Should the Republic join the Commonwealth..?

OVER at Open Kingdom, Conn Corrigan argues that if ‘Ireland to rejoin the commonwealth, it would send out a message to Northern Protestants not simply that their Britishness would be tolerated (which implies a kind of reluctant acceptance) – but would be actively promoted in a united Ireland.’ He argues that if republicans are serious about convincing unionists that a united Ireland is in their best interests and that their way of life would not be under threat in one, this would be a good way of signalling to unionism that Britishness and Irishness are no longer (if they ever were) incompatible. Violence didn’t work, and if republicans are seeking for a means of persuasion, wouldn’t this go some way towards addressing unionist concerns in a way that the ill thought-out idea of a ‘Sinn Fein unionist outreach officer’ never could?

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