Of course they have influence. Control? No, of course not and rightly so. But they do have influence and an agreement regarding post brexit border between Ireland and UK, jointly presented to communities by both countries would go a long way to providing necessary reassurance.
I agree mate, zero control. Perhaps influence was the wrong word. N.I is uncontrollable. They could provide a framework as part of a negotitiation process similar to all party round table talks during the peace process inclusive of Unionists and Sinn Feinn and others. Then seek a mandate. That would however one would assume completely undermine the central negotiation approach of the UK government with the EU, but would as you have said promote self determination.
You have to understand the delicateness of the political ideology in N.I. The provisional IRA for example didn’t recognize the legitimacy of either UK goverment or the ROI goverment over the jurisdiction of a 32county Irish republic. That legacy stems from the first Dail in Ireland, which stated that in the case that if a 32 county Irish republic goverment couldn’t be convened through occupatiotion. Governance of the Irish Republic will revert to the army, I.e. the IRA Army Council.
The peace process protagonists from a republican perspetive convinced the army council, to abandon the armed struggle to pursue a political route to a United ireland. This has largely been the case.
What Brexit does, is threatens this homeostasis. The trigger of the war in Northern Ireland was the promotion of ethnic unionism over catholic rights. Essentially areas of catholic majorotes were Gerrymandered to return unionist majorities, to keep in place a unionist veto. This saw, Catholics having no civil rights in employment, housing, voteing or politics and kept them in the poverty trap, uneducated and second class citizens.
I mention this because tangents of history are repeating themselves. Tomorrow marks the second year, that the devolved power sharing executive has been shut down. Rule from Westminister is administered by a goverment at the whim of the DUP. Who intentionally won’t enter into power sharing devolved goverment in NI as they hold the balance of power in the UK, this completely Marjorie’s a nation isn’t mandate, Influencing NI politics. Very far from self determination. Secondly the British Goverment (DUP), are playing politics with one of the fundamental components of abandoning the armed struggle, the border.
Now if you are republican in West Belfast, you have no political representation, no devolved goverment, you feel you there is a unionist veto on your day to days affairs and a threat of an enforced border of partition, does that make you ,more or less likely to abandon the political route to a United Ireland.
The UK and Irish goverment have a subtle influence, but zero control in NI, I actually think both have been hubris in this regard. The UK or ROI will have zero say on events in NI ultmitely regardless of what agreement is reached on Brexit and borders but the process and outcome could be critical, that will be decided by the communities there.
I want to qualify the above, by saying I have keen interest in Irish history and have done much research on Northern Ireland and the war, i wholly abhor violence and pray things never get so bad as some of the times I’ve lived through on this island. My post is also from subjectively from one side of the communities perspective. To highlight one sides potential mindset or interrupting of events as they relate to Brexit, equally the same could be applied to unionists and loyalists and wouldn’t be a million miles off the same outcome. Thus is the delicateness in N.I.
It’s essentially what many describe here as the British and Irish goverments playing with fire.
