a fan of the integrated sector but TBH the much, much bigger issue is keeping people in education long enough to be productive in skilled jobs.
I happen to know a couple of teachers at our finest Public Schools, who only comparatively recently left the bosom of the NI educational system. Both are indelibly stamped with that “ religious ethos” that you speak of.
Not a good report particularly when you consider that WE*are paying for this nonsense.
Certainly not the Royal Belfast Academical Institution (“Inst”) which was established in 1810 specifically as a NON sectarian school welcoming boys of all religions (including Jews).
Also Methodist College Belfast (“Methody”), which despite its name has always welcomed boys and girls of different faiths.
My parents went to Methody (neither of them was Methodist) but sent me to Inst. In front of our gates is a statue of a fiery Presbyterian preacher who objected vigorously to what we call today ‘integrated education ‘.
He stands with his backside to Inst and we called him “the Black Man”! An epithet which was not racist but purely malicious.
There are Catholic Grammar Schools, and a friend of mine teaches in one. He assures me that there is no question of excluding non-Catholics. On the contrary, they are welcomed in increasing numbers.
What did you say?
“Grammar Schools still entirely sectarian”!
For once, Charles, you are sadly misinformed.
I don’t wish to sound too pedantic but despite those two magnificent examples you quote, according to that impeccable source ‘ The Belfast Telegraph’:- “More than 90% of schools in Northern Ireland are still segregated by religion.” QED?
Your question referred to “these vaunted Grammar Schools” which form less than 10 per cent of schools in Northern Ireland.
I do not deny and bitterly regret that educational apartheid still prevails.
But not in the grammar schools. QED.
Yes, we do agree, as so often, to my very great surprise.
But there are no “Protestant” grammar schools (or indeed Primary schools).
The Roman Catholic Church insists (quite understandably) on inculcating a “Catholic ethos” by preserving a separate Catholic educational system. Hence schools tend to be labelled “Catholic Grammar” and so on.
Where do you get your figures from?
I don’t understand your final sentence.
Again the Wikibeast seems to provide a fairly comprehensive list.
Many of the ‘Protestant’ ones were ‘silent’ on religion, so I was a little uncertain if they were non-denominational or not. Cynically perhaps,I assumed they were/are ‘hiding’ something!
Yes it is odd we are so often in agreement. Personally I have always found Englishmen get on far better with the Irish than they do with the Welsh and Sc*tch. I put it down to the Irish sense of humour! Something that is somewhat lacking with the others.
You’re right. Reforming education ought to be top priority. But since the Good Friday Agreement came into force, b-all has happened. Which illustrates my point about permanent gridlock.
“Bellyaching”? It was an excellent analysis of political realism. Which your comment is not, because Labour are not going to contest elections in Northern Ireland! “Tell Starmer”?! That’ll do it obviously…
Although he can be somewhat forthright in expressing his views, I fear that Charles Stanhope is right when he says that most English people really don’t give a toss about us in Northern Ireland.
You may recall that there was a Campaign for Labour Representation in Northern Ireland. I don’t remember if you were involved, but I wasted between 15 and 20 years of my life
campaigning for the right to join the Labour Party.
In those days, if you applied to join the Labour Party and gave a Northern Ireland address, you were bluntly informed that Labour did not organise in NI and you were advised to contact the SDLP, the Catholic Nationalist Party!
Fine if you were a Catholic and a Nationalist, which most people were not!
The Campaign for Labour Representation wrote to every MP in the House of Commons; we spoke to numerous Constituency Labour Parties; and we lobbied the Labour Annual Conference every year in Blackpool or Brighton or Bournemouth or wherever.
Our greatest apparent convert to the cause was Mo Mowlam! She accepted the argument that if Labour was governing Northern Ireland, surely the electorate had a right to vote for or against the party of government. Wasn’t that what representative government meant?
And then. . … Someone had a word in Mo Mowlam’s ear!
And when she became Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, suddenly she had forgotten all those arguments about democratic accountability.
It had been made clear to her that Labour would never ever organise in the North of Ireland.
Nor will it.
Young people still stand as Socialist Alternative or People Before Profit in Belfast or Derry, and I applaud them, but they get nowhere.
Kate Hoey (typically a Trotskyite now turned Baroness and a rabid TUV Unionist!) was sent in to destroy the Campaign for Labour Representation, but the truth is that although working class Catholics were seriously interested in the possibility of participating in UK politics, working class Protestants were not!
As to the Local Assembly at Stormont, if the DUP endorses Michelle O’NEILL as First Minister, it will have done more to cement the Union of Northern Ireland and Great Britain than any Unionist Party to date.
Sinn Féin has a cast iron commitment to the Good Friday Agreement which enshrines the principle of consent, and Michelle has signed up to it.
With a probable Sinn Féin Taoiseach in the next Irish Government (Mary Lou) and a Sinn Féin First Minister in Belfast, interesting times lie ahead.
Postscript:
How are you going to get rid of us, Charles? By what mechanism? And is the King to be consulted!
Father Quinlan I do hope I haven’t upset you by being “somewhat forthright “ but I abhor ambiguity.
Sadly ‘we’ are so spastic that we have no mechanism for getting rid of you. You will have to do that yourselves, but I fear you are NOT so stupid as the wretched Sc*tch and will put pragmatism before emotion.
The King, as ever, will do precisely what he is told.
One of the most powerful political songs of my youth was “Alternative Ulster” by Stiff Little Fingers – a yelp of protest that ordinary people, and especially the young, were being screwed by the politics and violence of the sectarian big men. Unfortunately although the bombs and guns have largely gone, the toxic politics remain.
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Why on earth are still in Northern Ireland. We should by rights have got out more than a century in either 1914 or 1918.
No Englishman I know of gives a ‘tinker’s cuss’ about the wretched place. For the past fifty years and more it has, in short, been an astonishingly expensive embarrassment.
It time to move on, haven’t we enough troubles of our own?
Mixed feelings about this. In many ways, it’s more trouble than it’s worth. And the Unionists seem to believe that they can be both a special case and treated exactly the same as everyone else in the UK (surely some contradictions in there – just as there are with all the unequal devolutions). There’s always a cost to being special.
On the other hand, it’s not certain that the republic really wants them back right now and we should support majority self-determination. But the republic has changed beyond recognition since the 1970s and the objections to ultimate reunification can’t be as strong as they once were.
I’m surprised that a committed imperial historian like you doesn’t have some flickering nostalgia for some of the great Irish regiments that featured so often in our great battles.
Most of those “great Irish regiments” were disbanded in 1922. Those that remain in the British Army are almost unrecognisable thanks to incessant amalgamations!
However I did recently visit the former Regimental Depot of the late 88th Foot,The Connaught Rangers, or “Devil’s Own”, and was very pleasantly surprised by how very little if anything had really changed!
However the time for nostalgia is over and as soon as the people of Northern Ireland can be weaned off the umbilical cord of astonishing English largesse, the better for all concerned. In such a progressive paradise as the Irish Republic they can only possibly prosper.
It’s astonishing. Here we have a community of people loyal to the United Kingdom, and who have made immense sacrifices in that country’s interests. Yet there are many in the rest of the UK who either don’t give a damn, or openly favour that community’s opponents.
As an Englishman, it makes me ashamed. Given the way we’ve consistently betrayed the Unionists, perhaps they really would be better off joining the South. At least some of us here in England would rue the day.
You do not take into account the deep feelings of many Unionists (I am not one) who consider themselves as British as those living in Finchley. Isn’t there a line in a play that goes something like: ‘History, it seems, is to blame.’
I have taken into account the Unionists and without wishing in anyway to brag have had considerable experience of them in the past.
Although I have an iota of sympathy for them, we the English had indulged them for long enough, and should not waste a scintilla of grief on disposing of them. They have had more that fifty years to sort themselves out and rejoin the civilised world and have abjectly failed to do so.
Enough is enough, as the ‘blessed’ Oliver Cromwell would have said “For God’s sake GO”.
Childlike view. What’s the point of maintaining army regiments if the first response by the officer class is to surrender. Bring on the Kingdom of Surrey. Perfection.
If your figures are accurate, which I doubt, then the Provisional Irish Republican Army were really quite efficient, weren’t they?
What are your sources?
It’s the Wikibeast article on Operation Banner. Apparently another 719 died of “other causes”. Considering that is was over a period of about 35 years it’s hardly the Somme. The J*ws, Cypriots, Malay Chinese, and Ar*bs all did better on an annualised basis.
Where the IRA did brilliantly, almost equalling the fabled Assassins of 10-13th centuries was the audacious attack on the Grand Hotel Brighton which came within a whisker of decapitating the British state as you may well recall?
By comparison during the nano-war of 1919 -1921 about 180-200 were killed in action whilst another 180 died of Spanish flu, and another 40 odd killed themselves for some other inexplicable reason?…the weather perhaps?
I now feel the same.
The most persuasive factor for me has been the misbehaviour of Northern Ireland’s NHS GPs. Every 5 years they have a collective tantrum like a 3 year old in a supermarket deprived of a bag of sweets.
They point to the higher salaries of Ireland’s GP and demand parity. The UK Government typically gives in and funds a special payment.
The whole province has become accustomed to special treatment and high State spending.
Your reply shows that you know little of Oliver Cromwell.
Please do not presume to speak for “we English”. I’m as English as you, and while I bear you no personal animus, I find your opinion on this subject appalling.
That is perhaps the most interesting remark that you’ve made recently.
I would be delighted if you would care to expand on such a bon mot!
I have been rereading Roger Scruton’s book ‘England: an Elegy’, published in 2000.
It is extremely moving and helped me to understand why the Labour Movement abandoned us to our fate.
C P Snow would have no truck with that weasel word ‘British’ which he rightly took to be a euphemism for ‘English’.
Just what is it that “we” can no longer afford?
As you know Britishness was a ‘construct’ that resulted from 1707 & 1801. It worked reasonably well up until 1914, and even survived our entry into the Common Market/EU in 1973.
However all changed with Blair’s implementation of his devolution plans. Whatever his motives, he either deliberately or inadvertently ‘killed’ the Union and with it Britishness.
A plethora of nationalist pygmies sprang from the ground, half formed, in Scotland and Wales. Worse, England for the first time in centuries was suddenly aware of the fiscal cost of these greedy, needy ‘pygmies’ who cursed us with one hand whilst begging with the other.
Having lived through all this I am quite content for England to jettison these peoples if they so wish and with it ANY fiscal responsibility for them. Am I being unreasonable?
No, as usual you are not being unreasonable.
I never met Maurice Cowling, but I read him and formed a very great respect for him. In particular, his book “The Impact of Hitler: British Parties and British Politics 1933 -1940” made an indelible impression on me.
Apart from Cowling and Scruton, the other one is Michael Oakeshott.
There was a time when the Tories really were the natural party of government.
You may not give a tinker’s cuss about Northern Ireland, but I’m an Englishman too, and I do care. I happen to believe we owe a debt to Ulster Unionists for their loyalty, and not least (as Winston Churchill pointed out) their loyalty during the Second World War.
I’m an Englishman, from Lincolnshire. I care passionately about every region of the Union. My identity is British, not English.
John Walsh
9 months ago
In a few years,Ireland will be a muslim majority country, the so-called “troubles” will be replaced by a new form of trouble.The protestants and catholics are still fighting while the Titanic is sinking fast.
The difference between Ireland’s position and the UK’s was that Ireland recognised from the beginning that unless the UK was part of a common market with the EU a border would have to go somewhere, and that no amount of non-existent technology would ameliorate a land border that runs through kitchens and farms.
They would clearly have preferred Theresa May’s deal which would have addressed unionist concerns about differential treatment for Northern Ireland, although North-South trade has expanded massively following the Johnson deal.
I’m struggling to see how acting in the interest of your citizens is in any way appalling.
David Lindsay
9 months ago
Jim Allister’s parents were from County Monaghan. How many of that mind are almost literally irredentist, coming off the nearly vanished Protestant minorities in the three Ulster countries that were allocated to the Free State? Still, the old joke about “the workers united will never be defeated” has been that no one would ever find out whether or not it was true. But had we reckoned without action co-ordinated among 16 trade unions in Northern Ireland?
The DUP are not Tories. That was the UUP. The DUP is a thoroughly populist affair in relation to its target electors. Offer it enough money for them, and it will sign up to almost anything. Including a First Minister who believes the IRA Army Council to be the sovereign body throughout Ireland. And including the permanent regulatory alignment of the United Kingdom with the European Union, because what has been announced cannot work any other way, and it is on this that the British Government has insisted. You can be an Ulster Unionist, or you can be a Brexiteer. But you cannot be both.
When and where did Michelle O’Neill say that she believes the IRA Army Council to be, as you put it: “the sovereign body throughout Ireland”?
That’s just stupid, from a Republican or any other standpoint.
Jonathan Story
9 months ago
Question: Is the UK sovereign, yes or no; Any agreement which infringes UK powers to do what is best for itself is illegitimate; That’s it.
Brian Doyle
9 months ago
This is all academic as the ongoing demographic changes guarantees that
Re unification is inevitable
However another massive force is rapidly swinging in favour of a United Ireland
And ‘It’s the Economy Stupid ”
If ones Cares to study and compare the economic performance of both the UK
and the Republic then it soon becomes apparent that Whilst the UK becomes poorer and poorer
The reverse is true of the Republic
If you take GDP / Head of population
Then the Republic is racing away from the UK
And should you care to factor in the 3 P,s
to the GDP data then the difference is a chasm
The 3 P,s are considered to present a more realistic picture as it affords one
To reasonabley accurately predict how the GDP will
Be within the next 5 to 10 yrs
And when one does so then the gap
Becomes huge
Therefore Unionists clinging to their precious Union shall prove to be acceptance of ever increasing poverty and deprivation
Remember
‘ The grass being greener on the other side of the fence ‘
Whilst the Republic increases it’s wealth
And Well Being
The 3 P,s to factor in to GDP are
Inflation and in main derived from the relevant surrounding loci
Cost of living and once more from the surrounding loci
Thirdly and by far the most importantly
Productivity The Republic consistently
Has exceptional high productivity
The UK pathetically stuck in the doldrums
For 2022 The Republic showed that when the 3 P,s factored in that indeed they were the Richest Nation globally
With a fig.of $ 138,427 per head of population
I not going to embarrass any UK citizens
Or Unionists as to what the UK figure is
But suffice to say it is embarrassingly way way down the league
I don’t know where you live, but I’m in Derry and the Donegal/Sligo folk would think you were on some fairly strong medication to propound the above. Health, housing, education, homelessness, mica damage, not to get started on the enormous backlash against Leo and his midnight dumping of illegals are all very problematic in Eire. Small towns and villages doubled or tripled in size by young men from the Middle East and N Africa have not gone down well as any search online will tell you.
Most of the revenue from foreign companies using Ireland as a tax dodge take their profits home with them. Dublin is certainly a hotspot but not for the vast numbers who can’t afford to live there but must commute from Athlone or Naas.
But the dream obviously continues – good luck with it.
Care to explain UK debt mountain of £2.7 Trillion, budget deficit and the Balance sheet shows liabilities in excess of assets by £ 8.6 Trillion
Once you do go at look at the similar for the Rebulic, who for the last 2 yrs producing budgetary surpluses and being put into a Citizens Sovereign Wealth fund
Anyway in conversation with a few learned persons in the Rebulic
Who inform me there a growing number of The Republic,s people
Who do not want re unification
Saying they are lazy, opionated , dangerous and more importantly the huge cost for the Rebulic if they had
To level up NI
Monies more and more are beginning to realise
As for strong medication tis the UK
who well and truly on and addicted to
In their delusional fantasies of glory,
Empire, economic and military might
Well the awful truth is that to all intents and purposes The UK
technically bankrupt
Next fiscal global crisis shall bring matters to a head by way of UK going cap in hand to the IMF
Who shall only give loan facilities with onerous conditions and interest rates all noatter which Political party in power
Warren Buffet one of the World’s greatest investors knows all I speak off and his sound advice to any with
UK assets is but slowly but surely
Divest themselves from the UK
Stating that Bankruptcy is always long in the making but impacts and becomes reality with frightening speed
These are simple facts you now have 2 choices
1) Come back with verified data from reputable sources that say otherwise
2 ) Continue with your delusions
With or without chemical assistance
Reality is all that can possibly exit
Why- because anything else can only
Be a product of imagination
Didn’t we, the ever generous UK make a make an astonishing £3.21 loan to the Irish Republic in 2010-11?
It was repaid in full in 2021, but there appears to have been little or NO acknowledgment of this generosity from the Irish Republic that I have detected.
However you failed to add that other than Iceland
Ireland was the 2nd country to put
The banking crash behind them then go onto create excellent productivity gains
The one and only way to create wealth is mainly by productivity
Something that the UK is so ill equipped to do so
Due to its Archaic FTP voting system
Poor education singularly failing to produce the skills for a modern successful Economy
Far less infrastructure
Oh by the way how’s HS2 going
In terms of
Budget adherence
Program adherence
Km operating
Take a wee look at what China has achieved in HS rail
I do believe England invented the word ‘ Coolie ‘ to label the Chinese with
But me thinks the Master has become ‘ The Coolie ‘
And China now very much the master
Particularly in matters of modern fit for purpose Rail Infrastructure
Go check the facts and tell me England not a nation of inept ‘ Coolies ‘ these days
After all you invented such terminology
You seem to have a very strange syntax, a remarkably curious way of laying out, and a unique grammatical style. Now, I’m not suggesting for a moment that your figures are wrong; but I can’t help but wonder if you’re a badly written AI or perhaps a second language speaking mischievous little imp. . . . .hmm. . . .
I must admit to a certain feeling of schadenfreude when reading this.
Having spent 700 years getting rid of us how on earth did ‘you’ allow Sinbad & Co to overrun the place in less than 10 years may I ask?
If the Republic is so prosperous, it’s curious that opinion polls (and they’re fallible, I admit) show no enthusiasm for reunification.
It’s very simple. A sustained majority for a united Ireland will mean just that. But a sustained majority for the Union, as we have now, will mean the status quo.
Happily, these things are now decided via the ballot box, not the nail bomb. Long may that continue.
You’re not really naive enough to believe that the Irish GDP figures are based on real productivity and sustainable are you ? It’s almost entirely based on massive tax avoidance schemes for large US companies which the EU will not indefinitely tolerate (and the US may tire of too).
Do you seriously believe that Ireland is wealthier than countries like Switzerland ?
Enjoy the boom while it lasts. But remember it won’t be forever.
Robert White
9 months ago
And yet, they [the Irish government] were not prepared to compromise themselves, whether that meant enforcing some controls on the sovereign border between Northern Ireland and the Republic — or, indeed, between themselves and the rest of the EU.
But why on earth would the Republic drive a wedge between itself and the ‘wider EU’ because of David Cameron’s referendum? No one in the republic voted for Brexit, obviously; the tragedy is, neither did Northern Ireland.
Abdullah Khan
9 months ago
I love Bounties
UnHerd Reader
9 months ago
So much wrong with this article.
1. On giving Johnson credit for the deal. No way would a Johnson government have been able to win the concessions Sunak did. EU didn’t trust Johnson so perception of trade and divergency risks on the EU side was much higher. Also, Johnson’s main inspiration for getting a deal was to win the general election, and not to help people and businesses in Northern Ireland. It’s not good to give someone credit when their motivations are self-serving.
2. Article claims there has been too much blame on the DUP. This deal is akin to the NI-only backstop the EU offered May but who rejected it in favour of the UK backstop because of DUP opposition. Also, you’re implying that the DUP speak for the people of Northern Ireland. The only people quoted in this article are from the DUP, so there is a strong element of bias in the piece. The majority of voters and business people in Northern Ireland opposed Brexit and supported NI Protocol and Windsor Framework. You also don’t challenge the DUP’s belief that they thought it was possible to support a hard Brexit promoted by English nationalists without having any implications for Northern Ireland.
3. Irish government acting irresponsibly. There couldn’t have been any border infrastructure in Ireland as most of the communities living around the border regions are staunch republicans, hence the security risk. Yes perhaps there were contingency measures in place for checks between Ireland and single market but there was already a solution in place in the shape of the NI protocol, which was only opposed by hard-line unionists in NI.
An interesting idea for an article would be if the DUP can’t trust London and public services in Northern Ireland are a complete shambles, what is it about the Union that wants to make them remain part of it?
“What is it about the Union that wants to make them remain part of it?”
Their profound sense of British identity, I suppose, rooted in history, culture and religion, and cemented by decades of resistance to a loathsome terrorist organisation.
But I do agree that, given how we in England have consistently let down the Unionists, their loyalty to the UK is little short of remarkable.
NB I would obviously condemn terrorism on *either* side of the conflict.
Suzanne Bhayro
9 months ago
It’s not true that the “Spartans” were at fault.
Every brexiteer including the Spartans, knew that the EU was using the border issues as a big stick with which to hit the UK. Every brexiteer, including the Spartans, knew that the UK just needed to leave the whole Irish island as it’s always been… And let the EU do what IT feels necessary to protect ITSELF. But we had a government without the courage to do the obvious!
Apart from the Spartans, we still have a PM, government, and a HoC that are Cowards, continuing to Kowtow to the EU on absolutely every issue that affects the United Kingdom’s interests.
David Lewis
9 months ago
Any ‘union’ involves (at least) two parties and the other party’s patience is running out. NI is a basket case maintained by charitable donations from GB (or so my English friends tell me). The latest compassionate bung of over £3billion has languished in a bank account because those quarrelsome Irishmen STILL can’t get their act together to form a committee (loosely called a ‘government’ over here) to decide how to spend it. It may be that a united Ireland eventually comes about not because Irishmen finally agree to settle their differences, but because Englishmen, Welshmen and Scotsmen (if still relevant) file for divorce.
Main Edition
US
FR
Ah, we pine for those prelapsarian days before 2016, when power-sharing worked like a dream, and when unionists and nationalists joined hands in joyful dancing…
Except it was never like that. Power-sharing _never_ worked. What one side proposed, the other opposed. Just because. It was permanent gridlock. But then, it was deliberately designed that way.
The only way out is to reorient Northern Irish politics to a left-right divide, rather than a unionist-nationalist divide. And that will only happen when Labour decides to contest elections in Northern Ireland.
So quit bellyaching about Brexit, Mr. McTague, and tell Starmer to extract a digit.
The other way out is a united Ireland. I doubt that will be a popular view here, but it will get rid of the “Brexit issues”.
The way the demographics are going, that seems like a real possibility within a reasonable timespan. What the EU will look like if/when it happens is another matter.
Nobody outside N Ireland seems to understand that we will never vote to be outside the Union as long as we are given the huge welfare support that is delivered from Westminster. This region is unfortunately economically weak and always has been. Belfast is a different world from the rest of Ulster and is still a Pygmy in comparison to most major English cities. Derry, where I now live, has an employment sector wherein nearly 60% of economically active people work for the state in one way or another. Go figure!
Benefits for OAPs, low-income working families and the unemployed are vastly higher in the Republic than in NI, but so are income taxes. It’s been estimated that applying the tax and benefit structure of the RoI to NI would leave over 70% of people in NI better off AND reduce the need for a subvention by about a billion. Whether the better off 30% would pay for it is moot….
More urgently for NI, it has some of the best grammar schools and the worst school dropout rates in the UK, with far fewer people with third level qualifications than the RoI. Regardless of whether NI remains in the UK or not, keeping working-class kids in education to boost economic activity, productivity and reduce dependency on HMG for a subvention ought to be the #1 priority for the Assembly.
Aren’t these vaunted Grammar Schools still entirely SECTARIAN?
More mixed than they used to be but still with a religious ethos (and generally strong academic results). I was always a fan of the integrated sector but TBH the much, much bigger issue is keeping people in education long enough to be productive in skilled jobs.
I happen to know a couple of teachers at our finest Public Schools, who only comparatively recently left the bosom of the NI educational system. Both are indelibly stamped with that “ religious ethos” that you speak of.
Not a good report particularly when you consider that WE*are paying for this nonsense.
(*The ever generous English taxpayer.)
Certainly not the Royal Belfast Academical Institution (“Inst”) which was established in 1810 specifically as a NON sectarian school welcoming boys of all religions (including Jews).
Also Methodist College Belfast (“Methody”), which despite its name has always welcomed boys and girls of different faiths.
My parents went to Methody (neither of them was Methodist) but sent me to Inst. In front of our gates is a statue of a fiery Presbyterian preacher who objected vigorously to what we call today ‘integrated education ‘.
He stands with his backside to Inst and we called him “the Black Man”! An epithet which was not racist but purely malicious.
There are Catholic Grammar Schools, and a friend of mine teaches in one. He assures me that there is no question of excluding non-Catholics. On the contrary, they are welcomed in increasing numbers.
What did you say?
“Grammar Schools still entirely sectarian”!
For once, Charles, you are sadly misinformed.
I don’t wish to sound too pedantic but despite those two magnificent examples you quote, according to that impeccable source ‘ The Belfast Telegraph’:- “More than 90% of schools in Northern Ireland are still segregated by religion.” QED?
Your question referred to “these vaunted Grammar Schools” which form less than 10 per cent of schools in Northern Ireland.
I do not deny and bitterly regret that educational apartheid still prevails.
But not in the grammar schools. QED.
Agreed,I should initially have been much more precise!
However I think we both agree that until this “educational apartheid” is abolished there will be little real progress.
Yes, we do agree, as so often, to my very great surprise.
But there are no “Protestant” grammar schools (or indeed Primary schools).
The Roman Catholic Church insists (quite understandably) on inculcating a “Catholic ethos” by preserving a separate Catholic educational system. Hence schools tend to be labelled “Catholic Grammar” and so on.
Where do you get your figures from?
I don’t understand your final sentence.
Again the Wikibeast seems to provide a fairly comprehensive list.
Many of the ‘Protestant’ ones were ‘silent’ on religion, so I was a little uncertain if they were non-denominational or not. Cynically perhaps,I assumed they were/are ‘hiding’ something!
Yes it is odd we are so often in agreement. Personally I have always found Englishmen get on far better with the Irish than they do with the Welsh and Sc*tch. I put it down to the Irish sense of humour! Something that is somewhat lacking with the others.
You’re right. Reforming education ought to be top priority. But since the Good Friday Agreement came into force, b-all has happened. Which illustrates my point about permanent gridlock.
Your last sentence makes perfect sense, in view of what you say in your first sentence.
Or a united Ireland within the UK. It won’t be popular there, but it too will get rid of the Brexit issues. Fat chance I know but might as well say it
I suggest you do a lap of the Republic spruiking that model.
“Bellyaching”? It was an excellent analysis of political realism. Which your comment is not, because Labour are not going to contest elections in Northern Ireland! “Tell Starmer”?! That’ll do it obviously…
Excellent analysis? Oh, please. It was just another Remoaner whinge.
Although he can be somewhat forthright in expressing his views, I fear that Charles Stanhope is right when he says that most English people really don’t give a toss about us in Northern Ireland.
You may recall that there was a Campaign for Labour Representation in Northern Ireland. I don’t remember if you were involved, but I wasted between 15 and 20 years of my life
campaigning for the right to join the Labour Party.
In those days, if you applied to join the Labour Party and gave a Northern Ireland address, you were bluntly informed that Labour did not organise in NI and you were advised to contact the SDLP, the Catholic Nationalist Party!
Fine if you were a Catholic and a Nationalist, which most people were not!
The Campaign for Labour Representation wrote to every MP in the House of Commons; we spoke to numerous Constituency Labour Parties; and we lobbied the Labour Annual Conference every year in Blackpool or Brighton or Bournemouth or wherever.
Our greatest apparent convert to the cause was Mo Mowlam! She accepted the argument that if Labour was governing Northern Ireland, surely the electorate had a right to vote for or against the party of government. Wasn’t that what representative government meant?
And then. . … Someone had a word in Mo Mowlam’s ear!
And when she became Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, suddenly she had forgotten all those arguments about democratic accountability.
It had been made clear to her that Labour would never ever organise in the North of Ireland.
Nor will it.
Young people still stand as Socialist Alternative or People Before Profit in Belfast or Derry, and I applaud them, but they get nowhere.
Kate Hoey (typically a Trotskyite now turned Baroness and a rabid TUV Unionist!) was sent in to destroy the Campaign for Labour Representation, but the truth is that although working class Catholics were seriously interested in the possibility of participating in UK politics, working class Protestants were not!
As to the Local Assembly at Stormont, if the DUP endorses Michelle O’NEILL as First Minister, it will have done more to cement the Union of Northern Ireland and Great Britain than any Unionist Party to date.
Sinn Féin has a cast iron commitment to the Good Friday Agreement which enshrines the principle of consent, and Michelle has signed up to it.
With a probable Sinn Féin Taoiseach in the next Irish Government (Mary Lou) and a Sinn Féin First Minister in Belfast, interesting times lie ahead.
Postscript:
How are you going to get rid of us, Charles? By what mechanism? And is the King to be consulted!
Father Quinlan I do hope I haven’t upset you by being “somewhat forthright “ but I abhor ambiguity.
Sadly ‘we’ are so spastic that we have no mechanism for getting rid of you. You will have to do that yourselves, but I fear you are NOT so stupid as the wretched Sc*tch and will put pragmatism before emotion.
The King, as ever, will do precisely what he is told.
Very well said, Sir! I too abhor ambiguity.
One of the most powerful political songs of my youth was “Alternative Ulster” by Stiff Little Fingers – a yelp of protest that ordinary people, and especially the young, were being screwed by the politics and violence of the sectarian big men. Unfortunately although the bombs and guns have largely gone, the toxic politics remain.
Why on earth are still in Northern Ireland. We should by rights have got out more than a century in either 1914 or 1918.
No Englishman I know of gives a ‘tinker’s cuss’ about the wretched place. For the past fifty years and more it has, in short, been an astonishingly expensive embarrassment.
It time to move on, haven’t we enough troubles of our own?
Mixed feelings about this. In many ways, it’s more trouble than it’s worth. And the Unionists seem to believe that they can be both a special case and treated exactly the same as everyone else in the UK (surely some contradictions in there – just as there are with all the unequal devolutions). There’s always a cost to being special.
On the other hand, it’s not certain that the republic really wants them back right now and we should support majority self-determination. But the republic has changed beyond recognition since the 1970s and the objections to ultimate reunification can’t be as strong as they once were.
I’m surprised that a committed imperial historian like you doesn’t have some flickering nostalgia for some of the great Irish regiments that featured so often in our great battles.
Most of those “great Irish regiments” were disbanded in 1922. Those that remain in the British Army are almost unrecognisable thanks to incessant amalgamations!
However I did recently visit the former Regimental Depot of the late 88th Foot,The Connaught Rangers, or “Devil’s Own”, and was very pleasantly surprised by how very little if anything had really changed!
However the time for nostalgia is over and as soon as the people of Northern Ireland can be weaned off the umbilical cord of astonishing English largesse, the better for all concerned. In such a progressive paradise as the Irish Republic they can only possibly prosper.
It’s astonishing. Here we have a community of people loyal to the United Kingdom, and who have made immense sacrifices in that country’s interests. Yet there are many in the rest of the UK who either don’t give a damn, or openly favour that community’s opponents.
As an Englishman, it makes me ashamed. Given the way we’ve consistently betrayed the Unionists, perhaps they really would be better off joining the South. At least some of us here in England would rue the day.
You do not take into account the deep feelings of many Unionists (I am not one) who consider themselves as British as those living in Finchley. Isn’t there a line in a play that goes something like: ‘History, it seems, is to blame.’
I have taken into account the Unionists and without wishing in anyway to brag have had considerable experience of them in the past.
Although I have an iota of sympathy for them, we the English had indulged them for long enough, and should not waste a scintilla of grief on disposing of them. They have had more that fifty years to sort themselves out and rejoin the civilised world and have abjectly failed to do so.
Enough is enough, as the ‘blessed’ Oliver Cromwell would have said “For God’s sake GO”.
Childlike view. What’s the point of maintaining army regiments if the first response by the officer class is to surrender. Bring on the Kingdom of Surrey. Perfection.
722 British soldiers were killed in Northern Ireland and a further 6,000 or so wounded.
It is you who are the child sir! And a most ungrateful one at that.
If your figures are accurate, which I doubt, then the Provisional Irish Republican Army were really quite efficient, weren’t they?
What are your sources?
Silly me I had forgotten that the words AR*B and J* W are verboten!
It’s the Wikibeast article on Operation Banner. Apparently another 719 died of “other causes”. Considering that is was over a period of about 35 years it’s hardly the Somme. The J*ws, Cypriots, Malay Chinese, and Ar*bs all did better on an annualised basis.
Where the IRA did brilliantly, almost equalling the fabled Assassins of 10-13th centuries was the audacious attack on the Grand Hotel Brighton which came within a whisker of decapitating the British state as you may well recall?
By comparison during the nano-war of 1919 -1921 about 180-200 were killed in action whilst another 180 died of Spanish flu, and another 40 odd killed themselves for some other inexplicable reason?…the weather perhaps?
Fascinating! Thanks, I’ll check it out.
I now feel the same.
The most persuasive factor for me has been the misbehaviour of Northern Ireland’s NHS GPs. Every 5 years they have a collective tantrum like a 3 year old in a supermarket deprived of a bag of sweets.
They point to the higher salaries of Ireland’s GP and demand parity. The UK Government typically gives in and funds a special payment.
The whole province has become accustomed to special treatment and high State spending.
How very interesting. Thank you. The whole place seems to filled with ‘ ungrateful children’ such your GP’s and Mr Jeff Dudgeon above.
Just like the hormonal teenager it’s about time they ‘left home’ and ‘stood on their own two feet’.
Your reply shows that you know little of Oliver Cromwell.
Please do not presume to speak for “we English”. I’m as English as you, and while I bear you no personal animus, I find your opinion on this subject appalling.
Probably all the British people that live there and call it home?
Britishness is an anachronism and we can NO longer afford it.
That is perhaps the most interesting remark that you’ve made recently.
I would be delighted if you would care to expand on such a bon mot!
I have been rereading Roger Scruton’s book ‘England: an Elegy’, published in 2000.
It is extremely moving and helped me to understand why the Labour Movement abandoned us to our fate.
C P Snow would have no truck with that weasel word ‘British’ which he rightly took to be a euphemism for ‘English’.
Just what is it that “we” can no longer afford?
As you know Britishness was a ‘construct’ that resulted from 1707 & 1801. It worked reasonably well up until 1914, and even survived our entry into the Common Market/EU in 1973.
However all changed with Blair’s implementation of his devolution plans. Whatever his motives, he either deliberately or inadvertently ‘killed’ the Union and with it Britishness.
A plethora of nationalist pygmies sprang from the ground, half formed, in Scotland and Wales. Worse, England for the first time in centuries was suddenly aware of the fiscal cost of these greedy, needy ‘pygmies’ who cursed us with one hand whilst begging with the other.
Having lived through all this I am quite content for England to jettison these peoples if they so wish and with it ANY fiscal responsibility for them. Am I being unreasonable?
ps. Did you ever meet Maurice Cowling?
No, as usual you are not being unreasonable.
I never met Maurice Cowling, but I read him and formed a very great respect for him. In particular, his book “The Impact of Hitler: British Parties and British Politics 1933 -1940” made an indelible impression on me.
Apart from Cowling and Scruton, the other one is Michael Oakeshott.
There was a time when the Tories really were the natural party of government.
Long gone I’m afraid!
Bollards, Mr Stanhope. Pure, industrial bollards.
You may not give a tinker’s cuss about Northern Ireland, but I’m an Englishman too, and I do care. I happen to believe we owe a debt to Ulster Unionists for their loyalty, and not least (as Winston Churchill pointed out) their loyalty during the Second World War.
I’m an Englishman, from Lincolnshire. I care passionately about every region of the Union. My identity is British, not English.
In a few years,Ireland will be a muslim majority country, the so-called “troubles” will be replaced by a new form of trouble.The protestants and catholics are still fighting while the Titanic is sinking fast.
And what data to you have to make such a ridiculous statement
Somebodies Propaganda has been firmly planted into your mind
inshallah –
The difference between Ireland’s position and the UK’s was that Ireland recognised from the beginning that unless the UK was part of a common market with the EU a border would have to go somewhere, and that no amount of non-existent technology would ameliorate a land border that runs through kitchens and farms.
They would clearly have preferred Theresa May’s deal which would have addressed unionist concerns about differential treatment for Northern Ireland, although North-South trade has expanded massively following the Johnson deal.
I’m struggling to see how acting in the interest of your citizens is in any way appalling.
Jim Allister’s parents were from County Monaghan. How many of that mind are almost literally irredentist, coming off the nearly vanished Protestant minorities in the three Ulster countries that were allocated to the Free State? Still, the old joke about “the workers united will never be defeated” has been that no one would ever find out whether or not it was true. But had we reckoned without action co-ordinated among 16 trade unions in Northern Ireland?
The DUP are not Tories. That was the UUP. The DUP is a thoroughly populist affair in relation to its target electors. Offer it enough money for them, and it will sign up to almost anything. Including a First Minister who believes the IRA Army Council to be the sovereign body throughout Ireland. And including the permanent regulatory alignment of the United Kingdom with the European Union, because what has been announced cannot work any other way, and it is on this that the British Government has insisted. You can be an Ulster Unionist, or you can be a Brexiteer. But you cannot be both.
When and where did Michelle O’Neill say that she believes the IRA Army Council to be, as you put it: “the sovereign body throughout Ireland”?
That’s just stupid, from a Republican or any other standpoint.
Question: Is the UK sovereign, yes or no; Any agreement which infringes UK powers to do what is best for itself is illegitimate; That’s it.
This is all academic as the ongoing demographic changes guarantees that
Re unification is inevitable
However another massive force is rapidly swinging in favour of a United Ireland
And ‘It’s the Economy Stupid ”
If ones Cares to study and compare the economic performance of both the UK
and the Republic then it soon becomes apparent that Whilst the UK becomes poorer and poorer
The reverse is true of the Republic
If you take GDP / Head of population
Then the Republic is racing away from the UK
And should you care to factor in the 3 P,s
to the GDP data then the difference is a chasm
The 3 P,s are considered to present a more realistic picture as it affords one
To reasonabley accurately predict how the GDP will
Be within the next 5 to 10 yrs
And when one does so then the gap
Becomes huge
Therefore Unionists clinging to their precious Union shall prove to be acceptance of ever increasing poverty and deprivation
Remember
‘ The grass being greener on the other side of the fence ‘
Whilst the Republic increases it’s wealth
And Well Being
The 3 P,s to factor in to GDP are
Inflation and in main derived from the relevant surrounding loci
Cost of living and once more from the surrounding loci
Thirdly and by far the most importantly
Productivity The Republic consistently
Has exceptional high productivity
The UK pathetically stuck in the doldrums
For 2022 The Republic showed that when the 3 P,s factored in that indeed they were the Richest Nation globally
With a fig.of $ 138,427 per head of population
I not going to embarrass any UK citizens
Or Unionists as to what the UK figure is
But suffice to say it is embarrassingly way way down the league
I don’t know where you live, but I’m in Derry and the Donegal/Sligo folk would think you were on some fairly strong medication to propound the above. Health, housing, education, homelessness, mica damage, not to get started on the enormous backlash against Leo and his midnight dumping of illegals are all very problematic in Eire. Small towns and villages doubled or tripled in size by young men from the Middle East and N Africa have not gone down well as any search online will tell you.
Most of the revenue from foreign companies using Ireland as a tax dodge take their profits home with them. Dublin is certainly a hotspot but not for the vast numbers who can’t afford to live there but must commute from Athlone or Naas.
But the dream obviously continues – good luck with it.
Raw economic facts appear to hurt you
Care to explain UK debt mountain of £2.7 Trillion, budget deficit and the Balance sheet shows liabilities in excess of assets by £ 8.6 Trillion
Once you do go at look at the similar for the Rebulic, who for the last 2 yrs producing budgetary surpluses and being put into a Citizens Sovereign Wealth fund
Anyway in conversation with a few learned persons in the Rebulic
Who inform me there a growing number of The Republic,s people
Who do not want re unification
Saying they are lazy, opionated , dangerous and more importantly the huge cost for the Rebulic if they had
To level up NI
Monies more and more are beginning to realise
As for strong medication tis the UK
who well and truly on and addicted to
In their delusional fantasies of glory,
Empire, economic and military might
Well the awful truth is that to all intents and purposes The UK
technically bankrupt
Next fiscal global crisis shall bring matters to a head by way of UK going cap in hand to the IMF
Who shall only give loan facilities with onerous conditions and interest rates all noatter which Political party in power
Warren Buffet one of the World’s greatest investors knows all I speak off and his sound advice to any with
UK assets is but slowly but surely
Divest themselves from the UK
Stating that Bankruptcy is always long in the making but impacts and becomes reality with frightening speed
These are simple facts you now have 2 choices
1) Come back with verified data from reputable sources that say otherwise
2 ) Continue with your delusions
With or without chemical assistance
Reality is all that can possibly exit
Why- because anything else can only
Be a product of imagination
Didn’t we, the ever generous UK make a make an astonishing £3.21 loan to the Irish Republic in 2010-11?
It was repaid in full in 2021, but there appears to have been little or NO acknowledgment of this generosity from the Irish Republic that I have detected.
To be fair, I wouldn’t be overwhelmed with gratitude for a loan of £3.21 either.
Well spotted!
However you failed to add that other than Iceland
Ireland was the 2nd country to put
The banking crash behind them then go onto create excellent productivity gains
The one and only way to create wealth is mainly by productivity
Something that the UK is so ill equipped to do so
Due to its Archaic FTP voting system
Poor education singularly failing to produce the skills for a modern successful Economy
Far less infrastructure
Oh by the way how’s HS2 going
In terms of
Budget adherence
Program adherence
Km operating
Take a wee look at what China has achieved in HS rail
I do believe England invented the word ‘ Coolie ‘ to label the Chinese with
But me thinks the Master has become ‘ The Coolie ‘
And China now very much the master
Particularly in matters of modern fit for purpose Rail Infrastructure
Go check the facts and tell me England not a nation of inept ‘ Coolies ‘ these days
After all you invented such terminology
You seem to have a very strange syntax, a remarkably curious way of laying out, and a unique grammatical style. Now, I’m not suggesting for a moment that your figures are wrong; but I can’t help but wonder if you’re a badly written AI or perhaps a second language speaking mischievous little imp. . . . .hmm. . . .
I must admit to a certain feeling of schadenfreude when reading this.
Having spent 700 years getting rid of us how on earth did ‘you’ allow Sinbad & Co to overrun the place in less than 10 years may I ask?
Brian, the Republic is certainly better off than the north but those numbers really do flatter to deceive
If the Republic is so prosperous, it’s curious that opinion polls (and they’re fallible, I admit) show no enthusiasm for reunification.
It’s very simple. A sustained majority for a united Ireland will mean just that. But a sustained majority for the Union, as we have now, will mean the status quo.
Happily, these things are now decided via the ballot box, not the nail bomb. Long may that continue.
You’re not really naive enough to believe that the Irish GDP figures are based on real productivity and sustainable are you ? It’s almost entirely based on massive tax avoidance schemes for large US companies which the EU will not indefinitely tolerate (and the US may tire of too).
Do you seriously believe that Ireland is wealthier than countries like Switzerland ?
Enjoy the boom while it lasts. But remember it won’t be forever.
And yet, they [the Irish government] were not prepared to compromise themselves, whether that meant enforcing some controls on the sovereign border between Northern Ireland and the Republic — or, indeed, between themselves and the rest of the EU.
But why on earth would the Republic drive a wedge between itself and the ‘wider EU’ because of David Cameron’s referendum? No one in the republic voted for Brexit, obviously; the tragedy is, neither did Northern Ireland.
I love Bounties
So much wrong with this article.
1. On giving Johnson credit for the deal. No way would a Johnson government have been able to win the concessions Sunak did. EU didn’t trust Johnson so perception of trade and divergency risks on the EU side was much higher. Also, Johnson’s main inspiration for getting a deal was to win the general election, and not to help people and businesses in Northern Ireland. It’s not good to give someone credit when their motivations are self-serving.
2. Article claims there has been too much blame on the DUP. This deal is akin to the NI-only backstop the EU offered May but who rejected it in favour of the UK backstop because of DUP opposition. Also, you’re implying that the DUP speak for the people of Northern Ireland. The only people quoted in this article are from the DUP, so there is a strong element of bias in the piece. The majority of voters and business people in Northern Ireland opposed Brexit and supported NI Protocol and Windsor Framework. You also don’t challenge the DUP’s belief that they thought it was possible to support a hard Brexit promoted by English nationalists without having any implications for Northern Ireland.
3. Irish government acting irresponsibly. There couldn’t have been any border infrastructure in Ireland as most of the communities living around the border regions are staunch republicans, hence the security risk. Yes perhaps there were contingency measures in place for checks between Ireland and single market but there was already a solution in place in the shape of the NI protocol, which was only opposed by hard-line unionists in NI.
An interesting idea for an article would be if the DUP can’t trust London and public services in Northern Ireland are a complete shambles, what is it about the Union that wants to make them remain part of it?
“What is it about the Union that wants to make them remain part of it?”
Their profound sense of British identity, I suppose, rooted in history, culture and religion, and cemented by decades of resistance to a loathsome terrorist organisation.
But I do agree that, given how we in England have consistently let down the Unionists, their loyalty to the UK is little short of remarkable.
NB I would obviously condemn terrorism on *either* side of the conflict.
It’s not true that the “Spartans” were at fault.
Every brexiteer including the Spartans, knew that the EU was using the border issues as a big stick with which to hit the UK. Every brexiteer, including the Spartans, knew that the UK just needed to leave the whole Irish island as it’s always been… And let the EU do what IT feels necessary to protect ITSELF. But we had a government without the courage to do the obvious!
Apart from the Spartans, we still have a PM, government, and a HoC that are Cowards, continuing to Kowtow to the EU on absolutely every issue that affects the United Kingdom’s interests.
Any ‘union’ involves (at least) two parties and the other party’s patience is running out. NI is a basket case maintained by charitable donations from GB (or so my English friends tell me). The latest compassionate bung of over £3billion has languished in a bank account because those quarrelsome Irishmen STILL can’t get their act together to form a committee (loosely called a ‘government’ over here) to decide how to spend it. It may be that a united Ireland eventually comes about not because Irishmen finally agree to settle their differences, but because Englishmen, Welshmen and Scotsmen (if still relevant) file for divorce.