Northern Ireland Shows Where England is Headed

The Irish Unionist historian and writer Ruth Dudley Edwards has written an incisive piece for the Telegraph in which she explains how England’s future can be seen in Northern Ireland where they appease the noisiest troublemakers:

Of the many lessons I learned from covering Northern Ireland for decades, the most depressing was that the British state almost always employed bribes and appeasement to shut up troublemakers.

British ministers – relieved that by and large these days political violence is off the agenda – have the pathetic belief that, if sufficiently humoured, everyone will see sense and work together for the good of the province.

This reached its apogee in 2007 when, after years of lying and stonewalling from the IRA over decommissioning, Jonathan Powell – Tony Blair’s Chief of Staff and now, God help us, Keir Starmer’s National Security Adviser – invited Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to his wedding.

It turns out from a Northern Ireland Select Committee report that the province has the worst public services in the United Kingdom:

NI has the highest waiting lists, the longest A&E queues and the greatest number of prescriptions for antidepressants. Par for the course, the call from most quarters is already for the provision to get more money.

But last year, the Conservative government agreed to fund Northern Ireland according to its estimated level of need of 124%. In simple language, this means that the province gets £124 for every £100 to England.

A complete lack of political responsibility reigns supreme:

Since the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement Stormont has been in a state of collapse: there is no collective responsibility at ministerial level in the devolved government; the civil service is demoralised; Sinn Féin MPs still refuse to take their Westminster seats, and since they want Northern Ireland to fail, most of the party’s republicans are focused on doing it damage while extracting the maximum from the British Treasury.

Of course, the greatest need is in the areas wrecked by terrorism and tribalism, and with the cynical representatives who shout the loudest for government assistance. But no one argues with them.

This is because whoever shouts the loudest gets the most. In Northern Ireland, quiet patriots are elbowed aside by noisy enemies of the state.

In England, we humour Islam because we are afraid of it and sneer at Christianity because we are not. 

Anyone who feels frightened on this front should study what happens when – fearful of the threat of terrorism – electorates vote on sectarian lines. 

England is heading that way, with the recent striking success of Muslim independents in elections to the House of Commons last year; their priority is Gaza.  

Their stoutest supporters are Sinn Féin, who are uncompromising supporters of Palestinian activism and have led the way in making Ireland the most antisemitic country in Europe; sectarian voting is the key to their success.

Anyone trying to understand what’s going on with some of our Muslim politicians should nip across the Irish Sea and study how republican tacticians got their way in war and in peace. 

We are in peril as a society because our enemies have skilfully learned how to turn a liberal democracy against itself. And we have a metropolitan elite that hates its own country, undermines its culture at every turn and thinks free speech should be restricted because – like our Prime Minister – they don’t know it’s an essential bastion of every democracy.  J.D. Vance was right.

Worth reading in full.