andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2019-09-12 01:44 pm
danieldwilliam: (Default)

[personal profile] danieldwilliam 2019-09-13 08:39 am (UTC)(link)
The other factor I think in this is austerity.

The British gpvernment for 10 years has decided to reduce the size of the state. This has the effect of reducing fiscal transfers between regions and redistribution between economic classes. This has been going on during a period of slow and unequal economic growth.

Nothern Ireland will have been on the wrong side of this equation being a poor region with lots of poor people in it.

It may be the case that if the British state were growing, that redistribution were an explicit government policy and the economy were growing at 5% per annum that people's views on being in the UK would shift back towards support.