THE CONSTITUTIONAL STATUS OF NORTHERN IRELAND - Consent, Acquiescence, Subjugation, Indifference

That status commands the support (not just the consent) of unionists, the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland (on past referenda, and the best available contemporary evidence) and the acquiescence (but neither the consent nor the support) of the vast majority of the people of the island of Ireland. [...] And even if it is argued that the North South institutions dilute the sovereignty of the UK, that approach was adopted with both the consent of the people of Northern Ireland (in the referendum of May 1998) and the approval of the UK Parliament. [...] There are strong and obvious arguments that the conquest and colonisation of Ireland, culminating in the Act of Union of 1800, was a form of subjugation, shown for example by the denial of the rights of the large majority of the people of Ireland, first imposed in the Penal Laws. [...] Most of the references to subjugation25 in the judgements by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court on the cases brought against the Protocol are to new law subjugating old law, and all flow from “the explicit will of Parliament.”26 Ironically, there is a sense in which the “subjugation” of some key provisions of Article 6 of the Act of Union (1800) was itself a consequence of the fact that the. [...] A majority of unionists reject the special arrangements in the Protocol/Windsor Framework, despite the fact that they have not just the consent of the sovereign Westminster Parliament, but also, the consent of a majority of about 55 per cent of the people of Northern Ireland.28 • It follows that the two governments and all democratic parties should respect the position that commands the most suppo.