We in the north-eastern six counties, who want to see Irish unity, have to begin thinking politically and economically outside the six county box. Most decisions about Health, Education and the Economy are taken by civil servants in Stormont who think solely within the six county frame-work. That results in neglect and under-development in border counties.
In order to create a New Ireland within the EU and detached from the UK we need to think much wider and much bigger. We have a lot to gain and much to lose if we fail to do so.
I grew up in the six counties and I have been used to thinking within the 6 county box especially in matters of Health and Economics. I have had to make a shift in thinking to see the future of the 6 north-eastern counties in terms of 32 counties within the European Union.
This is the only direction that will benefit all the citizens on this island economically and politically in terms of having a greater say in the future. The citizens in the 26 counties also have to change their thinking to include the north-eastern six counties which are an integral part of the nation of Ireland.
There will be resistance from those in the Fianna Fail and Fine Gael parties -even more than Unionists because these parties are opposed to any change in the political status quo. They do not want any real change. They ae happy with sound-bites about “a shared island” without making any political changes to advance the cause of a new democracy on the island of Ireland.
As Jude Collins pointed out in a recent blog, we in the 6 counties have so much to gain in terms of power and control by being in a united Ireland under an all-Ireland government. Citizens in the northeast would have ten times more power in an Irish parliament than in the English one on the banks of the Thames.
One way that would change the thinking of citizens would be to give the vote in the next Presidential election to all Irish citizens living in the 6 counties. That would certainly help to change the mind-sets on the whole island of Ireland. Why are FF and FG are so reluctant to make this happen?
Get it into your head, Joe. They are partitionist parties intent on preserving their own little fiefdom – no better than the unionist monolith that we endured for fifty years. When we attempted to sunder the pro British colonial government it was the ‘northern troublemakers’ who were denigrated by the Free State government.