Bzzt - wrong. I'm not suggesting that at all. I accept that the British have no strategic (or other) interest in Ireland. But they did at one point.
The North has been a liablity to them since 1969, or at least since 1972. The Brits are probably more desirous of 'pushing the Prods into the sea' than the most leprechaun-like 'irredentist' republcian falangist.
Nevertheless, the root of the conflict is well documented - and frankly bloody obvious. I invite to, in today's parlance, 'Google' the following term: "'carnival of reaction" +Ireland'.
When I get laid into the divisive specification for 'weighted majorities' and cross-community consenus in the assembly people regularly tell me that they're necessary becasue the people of NI aren't grown up enough to be trusted with power. They're wrong: the problem is the North isn't too much democracy - it's too little.
When people say that removing cross-community stuff 'would lead to unionist domination!' I say 'What do you think the border was for in the first place?'
Could it be that Northern Ireland is a fundamentally undemocratic carve-up? Perish the thought.
J...
On 2007-03-27 17:37:59 +0100 Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
> [WS:] What political causes do you have in mind? Are you suggesting,
> as
> Jason does, that the Brits are keen at maintaining the residual of
> their
> once great empire (formerly-Great Britain, as one columnist in
> Baltimore
> wryly commented) by keeping their grimy paws on the North? I do not
> find
> that very convincing, because the North looks more like a liability
> than an
> asset - at least from this side of the pond. Especially that the
> South
> seems to be doing quite well economically nowadays. And what other
> than the
> Brits political causes are there?
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