Thursday, July 01, 2021
Political Mayhem Thursday: The Fate of Northern Ireland
After 100 years as a part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland is adrift. Brexit effectively cleaved it economically from Great Britain, since the line between the EU and the UK now runs through the Irish Sea and leaves Northern Ireland awkwardly a functional part of the EU (along with the Republic of Ireland) while the rest of the UK is out. [For those like me who get confused by the nomenclature, the United Kingdom includes England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, while Great Britain refers to the island containing England, Scotland and Wales]
A great opinion piece in The NY Times yesterday by Susan McKay really does a great job of laying out the fate of this strange political entity. As Catholics become a majority-- even as religious affiliation fades-- it seems likely that Ireland will, finally, be unified. England will lose its last raw bit of empire. And that is all to the good.
An important question is whether or not Scotland will follow suit. The Scots voted against Brexit, and benefited greatly from the European Union (of course, England did, too, but just don't seem to care as much). The United Kingdom through the fit of pique that was Brexit, might soon be reduced to Wee England. And that is probably just fine, at least for the Irish and the Scots.
