Are you saying that a small portion of the Irish want to remain british so you are occupying the country in order to conform with their wishes out of the goodness of hearts?
No, the majority of part of Ireland wants to remain British. Their parliament voted for that back in the 20s, the people have supported it since.
It's as much "occupied" as Hawaii, Texas or California is by the US.
Northern Ireland is part of the UK, just as much as England, Wales or Scotland, it's people are UK citizens just as if they were born in England, Wales or Scotland.
The rest of Ireland didn't want to remain part of the UK, they left, the people there are not citizens of the UK, just as the French are not citizens of the UK.
The argument comes because some, like Toad, feel that Ireland has a "special" status, and that Ireland must be one country, and cannot be divided. Why, I don't know, as I've asked a lot of people who hold that view, and none have ever given me an answer.
If Scottland voted to leave the UK you would have no problem with that?
None whatsoever, that's their right. I'd probably be sad to see them go, but it's up to the Scots, no-one else.
Because there's absolutely no justification for "Northern Ireland" to have ever been made seperate from the rest of Ireland
Why?Why is it OK for part of the UK to break away (Ireland), but not OK for part of Ireland to break away?
Why is it only Ireland that must remain indivisible?
Plenty of countries have divided, Czecholslovakia, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Pakistan/India/Bangladesh, Norway, why not Ireland?
nd they never, ever held a referendum of all Ireland on the subject?
Why should they? They never held a referendum of all of the UK on the subject either. Should Irish independence have been conditional on support of the UK population? If not, why should Northern Irish independence be conditional on the Irish population?
Why is Ireland indivisible when other places aren't?
Instead they "gerrymandered" a favorable outcome.
The defenition of Gerrymandering excludes international boundaries, becuase it's designed to ensure support for one party.
Country "boundaries" are called "borders", and they are drawn up to divide populations. Thus the Mexican border with the US is designed to have Mexicans on one side, Americans on the other (although that's breaking down these days). Is that "gerrymadered"?
What about Israel? It's borders were drawn up to have a Jewish majority on the Israeli side, an Arab majority on the Arab side. Gerrymandered?
In the end the whole Irish question comes down to one thing: does a population have a right to independence from their neighbours if they wish it, and their neighbours don't?
Whichever way you answer it, NI has a right to remain part of the UK. Either because they wish independence from Ireland, and that's their right, or because if they don't have that right, then the Irish don't have the right to independence from the UK.
Why should the Irish have the right to independence from Britain, but the Northern Irish not have the right to independence from Ireland?
There had to be a large English population in select parts of India.
No, there was always a very small British population in India. The 1901 census shows the Indian population at 295 million (all figures include Pakistan, Burma and other areas that were part of the Raj)
Out of that 295 million population, 97,000 were British born, of whom 60,000 were soldiers.
There were in total 641,000 foreigners in India, of which the largets group were Nepalese, at 250,000. There were a total of 104,000 Europeans, a few thousand Americans, a few hundred Australians, about 8,000 Africans.
Why weren't those folks gerrymandered into a seperate nation? The Nation of English Bengal or something?
Because there were nowhere near enough of them, and the few there were were spread out all over India and Pakistan.
But India does actually provide a very pertinent example. At independence, Pakistan and India formed sperate states, even though they had both been just "India" under the British Raj.
Was that wrong? Should Pakistan have been forced to remain a province of India? Should the Indians have decided Pakistan's fate?
And as they didn't, should there be one vote in India and Pakistan now on whether Pakistan becomes part of India? It's obvious who'd win, about 160 million Pakistans, 1.1 billion Indians. Should the Indians decide the Pakistani's nationality?
If not, why not, because that's the principle you want to apply to Ireland.
Why can't you just do what was done in NI in all the former colonies? Gerrymander the areas with heavy British citizenship, let them vote on being seperate and see how it turns out.
What, like the United States, or Australia, or Canada, or New Zealand?
In the other colonies there were never that many colonists concentrated in one spot.
But many larger colonies were broken up into seperate countries, eg India into India, Burma, Pakistan etc.
I wonder how that would have worked.... I'm betting you could draw the voting lines so as to ensure some seperate nations that wished to remain in the Commonwealth.
Such as? Any example spring to mind?
As I said, India/Pakistan seems the most pertinent example, where the country was split up along population lines. "Gerrymandered", as you'd call it.
