Media boss calls for independent Northern Ireland

The Chair of a major United Kingdom media group has called for an independent Northern Ireland as a first step towards eventual union with the South.

David Montgomery, who heads JPIMedia, has urged the Province to “seize the moment and boldly determine its own future”.

A native of County Down, he believes that Northern Ireland as an independent entity supported by Britain, Ireland and Europe “a Switzerland of the north, may be the only route to finally resolving the Irish Question”.

“If Irish unity is ever achieved it can only be with two equals — two nation states — coming together voluntarily. Otherwise it will be perceived by a vociferous minority as an annexation on the one hand and a betrayal on the other,” Mr Montgomery says. 

He urged the Province’s politicians to “become statesmen and stateswomen unreservedly representing the whole of Northern Ireland and no other nation”.

Mr Montgomery said Northern Ireland was changing with a good quality of life for an expanding middle class, a growing diverse population and high standards of behaviour based in part on religious adherence.

“More people are identifying less with being British or Irish and instead they proclaim being whole-heartedly Northern Irish,” Mr Montgomery said.

“They identify with pride to be from a place apart that mainly by its own efforts is casting off the struggles and bitterness of the past.

“For Northern Ireland, at the start of 2022, a nation beckons.”

His comments come as two new polls show voters in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland see themselves united as one country in the next 10 years.

South of the border, 62 per cent of people favour Irish unity, though the majority view it as a long-term project rather than an immediate priority, according to the poll published in the Irish Times

A separate poll in Northern Ireland shows that while most still support the link with the UK at present, a majority think if a referendum was held in 10 years it would result in a vote in favour of a united Ireland.

Importantly, unification with the South was most popular with younger voters, with one in five saying that the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union had made them question their support for staying in the UK.

This is significant among a generation that has grown up since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 that made the island of Ireland borderless within the EU.

A majority in the Province (and in Scotland) voted to remain with Europe in the 2016 referendum, only to see their wishes denied by the English majority. 

There is also increasing disgust at the antics of the Government in Westminster, with Ministers seemly more concerned with picking fights with the EU than governing effectively.

In this fraught atmosphere, with no other solution on the table, Mr Montgomery’s idea of an independent Northern Ireland deserves serious consideration.