When Catalonia voted for independence from Spain, Spain arrested the people who organized the vote, and even the EU said they would not accept an independent Catalonia.
Despite police violence meant to disrupt the vote, there was about 42 percent voter turnout, and about 90 percent voted for secession. Nonetheless, Catalonia is still part of Spain.
The Good Friday agreement permits Northern Ireland to leave the UK and to join the ROI, there is no path to independence here.
Reunion can only happen by mutual consent of all people in Ireland, and the document demands two simultaneous referenda to occur to fulfil this, one in NI, the other in ROI.
The referendum in NI, can be called at any time the UK’s Secretary of State for NI, deems that it would be likely that it would prove to be successful. This stance is shared by the Tories and Labour in Westminster.
Unlike Catalonia, there is also likely to be wider support for reunion from other important third parties - namely the US and EU - The United States, both from her people and government, proving to be key mediators in the Good Friday negotiations, and subsequent important negotiations like the Richard Haass talks.
The EU, prior to the UK’s withdrawal from it, funded large regeneration and reconciliation projects within NI. I believe this would continue forward post reunification.
Which, despite what most people think, isn't the utopian goal of the Catholics there, afaik. More like something they might settle for, if it's pragmatic and generally beneficial to the people. I've been told it's not exactly the golden ticket to the promised land outsiders seem to think it is.
I based this on various things, but primarily because it's the "obvious thing to do". It brings NI into the EU, and that would appear to be a long-term good.
Seeing the UK economy suffer from Brexit, the treatment of NI by Westminster (who mostly pretend if doesn't exist anyway), and ultimately the aging of the UK support in NI, the end result is "obvious".
Ultimately its hard to predict time lines with geo-politics, but I expect to see real movement in this direction over the next decade.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Agreement
Now, would they find a way to contest any vote to unify? Maybe
LMAO! That's a great freaking point! Obviously, simple majorities are perfect recipes for the shitshow they're currently in.
Democracy is shit when 40% of your country have major everlasting change thrust upon them against their will.
I think we’re saying the same thing.
I would be no happier with brexit had the result been 80:20 to leave, but if the 20% could have retained their EU citizenship it would have made things far more palatable.
Politicians were promising a brexit that could never happen.
‘Getting’ new territories from a non-EU country sounds even worse than allowing a chunk of a member state to become an independent country.
Also if the UK permits the vote as part of the good Friday agreement the EU won't have an issue with it. Don't forget they also had no issue with the Scottish independence referendum when the UK was still in the EU.
There was a bit of doubt whether an independent Scotland could join the EU however, which I believe was mostly why they voted to remain part of the UK (ironically due to the Brexit vote that came after they had to leave the EU anyway, they probably would have been able to stay in the EU if they had voted to leave the UK!)
But if NI joins Ireland there won't be any issue from the EU side I think. The situation will be very different to Catalonia.
Realpolitik sometimes gets in the way of this - why doesn’t the US recognise Taiwan as a country? Why doesn’t Brazil recognise Kosovo?
If Scottish people want to be independent, or northern Irish, or Cornish, or Yorkshire, or Falklands, or Gibraltar, or Ceuta, or Catalonia, or Crimea, or Texas, or Kosovo. or North Cyprus, then that’s upto the people who live there.
Northern Ireland had a referendum and one side decided as they wouldn’t win they wouldn’t take part. Scotland had a referendum too and decided to stay. There’s been no real change in opinion in Scotland, despite the travesty of the EU vote.
The problem with NI, Scotland and the EU is the opinions is roughly 50/50, whatever you do half the country are losses off.
In reality if the people of Northern Ireland wanted independence they would only want it if they could join Ireland, and joining Ireland would require the Irish government to accept a basket case of an economy, not to mention the continued partisan issues that have plagued the country for centuries, nobody wants change, but as predicted in Trek, an act of terror (brexit) may well lead to it as brexit changed the status quo.
Catalonia wanted complete independence, although as you said though, less than 40% of the adult population wanted it in that vote. Certainly they should be allowed if the majority want it, as long as Spanish citizenship is not removed from any resident who doesn’t want it removed and every resident got Catalonia citizenship as well if they wanted it (my view would be you would only grant independence if over half the adult population agreed to forfeit their Spanish citizenship).
Catalonia would then be free to apply for EU candidate status as a free and independent country, just like Scotland. Spain would not want that, so Catalonia would have to be a small independent country and start from scratch.
Spain doesn’t recognise Kosovo either. Their view is that territory is more important than self determination. See their view on Gibraltar. Spain would thus be unlikely to recognise an independent Scotland or Northern Ireland, and thus EU membership as an independent country would be out.
So with Ireland not wanting the economic drain of the north (only 1 in 8 Irish Republic citizens want unification if United Ireland had to pay), Spain not wanting any independence move to succeed, Northern Ireland is stuck in the continued compromise it has been since 1997. Brexit of course massively damaged everything, and far more want the U.K. to join the EU than want say Catalonian independence, but we are where we are.
https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/majority-favour-a-united...
“Only one in eight would vote for unity if the handover required the Republic to take on Britain’s full costs of subsidizing Northern Ireland. ”
https://www.politico.eu/article/poll-ireland-unification-sup...