Ireland’s Future In Ireland’s Hands
Posted by Jim on July 22, 2016
Sean Bresnahan
A vote contested in two separate parts, where the outcome in one has primacy over the other, is not a #UnityRef as claimed by the Sinn Fein leadership but a gerrymandered border poll, where any vote cast outside the Six Counties cannot be counted until a majority for change is first realised there.
While I might not agree with them, I have no issue with those who argue Irish Unity should only come via such means and this route.
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But to pretend your policy is otherwise, that it somehow advocates for self-determination when in fact it violates the very concept, is another matter entirely and is as cunning as it is deceiving as it is wrong – indeed wilfully so on the part of those concerned.
A border poll serves to deny the right of the Irish people to national self-determination, insisting instead on a separate right to self-determine, which it holds as legitimate, pertaining to the artificial gerrymander in the north of our country which many refer to as ‘Northern Ireland’.
That is the primary ‘raison d’être’ of the border poll – so it is not just a practical instrument but an ideological one also.
Sinn Fein quite obviously realise this and thus the obfuscation and attempts to bury their failed strategy behind a mountain of waffle.
They know full well that only a ‘One Ireland One Vote’ national referendum can allow the Irish people to freely determine their future – where all votes are of equal value, regardless whether they are cast in Dublin or Belfast, Kerry or Tyrone. They know this because it was at one time their own position.
All of this should likewise be obvious from the route they are now taking, from their attempts to hide reality behind carefully-scripted slogans that can mean two things at once – what Orwell described as ‘double speak’ and of which they are masters. Yet still they refuse to stand up and show the required leadership, they refuse to stand up and be counted. Their refusal to return to the correct position, which they abandoned on entry to the Multi-Party Talks, is the lynch-pin of current Crown strategy and the single-biggest reason why the campaign for Irish Unity has been reduced to a slogan and not an achievable object on their part.
It’s time for some honest soul-searching from those who peddle that a border poll is somehow a referendum and likewise that it is a pathway to Irish Freedom – when they know within their hearts it is neither…