This Blog, like very many people across the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, is fed up with confected political crises got up by Unionist politicians and the latest row about immunity letters is typical. Without going into the details of the latest hullabaloo, it is worth getting at the core issue.
In the whole of Ireland, which is a single island, there is a population of just under 6.4 million. I.8 million of these live in the North; that is 28% of the total. Of this about half are protestant. So the ratio of protestant to catholic in Ireland as a whole 14% protestant, 86% catholic. This shows that in a democratic election the protestants are a minority by a margin in the total, but because they are concentrated in the north, they manage to turn themselves into a local majority. That does not alter the reality of what they are.
In Northern Ireland only about 380,000 voted for the Unionist parties in the 2011 Assembly elections. This tells us that this noisy, bombastic, opinionated minority with its divisive perspective and its provocative and triumphalist culture, is out of step with everybody except itself. It should be treated as a minority interest. Not more and not less.
Instead it rules the roost. If it is indeed true that these various letters and pardons, essential to advance the peace process, were issued without its knowledge, it is because it is in the world the most intransigent and inflexible political configuration outside North Korea and the only way forward for realists who have peace and harmony in their sights is behind its back. The message to Robinson should be short and simple. If you want to, go and be damned. It is time to put a stop to this nonsense once and for all.
Scotland is presently making up its mind whether to vote to separate from the rest of the United Kingdom. If a referendum were held in England and Wales asking if the people would like Scotland to stay, the answer would be a resounding yes. Scotland before the Union was an independent country. Northern Ireland, on the other hand, refused to join the country of which it is a part, when Ireland gained independence, so in spite of the nastiness of a good deal of the Unionist cause, the UK let it stay.
If the Unionists continue to grandstand and posture to feed their near insatiable appetite for quarrelling and discord, the UK may be pushed to hold a referendum whether to allow Northern Ireland to remain. There is little doubt it would be kicked out by a healthy majority. The Unionists are forever seeing what advantage they can gain. The time has come to show them what they could lose. In reality that is everything.