Yes my mistake. It should be the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and NOT Northern Ireland. My apologies to any Northern Irelanders here.
They were never happy being part of Britain throughout history; it has nothing to do with Brexit. Just like Tibet, Xinjiang and many self-governmental prefectures of ethnic minorities in China, you think they wouldn't be "all too happy" if China left APEC or WTO? They couldn't care less. Go head, go make your grandstand for national unity for China. Here is your chance. Your boss in China is waiting... LOL Brexit is about Britain getting its own country back and not letting other countries ruling over Britain through the backdoor anymore. If tomorrow China finds that APEC and/or WTO is dictating too much over China, China would promptly leave APEC and/or WTO too (if it finds itself not able to impose its own agenda over APEC and/or WTO). So would China be should this happen? LOL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_of_Great_Britain_and_Ireland But now I found this other Wikipedia article about UK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom. And it clearly states that it's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and that's what I always thought. It's the Southern Ireland that's actually prostestant, closer to the religion of that of UK that's actually independent and Northern Ireland that is part of UK is actually Catholic, hence the conflict. I got confused by that first Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_of_Great_Britain_and_Ireland. And now I realized that that's UK from 1801 - 1922, the old UK. And for the modern UK, you are supposed to look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom. That's very very confusing. They need to merge these two articles into one. There is no need to have two separate articles talking about the history of one country.
I agree, it is confusing. As a Northern Irish man once said about the "troubles" over there, if someone isn't confused about the situation, that's only because they don't understand what's happening..... The Republic of Ireland is predominantly Catholic. Northern Ireland is more evenly split between Protestant and Catholic.
Ok. So it's the half of Northern Ireland that's Catholic that wants out and join the Republic of Ireland, I imagine. OMG!! What is a precarious situation, a country split in half with one part belonging to another country. The old state of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland would've been so much better, at least Ireland is intact without this weird border slicing the country in half and families separated and everything. Imagine you living on the border, going to bed belonging to UK and waking up the next day belonging to a different country!! And the family members living in one Ireland before and then all of sudden with some family members belonging to UK and others belonging to Ireland, forever separated!! That's awful!!
Now you're truly confused. Ireland is overwhelmingly Catholic while northern Ireland is Protestant and pro England, thus the conflict. Yes, it's not just justified enough to kill each other over land, clan, region or nation; we add religion, ethnic group and skin color to the mix, just because we can.
Britain was having such trouble governing Ireland that they partitioned the island of Ireland in the 1920's. The majority of the southern counties wished for independence and this area formed the Republic. The majority in the northern 6 counties wished to remain in the UK and this became Northern Ireland, still within the UK. Less than half of NI is Catholic and not even all of that community want to join the Republic of Ireland. Even then, its hard to imagine why the Republic would want to lay claim to Northern Ireland when more than half the population of NI want to remain in the UK, or at least do not wish to be subsumed into the Republic. There has been ghastly violence and terrorism on both sides and Ireland would potentially descend into civil war if NI was removed from the UK against the general will of the population and added into the Republic.
Well according to this Wikipedia article about the Irish Conflict, " A key issue was the status of Northern Ireland. Unionists and loyalists, who for historical reasons were mostly Ulster Protestants, wanted Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom. Irish nationalists and republicans, who were mostly Irish Catholics, wanted Northern Ireland to leave the United Kingdom and join a united Ireland.". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles#Proposal_of_an_independent_Northern_Ireland. So these Irish nationalists and republicans who were mostly Irish Catholics, were they the minority in Northern Ireland then, if you are stating that not even all of the Catholics in Northern Ireland wanted to join The Republic of Ireland? If so, why didn't those Republic-loving Catholics just leave and go to the Republic of Ireland themselves since they are the minority and leave the rest of Northern Ireland alone? How could they become strong enough to launch almost a civil war? That is ridiculous!!!
Back in the 20's the majority of the minority Catholic population wanted the northern six counties to leave the UK and join the new Republic. They were outnumbered by those who wanted to remain, and they still are. Yes, the Northern Irish Catholics who want to live outside the UK could emigrate to the Republic, but they also want a united Ireland. Attitudes are so entrenched in Northern Ireland that its almost inevitable that if the wishes of the Unionists in Northern Ireland were over-ruled and the northern six counties joined the Republic, there would be serious and widespread terrorism, violence and potentially open armed conflict, at least in the north. There would be no way to confine this from spreading to the south.