Letter: It's ludicrous to suggest that Ireland would want to return to British rule

https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/letters/letter-yes-to-a-united-ireland-but-one-that-is-in-the-united-kingdom-4340500

The primary reason most of Ireland effectively voted to leave the union with GB in the 1918 general election and supported the subsequent armed struggle for independence was that the union wasn’t working for most of the people of the island and the structure of the UK meant that Ireland would never be able to protect its strategic interests and gain its fair share of the wealth of the union.

The constitutional structures of the UK are organised uniquely on the basis of class not geography or ethnicity, being the product of a 19th century grand bargain between the Aristocracy & the Landed Gentry and the newly ascendant Business & Professional classes to preserve their power, wealth and privileges in the face of mass suffrage and mass education.

The unwillingness of the ruling elite to reform the UK in order to satisfy Irish and to a lesser extent Scottish nationalist demands is the primary reason that Ireland was grudgingly allowed leave.

The decision to leave has been vindicated by the economic progress independent Ireland has made since escaping economic dominance by Britain in the 1970s following accession to the EEC.

If re-united Ireland within the UK would be so good, then how come NI, like Scotland and Wales, is entirely dependent on fiscal transfers from London, when independent Ireland is (a) entirely self-funding at a higher level per capita than NI, (b) is a net contributor to the EU, (c) operates one of the most generous foreign aid programs as a percentage of GDP in the world and (d) has growing sovereign wealth funds from large budgetary surpluses?

No former British territory has begged to return to British rule and it is ludicrous to suggest that independent Ireland would or should so do in the context of the foregoing.

Gearoid O'Morain, Castletownshend, Co Cork