Can Northern Ireland's border issue be solved by repartition?

Question

In following the ongoing Brexit drama, it seems everything is resolved except the question of the Northern Irish border, which is very difficult indeed to solve.

Idea: draw a new border that splits Northern Ireland into two pieces of roughly 60:40 in size (this is based on a guesstimate of what the proportion of both sides are; adjust if this is inaccurate). Get all nationalists to the 40% side, all unionists to the 60% side. The 40% side joins Ireland and becomes one of its provinces; the 60% side stays in the UK. Then implement a hard border. There'll be mechanical problems to this of course (e.g. it would necessarily involve a lot of people having to buy new houses) but those should be temporary. Meanwhile if this works, it would separate the two infighting populations and hopefully solve the problem permanently.

Such a solution would not necessarily have to involve forced population transfers — one could choose to stay put, and then agree to identify with & abide by the laws of the country one ends up in (whichever that is).

I am wondering if can plausibly resolve the conflict.

• If so, has it been seriously discussed?

• If not, why not?

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_{Related: Would it be plausible to solve the Irish Border issue by unifying Ireland?}

Answer 1

"Northern Ireland" itself was created by a variation of that process: there was a referendum on whether to become independent after the Irish War Of Independence, and those electoral regions which voted to remain in the UK were assembled into a unit.

Forced population transfer is usually considered to be a crime against humanity and is included in the UN definition of genocide. Don't forget that most people living in NI are currently entitled to hold both UK and Irish passports and therefore entitled to live wherever they like in either country.

Also, regardless of that, the Good Friday Agreement still applies, and it is very unlikely Ireland would ever agree to this scheme. Remember that until the GFA Ireland's constitution claimed the entire island.

Answer 2

No, repartition will not solve the problem.

In 1994 the Ulster Defence Association, a loyalist terrorist organisation active during The Troubles, threatened that if the British Army withdrew from Northern Ireland they would "repartition Ulster", falling back to majority Protestant areas, and ethnic cleansing any Catholics left.

Repartition has been suggested now and again, usually with less genocidal intent. In 1984 Margret Thatcher was briefed on the possibility of repartition, but it was and still is a ridiculous proposal. It would result in unworkable areas, like West Belfast becoming a walled ghetto. Belfast is a patchwork quilt of areas with are mostly Protestant, mostly Catholic, or a mix.

See below map, it's from 1991 data but is close enough to contemporary circumstance.

With regards to population transfers... with the possible exception of some small villages along the border, this is impossible. West Belfast for example has a population of 94,639 (2016), and is a republican stronghold. This was the heartland of the Provisional Irish Republican Army's Belfast brigade, and is still overseen by their Army Council through the PIRA (which like all terrorist organisations from The Troubles still exists) and Sinn Fein.

This is one of the most republican communities anywhere on the island of Ireland, north or south of the border. There is absolutely no chance whatsoever of them agreeing to move, much less to placate loyalists. This point is of critical importance; Irish Republicans believe wholly in a United Ireland free from British influence. This means the very suggestion of population transfers is antithetical to their cause.

Answer 3

The problem of Brexit for Northern Ireland isn't what you think it is. It has little to do with the distribution of the population. It's about cross-border trade and co-operation between Protestants and Catholics, which repartition would do nothing to fix and would be more likely to harm. Many businesses in the north run by Protestants/Unionists trade extensively with the south, and many in the south trade extensively with the north (this is why even in the Unionist community there was significant support for remaining in the EU, particularly among the educated and middle classes, despite what Unionist politicians wanted). Putting in barriers to that trade will be deeply damaging: this may include checks on agricultural products, and tariffs on components, as well as tariffs on finished products. Here is a report by InterTradeIreland, the intergovernmental body responsible for cross-border trade which sets out the degree of inter-relatedness.

In addition there are many services shared between Protestant and Catholic communities (e.g. health services) that would be affected by a split: they couldn't be moved or repartitioned. Even things like free movement of horses for horseracing would be affected. (Report on Brexit impact study)

A peace based on repartition has been proposed in the past, but the practical difficulties and expense would be enormous, as would the upheaval, and it's not clear it would satisfy idealogues on either side. It would also create as many grudges and resentments as it would solve. And despite what the OP thinks, the communities are not in a state of out and out war: they more or less live side by side most of the time without significant trouble, so it's not worth a big costly change for a small benefit.

Answer 4

The only reason a peace deal exists today is because it was a deal that let everyone in Northern Ireland act as if they were living in the country of their choice, with the citizenship of their choice. That worked because the open borders made it almost moot whether a bit of territory was Irish territory or UK. Ireland and the UK were effectively sharing Northern Ireland (with the UK technically having temporary ownership).

Without open borders, that deal simply cannot exist. However, getting rid of the EU's open borders and regulations was pretty much the entire point of Brexit. The border is required to enforce the regulations, so if the UK leaves and doesn't follow EU regulations, the border has to be closed there. Therefore Brexit inherently destroys the Good Friday Agreement.

There is no partition you can make that won't displease or displace anyone. Partition was in fact the entire intractable problem that the accords fixed.

Answer 5

There is only one way to unify Ireland without causing even bigger problems and repartition isn't it

AS other answers show, repartition is impractical because the populations are too mixed and forced repartition would have potentially catastrophic effect because of the disruption that would result (in addition to being a violation of many people's basic rights that we no longer consider acceptable). And partition didn't work in the long term to solve the last Irish problem (after WW1).

But there is a route to achieving it without disruption. The Good Friday agreement allows a majority vote of the people of the North to trigger union with the south. All sides agreed to this (that's why it is called an agreement).

if the people of the North were so pissed off at the mess ensuing from Brexit (not totally impossible) this would likely swing the vote in favour of union. More remarkably a recent opinion poll by Lord Ashcroft suggested that the current situation is balanced on a knife edge. In other words the whole population is split 50:50 on whether to vote for reunion even before they know what will happen if there is a hard Brexit.

So, not only would repartition not help, it might not be necessary.

Answer 6

This is one of those mathematical answers that doesn't take into account that people are human. Many people have connections to place, to countryside, to geography. History is not something that happened to someone else, it is something they feel as part of their identity. There is no way you can simply "buy them a similar house" and have them move because they have a strong sense of place.

After all, no one will solve the Israel-Palestine problem by offering people a "land just as dry and hot" next door.

Answer 7

Partition will not solve the problem. It will create complications that would be difficult to resolve.

I give, as an example, the Partition of India into India and Pakistan,(and later Bangladesh).

1. It led to communal clashes between Hindus and Sikhs, and Muslims. Thousands died in the clashes.

2. It led to the Kashmir war. Even today, Kashmir remains a war zone.

3. It led to the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, which created the country of Bangladesh.

4. It led to the 1965 Indo-Pak war and the Kargil war.

5. It led to the growth of Islamic terrorism in Pakistan. Al Qaeda, LeT, JeM all grew in Pakistan. The Taliban is supported by Pakistan. It was Pakistan that harboured Osama bin Laden and helped him pull off 9/11 and other acts of terrorism.

6. Both the countries are forced to spend a large amount on their defence budget, to effectively counter the other.

Answer 8

No.

In my opinion the only solution that won't cause the two sides to reignite their war is to leave things as they are. Leave that border exactly as is even if England (and Northern Ireland) leaves the EU and Ireland stays. Yes, that will cause administrative problems with Schengen, customs and so on - but they'll all be solvable without shooting anybody or blowing things up like the IRA used to do. Establishing any kind of division on that border will cause violence and loss of lives.