We may see the final break up of parliamentary UK, which began 1921

From 1998 we had, embedded in the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), in the context of the European Union, a reconstructed reconstituted re-Union of the constituent parts of Great Britain (GB) and Ireland, North and South.

In 2016, the centenary of events leading to the partition of Ireland and of the United Kingdom, the Westminster government, effectively England, opportunistically supported by the DUP, and facilitated by Sinn Fein abstention, set about partitioning the re-Union by initiating, pursuing and effecting the UK’s exit (Brexit) from the EU despite the wishes of three of the constituent members of the GFA Union to remain in the EU, i.e. Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (RoI).

Now in 2021, the centenary of the original partitions, the UK has parted company with the EU, the RoI and, from the chagrined perspective of the DUP and fellow unionists, with NI.

Scotland’s increasing dissatisfaction with the remaining elements of its parliamentary union with the Westminster parliament may soon result in the final break up of the parliamentary UK; a break up that began in 1921 with devolution to new parliaments in Belfast and Dublin, followed much later by devolution to new parliaments in Edinburgh and Cardiff.

A long overdue English parliament would come into being.

There would no longer be a UK government at Westminster.

A consequently independent NI, if effectively still in the EU along with the RoI, might opt to remain an independent member of the EU, or might seek to merge with the RoI, or might opt to leave the EU.

The choice must by made freely by the people of NI without pressure or connivance by any political party or paramilitary group.

The then ‘independent’ nations regions and parliaments of these islands would of necessity remain closely linked and interdependent whether or not some or all are in or out of the EU or the UK.

Mutually beneficial coordinating forums such as those contained in Strand Three of the GFA would be needed. They could be merged and renamed The Intergovernmental Council of the Isles.

We live in changed and changing times.

Outdated ideologies, persisting prejudices and the worst elements of the past should not be perpetuated.

The future cannot be guaranteed.

We, the people of these islands, must together make the best of the present for everyone’s sake.

Dennis Golden, Strabane

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