On Reforming Britain 3: The future of Northern Ireland

 I hadn't intended to cover this topic again so soon, but the resignation of Arlene Foster has led to speculation on the future of NI. As this Spectator article notes:

The challenge is two-fold in advance of 2022’s Assembly election. First, retain the support of those who believe the party has betrayed Unionism by failing to prevent the introduction of the Northern Ireland Protocol. Second, regain the support of that unaligned chunk of the electorate who previously lent them their vote come polling day, who have now been put off by the party’s attitude and vote Alliance, Ulster Unionist or not at all. Failure to achieve these two aims could allow Sinn Fein to become the largest party, a doomsday scenario.

It could well be the case that if Sinn Fein wins the 2022 Assembly election and they call for a border poll (which the UK is legally obliged to hold thanks to the Good Friday Agreement). If there is a yes vote this could cause protests and violence from the Unionists communities and a headache for London and Dublin (that would struggle to absorb the costs of subsidizing NI). It could then make sense to consider repartition NI, as I have previously discussed. Please see this post for more details on the logic behind and practicalities this plan would involve.

Below are two images of how this could look. The first is based on current Westminster/NI Assembly constituencies (red= retained by the UK, green= transferred to Ireland):



This second map is based on local council areas:







Both are similar to the north but differ to the south (notably in the second map the area transferred is not continuous. A final border may combine elements of both, based on the demographics at the time. It will be interesting to see what this year's census tells us about the distribution and makeup of the two communities. I would expect it would be more practical to use the local government areas than parliamentary constituencies though. The following table shows the area and populations each side would get: 
Again, this is based on the current stats, and no doubt there would be large changes in population in the event of a repartition as people moved across the new border (especially from West Belfast, which for practical reasons I have kept intact rather than creating a West Berlin-style enclave.

Further posts in this series will consider the future of Scotland and Wales in the UK.


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