Partition and repartition, part 6: some modest proposals

Previous blog posts in this series have looked at some proposals for the repartition of Northern Ireland, as well as at the difficulties in unscrambling the omelette that is Northern Ireland's ethno-religio-community makeup.

The issues of religion and politics are often conflated when discussing Northern Ireland, and hence many proposals on repartition assume that the new borders should be based on religious identity. This blog disagrees. While religion of course does play an important role in peoples political identity, only the expression of that political identity should inform public policy.

A point that needs to be made is that although to most people the word 'repartition' means re-setting the borders between two sovereign states, this does not have to be the case. All borders – internal or external – can be seen as a form of partition. Federal countries like Spain or Belgium have internal borders, which in many respects represent partition lines between linguistic or 'ethnic' groups. Discussion of repartition in the Northern Irish context can go hand-in-hand with discussion of a united Ireland, or even with discussions of continued union with Britain.

In other words, even in a united Ireland it is valid to examine whether some areas should have a different status, which areas those should be, and what nature of different status these areas might have. Although the present Republic is a unitary state with almost all power emanating from Dublin, this may not be the best model for a united Ireland. It may be appropriate, sensible and democratic to devolve some powers to lower level authorities. Some powers are highly territorial and would require defined boundaries within which to operate – taxation, regional policies, police divisions, etc; while others can non-territorial – education, or broadcasting. The example of Belgium, though complicated, is very interesting in this regard. Belgium has both geographically defined regions (three) and linguistically defined 'communities' (also three), but their borders are not the same. Brussels, a region for matters of taxation, administration, and so on, runs no schools. They are the responsibility of the communities (French-speaking and Flemish-speaking), who run separate parallel systems in Brussels. In the Northern Irish context such a system could allow, for instance, education, culture and broadcasting to be separated according to 'community' while roads, water supply, planning, etc, are handled by regional authorities defined by strict geographic boundaries. Thus, parallel to a small 'unionist' region in east Ulster, there could be a 'Protestant' education authority responsible for all the Protestant education in the whole of Ireland, a nation-wide Protestant/Unionist-tinted broadcaster, an Ulster-Scots cultural body with powers, grants, cultural centres, etc, across the whole of Ulster (and further?).

For reasons of security, community confidence, etc, it may be appropriate to have a separate police force in 'unionist' areas, while the Garda Síochána polices the rest of the country. For such a thing to happen, though, the limits of such a unionist area would need to be established.

There are several possible models for defining the boundaries of a 'unionist' region in a post-unification Ireland, including:

A. Cantonisation

Depending on the types of powers devolved to sub-regional areas, the semi-autonomous areas can be quite small. Clearly a small region cannot have responsibility for building motorways or railways, but it could run many of the personal services that are visible and important to the people. By entering into cooperation agreements with other similar areas it could achieve significant economies of scale.

Where areas display a clear preference for one or another political direction, this could be facilitated by the creation of a myriad of cantons or different sizes and shapes. These would not be hermetically sealed – quite the opposite – but they would allow the inhabitants of the areas to have certain services provided by authorities in whom they have confidence, and would allow certain rules and laws to reflect their ethos.

A cantonised Northern Ireland, based loosely on the outcome of the 2005 local elections, could look like this:

Anyone who thinks that this map is impractical should take a close look at our European neighbours, particularly Spain (the exclave of Llivia, which is entirely within France, and numerous other sub-national exclaves), Belgium (Baarle-Hertog, which comprises 22 separate micro-exclaves within the Netherlands), Germany (Bremerhaven), and so on. The map shown above would not be unusual in a European context.

B. Larger and more powerful regional bodies

If the powers to be devolved were of a wider nature, requiring more powerful local authorities (or simply a more numerous population to make them cost-effective), then Northern Ireland could be re-partitioned according to the 'colour' of the current local authorities as recorded in 2005:

This has the advantage of providing a single block for the semi-autonomous region of east Ulster, but may be blunter than it needs to be. Note, for example, how nationalist Crossmore and Toomebridge unnecessarily remain in 'unionist' territory, and Moyle is cut off from the rest of nationalist Ireland (but yet includes the strongly unionist area of Bushmills!)

Another way of drawing a boundary could be to look at the expressed political preference by District Electoral Area (DEA), while striving to retain contiguity:

Here some compromises are necessary. The Glens of Antrim fall victim to the contiguity rule, but other imperfections are ironed out. In any case, if issues like education, culture, etc, are handled by higher-level non-territorial authorities then the nationalists of the Glens, like the unionists of Ballinamallard, would continue to enjoy lives that correspond to their wishes.

C. Belfast

In the options described above Belfast has been deliberately excluded. It is big enough to form a region in its own right, or, in a cantonised approach, several sub-regions. However, it makes no sense to try to sub-divide the running of a large city. Already Belfast is artificially limited for political reasons – it makes more sense to expand its boundaries to allow its services: transport, waste, housing, etc, to cover all of those living in its metropolitan area.

One way to do this, while correcting the anomalies of Loughside (in Craigavon) and Antrim North-West, both nationalist areas creeping around Lough Neagh to join up to Belfast, is to create a central 'neutral' region comprising Belfast, and these areas, which acts as a bridge between the 'unionist' areas to the south and north of Belfast, and to the larger 'nationalist' Ireland to the west. This neutral region could be governed either through power-sharing, or through a strictly balanced council, appointed by the two communities. It would include Belfast port and both airports, and could become a genuine city for all the people of east Ulster.

The map blow shows how a neutral Belfast region could fit into a cantonised model:
The models presented above could amount to a confederal Ireland. There are no practical difficulties in implementing such an outcome, and indeed very few political difficulties for nationalists. With the country at peace, and being a Member State of the EU with all of the freedoms of movement, trade and opinion that this ensures, a repartition into semi-autonomous areas could provide both security, opportunity, and pride to all of the people of Northern Ireland. Combining geographical repartition with non-territorial authorities for 'community' issues could ensure an even greater level of satisfaction.

Far from being a taboo subject, repartition is a subject that needs to be discussed. No realistic planning for a post-reunification Ireland can avoid it.