Monday, May 12, 2008
Breaking down the border
In the aftermath of last week’s Investment Conference, Tom McGurk’s been examining just what the North has to offer potential investors and taking a longer look at how the new political and economic realities are likely to impact on traditional unionist attitudes to the border.
Chris Donnelly @ 09:34 PM
Chris, surely this is the traditional line that we’ve come to expect from the ‘Sunday Provo’. I don’t imagine it will cut much ice with pan-Unionism.
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 10:16 PMYawn pisspoor diatribe and voodoo economics not even worth trotting out the arguments for frankly
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 10:45 PMThree telling contributions there lads.
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 11:45 PMAs usual, makes a leap on a partial argument that economy policy set from Dublin would be better than economic policy set from London.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 03:28 AMWow. Astounding that he got paid to write that.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 10:01 AMOn purely cold, hard rational terms his case is hard to argue against:
London and the South East dominate the UK economy to the deteriment of all other parts - NI worst of all. We are ridiculously out of kilter.
Macro-economic policy is in complete thrall tothe financial services engine and the rest of us can go hang.
It’s also true that a Belfast executive would have much more clout over a Dublin adminstration than it has ever had over a London one (and, to put it cynically, without the threat of conflict or a hung parliament, this influence will diminish further.)
BUT - despite all this the majority want to remain in the UK.
Interesting one for the market fundamentalists - people do not necessarily follow the money or the market. They have whims and feelings that are not logical and can’t be factored into a economic model.
Almost gives me a warm glow for unionism.... (Almost)
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 11:27 AMHe seems to be saying that anywhere with a land border should have that border removed as people on both sides in similar areas have similar economic interests.
Quite a redrawing of the world map…
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 11:40 AM“pan-Unionism” is there such a thing?
Regardless, the article may be yawn-worthy but that’s probably because most of its points are blatantly obvious and rely less on economic theory and more on basic common sense.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 12:08 PMMcGurk asks:
“...isn’t it time (unionists) took a closer and critical look at some of their more traditional political assumptions?”
The answer of the unionist posters on this sitre seems to be: Nevaaarr, nevaaarr, nevaaarr, nevaaarr!!!!
Of course the reality is that it doesn’t matter whether, to use Nevin’s phrase, McGurk’s argument “cuts any ice with pan-unionism”. (If indeed there is such a thing.) McGurk is just a commentator. It’s not his job to lead people or bring them to a new consciousness. It’s his job to try and read the runes as best he can, and give the punters five minutes’ worth of good reading. He doesn’t claim to be doing anything other than that. He does the latter very well. Future historians will decide how well he does the former.
It won’t be newspaper articles that cause unionists to “take a closer and critical look at some of their more traditional political assumptions”. It will be the hard facts of life - and the economy looms largest of all. It will be a fact that I think those in favour or reunification will warm to in the years ahead: forget nationalist rhetoric and just point out, at every opportunity (and there will be many) the sheer cost of partition and the union, both in terms of outgoings but more importantly, in terms of lost opportunity. And make the argument that unionism = poverty of ambition, poverty of spirit and indeed, actual (relative) poverty itself.
Of course for many, their unionism is about identity, and that is no small thing, but those in favour of reunification should hammer home the point that this identification comes at an unconscionable cost.
Nestor
“Interesting one for the market fundamentalists - people do not necessarily follow the money or the market.”
I’m far from a market fundamentalist, but it’s far too early to make this judgement. Let’s see where we are in twenty years.
Jon
“He seems to be saying that anywhere with a land border should have that border removed as people on both sides in similar areas have similar economic interests.”
No, he’s not saying that. He’s specifically talking about Ireland and the Irish border, and specifically arguing that the island of Ireland is a natural economic and political unit. Whatever about the political bit, even unionists no longer seriously dispute the bit about a natural economic unit (though they might phrase it differently).
You are doing what people often do when presented with an unanswerable argument: you take that argument and expand it to the point of meaninglessnes, so that the debate become an amorphous, philosophical and pointless discussion about borders generally. It’s a neat ruse to distract from the very specific argument being put forward - an argument that even McGurk’s most shrill, man-playing detractors cannot begin to refute.
NOTE TO MODS
Incidentally, if Shore Road Resident’s post isn’t a textbook case of playing the man, I’d love to see what is. I’ll give you some free advice re. media law: SRR’s post is libellous, and I’d remove it asap if I were you. It’s already been there for more than six hours.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 05:48 PMBilly, pan-Nationalism wasn’t much troubled by economic arguments in earlier times so I doubt if pan-Unionism would be so troubled now.
I put forward the notion of devolution under shared sovereignty and the the merger of strands 2 and 3 because IMO that best respects and accommodates the two main political aspirations.
If you think the Sunday Provo is likely to put forward an inclusive approach .....
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 06:06 PMNevin
“pan-Nationalism wasn’t much troubled by economic arguments in earlier times so I doubt if pan-Unionism would be so troubled now.”
One: there’s no such thing as “pan-nationalism”, and two: there’s no such thing as “pan-unionism”. But that aside....
Your argument misses the point. Although NI was once richer than RoI, the economic circumstances of nationalists in NI tended to be fairly dire in the decades that followed partition. People in Monaghan in the 1940s might have been poor, but at least they could aspire to a job in, say, the civil service, or some slice of OPW business. Catholics up the road in Armagh were frozen out of the public sector economy entirely.
Macro-economic data showing the north to be outperforming the south meant little to people who effectively were shut out of the economy because of their religion.
Unionism had fifty years of untrammeled power during which they could’ve made unionists out of a lot of Catholics. They might have succeeded if they had treated the minority population differently, but unfortunately, when given the opportunity to treat Catholics/nationalists cruelly with apparent impunity, unionism was incapable of resisting. It took almost five decades before nationalism bit back. Five decades in which unionism could have seduced at least establishment Catholics/nationalists.
Instead the choice for nationalists was: a) impoverishment and independence, or b) impoverishment and humiliation.
At least in Monaghan they had a government that didn’t want them to emigrate and that regarded their poverty as a failure. Armagh nationalists knew “their” government at Stormont regarded their poverty as a success. Every Monaghan emigration represented a loss to the Free State/RoI. Every nationalist/Catholic emigration from Armagh represented a victory for the state of Northern Ireland.
Do you really think a future 32-county Irish government would make the same mistake, and regard northeastern British-Irish Protestants the way, say, Basil Brooke’s government regarded Catholics and nationalists?
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 06:58 PMBilly, as always, your posts are very eloquent and you are the ultimate in fairness. A true gent. I’d say it’s tough at times to live with that parochial, little 6 county nationalism up there.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 07:23 PMThe world is the real economic unit.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 07:51 PMBilly, you seem to have overlooked the roles of the, er, 26-county government, boycotts, Ne Temere, territorial claim, militant republicanism, self-imposed apartheid et al that might have given a little ‘balance’ to your political history. You could also have mentioned the desire of say Presbyterians to give the new 26-county administration a fair wind ...
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 07:55 PMNevin
“Billy, you seem to have overlooked the roles of the, er: 26-county government...”
Their role in what? We’re talking about why the northern state totally failed to make unionists out of any significant number of Catholics, despite having an economic advantage. (As well as all the advantages that go with simply being the status quo.) The southern government isn’t really a big reason for that.
“...boycotts,”
Aside from the shameful episode at Fethard-on-Sea, I can’t think of a boycott after the mid 1920s. You think Collins’ Belfast Boycott was a reason why nationalists in the north were never seduced during 50 years of unionist hegemony? That seems a preposterous suggestion.
“...Ne Temere”
What does this have to do with the northern state’s failure to make unionists out of any significant number of Catholics?
“...territorial claim”
If this impacted on the northern state’s failure to make unionists out of any significant number of Catholics, it was only in a very marginal way.
“...militant republicanism”
But militant republicanism (in the north) existed because of the northern state’s failure to make unionists out of any significant number of Catholics. You’re not addressing that issue.
“...self-imposed apartheid”
Ah, this old canard. Of course nationalists/Catholics were every bit as free as unionists to give their allegiance to the unionist state. Perhaps had the unionist state conducted itself more impressively, more subtly, with less tolerance for anti-Catholicism and anti-Irishness, a chunk of Catholics/nationalists might have done so. But that isn’t what happened.
I’m arguing that the northern state had a chance to make unionists out of at least a decent chunk of the Catholic population - and that equally, a future 32-county state will have a chance to make Irish patriots out of at least a chunk of present-day unionism.
“You could also have mentioned the desire of say Presbyterians to give the new 26-county administration a fair wind...”
But that’s nothing to do with the reasons why the northern state failed to make unionists out of any significant number of Catholics.
The reason why the northern state did fail in this way, is because those in charge of that northern state tended to hate Catholics and tended to rather enjoy acting cruelly towards them.
Now, some southern governments have been inept, some corrupt, but that accusation could never be levelled at them. And Catholics in the north have tended to notice.
A future all-island republic will not be doomed to repeat the fatal errors of the 1921-72 unionist junta.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 08:29 PMSlug
As I said to Jon earlier:
“You are doing what people often do when presented with an unanswerable argument: you take that argument and expand it to the point of meaninglessnes.”
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 08:30 PMHoward Campbell Jnr
You are very kind, sir, though you do a disservice to northern nationalism - perhaps understandably, given some of our public representatives. But as I always say, context is everything, and our context in the Poisoned Six is such that none of us get much chance to show the best of ourselves. Of course, given my political views, I ascribe this mostly to the border, and see few problems here that wouldn’t be alleviated by the removal of that particular choke-hold around our country’s throat.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 08:36 PMBilly
“you take that argument and expand it to the point of meaninglessnes”
Perhaps, but, then again, perhaps he and I also have a point which you are not addressing.
Michelin Ballymena export globally. So do Wrightbus. So do Shorts. So do Gallaher. So do financial services and other high tech industries that we want to develop. They have to compete with companies all over the world.
Meantime we import from all over the world.
For some businesses the economic unit is more local then island level - retailing and hairdressing. For others the economies of scale happen to be at island level. It actually depends on the particular circumstances and technology of the industry in hand.
Many of the arguments driving the deepening of the EU, and arguments for the Eurozone, are because the relevant economic units market is bigger than most nation states. Remember that Ireland does not set interest rates at Ireland level.
And as for fiscal policy...Ireland’s successful company tax policy is arguably a sign that the “economic unit” for setting company tax should be at EU level, otherwise we get a race to the bottom in company tax rates as capital moves from one base to next. Certainly this is what Brussels thinks.
And so on.
Don’t get me wrong. I favour going for all the trade and all the efficiencies that are available. But the “economic unit” for the businesses that we wish to develop is--in a very real sense--the world.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 08:54 PM“We’re talking about ...”
No, Billy, you want to ignore context and to dole out a heavily jaundiced and poisonous perspective.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 09:05 PMNevin
Just to think, Shankill butchers jibe apart. You would probably be considered one of the more level headed and fair minded Unionists. Yet you proscribe Billy’s analysis as a “heavily jaundiced and poisonous perspective.”
If guys like you refuse to recognise the faults of the past, it’s no wonder we have so many Unionists on here still throwing out fantastically discredited myths like ethnic cleansing and other such nonsense.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 10:13 PMNevin you select a few terrible episodes in the history of the Republic and try to equate that with the Stormont regime! I also see you try to portray Articles 2&3;as some sort of shameful blemish on the Republic! Some might say that’s something of “a heavily jaundiced and poisonous perspective”
Slug: I take what you’re saying about competing globally but the point of the article and also Billy’s point is that the likes of Michelin, Wrightbus etc could do even better in an all-Ireland economy with economic policy controlled from Dublin. Our London driven economic policy is and always will be London-centric.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 10:28 PMEoghan and Qubol, if you look a little more closely you’ll see that that I was adding some themes to the mix that Billy overlooked.
Also, Billy’s casual dismissal of notions of pan-Unionism and pan-Nationalism leaves little scope for nuance. It was my privilege to work with very decent folks from a wide range of backgrounds over many years and I wouldn’t like to lump them in with the likes of Martin McGuinness and Jackie McDonald.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 10:48 PMNevin
the fact that he cassually dismisses pan-nationalism and pan-unionism says to me that he is making room for nuance and not lumping every one together. How does dismissing pan-anything possibly lead to lumping everyone together
Infact wasn’t pan-nationalism coined in an attempt to equate all nationalists with terrorists or is it just the way peaceandjustice uses it
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 11:29 PMLet me be quite clear about this. Under no circumstances whatsoever am I prepared to find myself in a country where the likes of Tom McGurk can claim to represent majority opinion on my indentity. Wars have been fought over less - and indeed, Mr McGurk’s newspaper has tacitly supported the protagonists in at least one of them.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 11:48 PMSteve you beat me to it, are you out of sorts this weather Nevin?
Posted by on May 14, 2008 @ 10:33 AM
