Northern Ireland Politics: The Importance of a Strong Assembly and Unionist/Nationalist Accord

By Samantha Sharp On March 8, 2017 4 Comments

The following is a very good article from Bloomberg today emphasising the importance of a strong and stable Assembly in Northern Ireland.

The main points are as follows:

For the first time in Northern Ireland since it gained self governing powers nearly 100 years ago, the two main nationalist parties have won more seats than the two main unionist parties.
Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein: ‘The notion of a perpetual unionist party has been demolished’.
Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, a referendum on the reunification of Ireland can only be called if it is clear there are a majority of representatives in favour. The unionists are unlikely to allow such a referendum to take place but their influence, as the recent elections have shown, is gradually eroding.
Northern Ireland voted 56:44 to stay in the EU. Of those who are nationalist supporters, (often depicted as green in colour – to remember I just think of all the greenery that Ireland has), 88% were in favour of remaining. The unionist colour is orange. It’s a bit like football teams really and coming from the west coast of Scotland, I know that one!
Relations between the unionist parties and the nationalist parties are already very strained. Aside from the concerns over the botched green energy scheme (the one that Arlene Foster is receiving all the flack for), there are other issues. I’ll give you two of them: the unionists voted to leave the EU and the nationalists wanted to remain; the unionists were against gay marriage and the nationalists were not.
Another important point from this article and something that I was not previously aware of is that Northern Ireland are the second largest recipient of EU funds in terms of regional income. What then will happen when they are no longer part of the EU? Westminster will surely have to take up some of the slack but where will they get that money from? This is something that is going to have to be considered and voiced by Westminster in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations and as such, it is in the best interests of Northern Ireland to have a strong, cohesive and stable Assembly.

A little extra information from me to save you googling it:

Ireland was unified until 1920, whereupon the Government of Ireland Act was passed. It came into force on 3 May 1921. This Act provided for separate self government in Northern Ireland for the six north eastern counties that remained part of the UK. The remainder of Ireland became a Republic in its own right.

And here’s a good cartoon I found about the costly green energy scheme, of which you can read more on another one of my articles.

Here is the cartoon: