getting older. Their problem is that the GFA deal was that a United Ireland vote would happen when the Northern Ireland secretary judged that there was a good chance of it passing, so the way demographics was shifting in NI, "catholics" would end up in a majority eventually, so they didn't have to try and work at making the NI economy better.
In fact they felt they could continue to exact a high price for the UK government in holding onto NI, by obstructing economic development, which they have done as last year it cost the UK government £16bn to balance the books in NI. Worse, they have wasted the last 25 years by not trying to add unionists to those who would be happy to accept a UI by building trust through actions. NI is as sectarian as ever, with 93% of the NI Education system split along religious lines, while there are in the region of 160 peace walls, where there were only 19 in 1998.
The Republican attitude to Unionists is we're going to win, so you can either accept it or get the boat back to England.
There are problems with this obviously, not least because there are 12,500 loyalist paramilitaries and SF continue to back them into a corner. It's an incredibly short sighted policy.
The biggest problem is that IF there were a border poll in NI tomorrow, there would also have to be one in the Republic of Ireland, and Northern Nationalists (because of the cult like propaganda) expect us to fall over ourselves and vote to take them in. However, we in the Republic moved on from 1998 and we rarely think about NI unless there's trouble. One of our chief economists John Fitzgerald did a report which estimate that taking NI in could cost us €20bn a year for 20 years. SF of course rubbished it (sending out non economists plants) but as i said, it cost the UK government £16bn this year to balance the books. Plus of course, there's the sectarianism and no one is talking about the short and at least medium term effect on our towns and cities in the Republic of Ireland because all development investment would have to poured into NI, as a cost to us in the Republic, where we would have to pay extra in tax and/or cut public services.
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