Ah ok, not sure why it seemed to come up as a different poster to me - almost certainly my mistake!

No worries, I don't talk politics anymore usually, so thought then maybe I jumped into the middle of an ongoing conversation.

I think the fundamental underpinning of your argument is your premise that a majority of people who are pro-Union consider themselves superior to those who are not pro-union.

I do think that's inbuilt to the Pro-Union ideology. It contains too much Othering of Irishness. I sustainable logic would be, we are Irish, proud to be Irish and believe Irishness contributes positively to a Union of nations.

Now that would have its own problems as any Union is always dominated by the English culturally and in terms of raw power. However it would at least be an ideology open to having N.I exist positively in the Union.

Unionism as it stands has no such tradition, therefore IMO, it's logic really is, like their religion, 'we are a chosen people and this is OUR country'.

My own supposition (for we cannot pretend that is anything more than that) is that if in 800 years the perception of two separate groups of peoples in Ireland continued to persist, there is nothing to suggest that 1000 years under a different constitutional settlement would change that.

I think it would, because the Unionist ideology I mention can only perpetuate under N.I structures that were designed to enforce it. Modern attempts to graft on space for Nationalists hasn't helped, and in fact, has deepened division amongst Unionists as they now circle the wagons every election.

Your initial comment says that the fundamental reason a UI is the solution is that the English will never invest in our economy long term. Surely that means that you are asserting a UI would give NI a larger budget?

Not always.

There would be cuts to be made to bloated dual systems for example.

Also, N.I could be neglected by a Dublin government. However direct democracy would work better to send a message to address that. N.I TD's as a block would have better voting power than we do in Parliament, don't you think?