Celts decide for themselves

Having implemented his plan in Northern Ireland, Tony Blair is ready to resign the new government of Northern Ireland was a swearing on Tuesday. The creation of the Coalition Cabinet of Ministers has put an end to the political crisis, which has lasted since 2002. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair considers this one of his main achievements for 10 years in power. Meanwhile, in Scotland, a new round of debate begins about whether it should be achieved by independence from London.

The North Irish Assembly in modern form was formed in 1998, but already in 2002 its powers were suspended after the police suspected some employees of Sinn Fein

The fact that they collected disorders in favor of the Irish Republican Army. Since then, North Ireland has remained under the direct rule of London.

At the beginning of 2006, Britain British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the head of the government of Ireland Bertie Achaern presented a plan for resolving the political crisis in Northern Ireland. And on March 26 this year, irreconcilable opponents finally met; The head of the Democratic Unionist Party Jan Paisley and the leader of Sinn Fein, Jerry Adams, agreed on the formation of a joint administration. Until then, politicians talked exclusively through intermediaries. And after the signing of the agreement, Adams and Paisley decided not to exchange handshakes. Nevertheless, the composition of the coalition government was determined.

According to the plan of Blair and Akherna, Paisley became the head of the Northern Ireland executive branch, and Martin Mcginness Martin Mcginness became his deputy at Sinn Fein.

The European Commission in the near future will probably approve the allocation of Northern Ireland of additional funds in the amount of 1.7 billion euros for the next six years. Pasley and McGinns announced that they intend to leave all the disagreements in the past and work together.

On Tuesday, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who called the achieved compromise, was attended by a “historical event”.

He considers one of his main achievements for 10 years spent on Dauning Street, participation in the formation of the Government of Northern Ireland. “Over these 10 years, I devoted to the problem of Olster, perhaps the most time,” Blair admitted. “Let others judge the result, but for me this question was one of the most important, and I devoted more time to him than something else that I dealt with.” Perhaps today Blair will announce the date of his resignation.

So far, Northern Ireland enjoys “in -depth” self -government, Scottish nationalists who won the local parliamentary elections are incurred by Scotland's independence plans. During the election campaign, they stated that the birthplace of Burns and Stevenson would leave UK by 2010.

However, the Scottish National Party received only 47 out of 129 seats in parliament. Just one less than the laborists who do not believe in any independence.

Over the past six months, from the British sociological organizations included in the “big four” (ICM, Populus, Mori, YouGov), only Mori has not conducted polls about hypothetical Scottish independence. Their data are as follows: although the nationalists received the majority of places in parliament, the popularity of the idea of the Scotland separation decreased. If in October and November last year 51 and 52% of respondents (ICM) were spoke for independence of Scotland, then in March and April this year only 27% (Populus) and 21-22% (YouGov, Populus), respectively. At the same time, 60% of the surveyed (YouGov) still consider it necessary to hold a referendum.

But, as polls show, the majority of the respondents do not see the goal of the referendum not in the exit from the union, but only in the expansion of the powers of the national parliament. Now, according to the 1998 Act of the 1998, the Assembly may make decisions on a wide range of issues, with the exception of defense, constitutional transformations, economic, social and foreign policy.

Finally, success in the elections does not make from the Scottish National Party an unconditional winner due to a difficult scheme for the formation of the national parliament. One part of it is elected according to the majority system, and the other by proportional. This approach practically excludes the possibility of obtaining an absolute majority of one of the parties and forces her to seek support among those who also went to parliament.

05/09/2007 / Ivan Sotnikov, Andrey Kulikov, the material was published in the newspaper No. 82 of 05/10/2007.