Leaving the Union - Formulating the Argument for Eirexit

Note from moderator: I am making this thread a sticky as the topic of Irexit seems very likely to be a huge one in the coming months and years. I can see from social media, and indeed from this forum, that most (though by no means all) conservative or right-wing Irish people are pro-Eirexit, or Irexit. The argument servantofthechief makes here, that hard facts (as opposed to rhetoric) are central to this debate, is (in my view) extremely important. Hopefully, this thread will serve as a good source for people wanting to prime themselves for this debate. I intend to equip myself better for it myself.

In the interest of even-handedness, I have also put up another sticky thread in which people can make the opposing case. Now that's the end of my interruption, over to servantofthechief...

Here I want to first discuss and list arguments and counter arguments for a genuine plan for Ireland to leave the Union. Ostensibly I want to gather together a cost/benefit analysis of our current membership of the Union, vis a vis a cost/benefit analysis of a sudden severe break (not the waffling the Brexit "negotiations" have turned into) in conjunction with what the Irish as a population both need and want for themselves as a nation of people separate from the rest of the world. Then formulating a cohesive populist argument that the common Paddy McGee would look favourably towards vis a vis his own material concerns (as economics is the big fear factor for most Irishmen today even if most don't really understand it, its how we were suckered in the Second Lisbon referendum, those of us not cowed by the media's bullying), basically, how do we convince the average voter it is worth his while to take the gamble of independence and potential poverty and staying in the Union and the garaunteed slow grind poverty we have ongoing and which will continue to go on?

I ask because we don't need emotionalism or rhetoric, any Irishman worth his salt could spin you a rhetorical yarn worthy of Homer for any cause you could name if he was merely half arsed about it, we need a solid argument, with data if we can back it up with it. We need to hit them over the head with an economic argument, backed up with a civic argument (arguing from a legal standpoint for the importance of an independent nation) and then shoot that through with the turbo that is emotional rhetoric. We saw that the establishment had a near insurmountable difficulty coming up with a 'pro-union' argument in Britain that didn't descend to fear mongering, so too is the case in Ireland, the Europhiles have no good arguments for us to remain in the Union, they only have the same fear mongering and insults (expect us to be called every name under the sun and be plastered with the 'dreaded' label of being reactionaries who want to bring back the Church's social domination in Ireland, which I would argue we should just ignore until we have a solid majority behind us, then wear it as a badge of honour just to watch their reactions of horror) if we can dismiss their fear mongering and make a Brexit like argument of the genuine economic benefits of leaving the union, we can back it up with rhetoric and make the Europhilic argument look ridiculous.

One strong argument we have in favour of Eirexit is this:

-An immediate Trade Treaty with Trump's America.
This is an incalculable benefit to us economically. Not only has this already happened with Trump immediately offering first place to Britain for trade negotiations in the wake of Brexit, utterly invalidating Obama's warnings and vindicating the Brexiteers. It is true Ireland has no major strategic resource, and our agricultural produce is expensive in comparison to many nations because of relative quality, we can play that angle to our benefit if we are clever about it. Plenty of Rich people in America who want foreign imports for the sake they are both good and expensive.

-Possible Trade with China and Brazil
China has one primary international policy: Trade with everyone, war with no one, and they... generally stick to this (the current border tiff with India, the South China Seas posturing and North Korean crises not withstanding). Its how they are successfully colonising Africa without anyone really paying much attention to their landgrabs down there. Ireland, having no international interests, and a useful inroad to Western tech specialists, would be an enticing trade partner in Europe for the Chinese, especially as one without the burdensome EU regulations stifling what we can and cannot negotiate over. Brasil, if they can survive their current issues without a collapse, is slated by a lot of observers and experts to become the regional hedgemon of South America in the coming century, make no mistake, although it government is a corrupted morass, it is no Venezuela and so long as nothing catastrophic happens, it will recover. Given the rest of South America, by and large, seems to be rejecting communism and left wing economic theories, we are certain to see a future South America that, while not dominant in the world stage, certainly more capitalistic and prosperous. There is a wealth of trade opportunities down there for us in the coming decades and we would be fools for not trying to get in on that.

-A guaranteed trade Partner in Britain.
Both before and after the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland joined the EU, Britain was always Ireland's single biggest trade partner, all else going well with the above points, they won't be our biggest trade partner in the future, but they will always be our closest and one of our most important trade partners in the future. Ireland leaving the Union is also one more garaunteed trade partner for Britain, so we'll definitely see pro-Eirexit support from Brexiteer Britain, which will serve as a nice 'Shut up' to the West Britons over here who will inevitably use possible contention with Britain as an argument against Eirexit, there will be no contention with Britain if we leave as well, in fact it benefits both countries in terms of trade and the peace process of Northern Ireland

-The border issue
What border issue? None of the talking heads are bringing up the Anglo-Irish treaty or the other treaties of the latter 20th century regarding the border between North and South Ireland, and for good reason: doing so would immediately invalidate the current hotair being blasted about the border issue. But, instead of arguing on that basis, an Eirexit garauntees no hard border with Britain because without the EU to worry us about it, we will revert to our pro-EU relationship regarding the border. That is to say, no hard border, no paper border either, and we'll go back to the free flow of British and Irish citizens who can live and work in both countries with the express desire and wishes of both countries. We strike a twofer with this argument, we dismantling the West Briton objection to leaving the Union and we shore up the Brexiteer arguments in Britain, reinforcing Brexit in our neighbour and guaranteeing the previous point about trade with the British market.

-Fisheries policy
I shouldn't have to go into too much detail here, but suffice it to say, being able to actually fish according to our own industry needs, and use the extra fish we catch for economic uses rather than tossing the dead fish back into the sea which does nobody any good, can only help our coastal economies revitalise and get some money into the hands of small firms and local communities and revitalise the edges of our country's economy. Its not a miracle drug, but its a start. Plus co-ordination with Britain free of EU regulations means we can both come to mutually beneficial arrangements when it comes to fishing in shared waters such as the Irish Sea, the Celtic Sea and the Scottish Inner Seas. The North Atlantic fishing would be our oyster to do with as we please, however.

-Deregulation
This is where we're going to need to get specific and granular, Libertarianism is basically dead here in Western Europe, so deregulation for deregulation's sake is never going to be an effective argument just on its own. We're going to need to find specific industries, governmental regulations, taxation and rates issues aggravated by EU regulation and lawmaking, as well as being prepared for specific 'Look at this instance' counter arguments about regulations and laws of the EU that are 'beneficial' to Ireland, and we're going to need to be prepared to debunk the obviously erroneous ones, counter argue the ones that are actually detrimental but are superficially beneficial, as well as make allowances to grandfather in any regulations and laws the EU has imposed that are genuinely beneficial (this I expect will be an extreme minority), which can be done by Irish lawmakers. This is a dangerous one, because this is where opponents to Eirexit will hit us with the heaviest, unthinking rhetoric. Imagine some law that grants elderly women free bus passes, they'll paint us as heartless for wanting to take away 'Nanny's buspass to visit her daughter's wee'uns', we can't do much about that but hit back with counter rhetoric and then power on with more deregulation hits. Unless we can specifically show how the EU regulations specifically hurt Nanny as well, but this is going to be very case by case.

-Security
Any argument about the EU provided Neutral Ireland with security is completely ignoring the few thousand American troops stationed in Ireland as apart of agreements with America and NATO. Sides, whats going to happen, France is going to invade? Come off it now.

-Debts
Being free from EU oversight gives us an opportunity to follow what other nations are doing to get rid of their national debt. Japan, for instance, another island nation on the opposite side of the world, is making its national bank buy back the national debt. I need to do further research, but essentially, it doesn't exactly encourage economic growth in japan, but what it is doing is demolishing its debts while keeping the government's coffers balance. Its better than nothing. We can also make the argument that since the government bought out the Banksters instead of letting them hang by their own nooses (which we should've done), out of all the PIIGS nations, Ireland has already paid back its initial debt in aggregate, what we are paying off now is the interest on the interest. It is odious debt that physically cannot be paid off unless we literally find a mountain of gold or something. Here we can make the argument that staying int he EU and abiding by its rules will always keep us as a PIIGS nation, never respected or regarded by Europeans well (to appeal to those feckless eejits who consider the regard of other nations as justification to cucking our country out of existence), we are not respected, and never will be, and we will never get out of debt without the freedom to do what is neccessary.

Like I said, there really is no benefit to us being in the Union, so all that opponents can really bring to the table is fear mongering and rhetoric. We already have all the rhetoric in the world, hitting them with good old fashioned Nationalism, civic arguments about trading being the province of one empire to another (Germany trying to form an EU wide army is excellent rhetoric material to argue this point), and on top of this, hit the public hard with the immigration issues, which everyone not blinded by ignorance or ideology can see, hit them with the housing crises, and hit them that the primary factor in aggravating the water charges issue was the Troika commission and if necessary get down to immigration, which is becoming and increasingly bad problem here, though unlike Britain, I do not think it will be a driving issue for the majority of voters on the Eirexit issue.


The key is to paint a positive image of the Eirexit campaign, rather than fear mongering over increasing Eu encroachment (which is true), but painting a positive image will contrast very sharply with the negative image of the Irish Remain campaign. The problem is the Irishman is usually a conservative voter, unless he is browbeaten into compliance (we all remember the disgrace that was the Gay Marriage referendum), and the avergae Paddy McGee is going to be absolutely terrorized throughout the Eirexit campaign. We need to capitalise on this, the Irish internet would need to inflict a memewar on Facebook and Twitter (as well as Boards.ie if we can get some internet lads on side with us) we'll also need the support of some prominent Irishmen on the internet, one lad in particular who will be all for Eirexit I can tell is Dave Cullen, otherwise known as ComputingForever, he's an atheist youtuber, but has grown much more friendly to Christianity of late (though not exactly an advocate) and is an outspoken conservative. Another one, this one an ethnonationalist and considerably more right wing than Dave is this lad calling himself TheDon. Neither of these are truly viral on the Irish sphere of the Internet, but if this issue comes up, they will be. Meme warring is effective rhetoric, though not guaranteed, the French memewar did not get LePen elected after all, although it definitely helped Trump get elected. Ireland being an Anglosphere and many on the internet absolutely loathing the EU, we'll likely have a lot of Americans helping out with the internet side of things. Most of Ireland, while connected to the Internet, is not nearly that into it, but Dubliners, by and large, are as connected to the internet as any major city, so the meming would be most effective in Dublin. The problem is places like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google in general are in full Progressive lockdown mode, so if Eirexit starts looking likely, expect another round of shutdowns all across the internet.

Germany and the rest of Europe will come down like a bag of bricks on Ireland the second the Eirexit game gets off the ground. In the wake of Trump and Brexit, Eirexit will by necessity be an internationally relevant issue that might very well spell the end of the EU if a second EU country votes to secede in just a few years. With the Catalonian Secession crises looming in Spain, (Which deserves a thread all in its own right), this will likely be another leak in the dam. Like I said, this will terrorize the average Irish voter, who will be terrorized by the media, the news, the radio, the government, by NGOs, by traitorous heretic priests who will gladly argue for the EU at the pulpit. Getting word of support throughout the country will be absolutely vital for the movement to be successful, many communities are too easily isolated, and supporters in Galway, for example, may feel utterly alone even if just the next village over there are twice as many Eirexit supporters.

Even if the country is boiling over with support, it will be a 100% stonewalling effort from the media, and the Irish media is considerably more savvy about this sort of thing than America's or Britain's, which we see with their treatment of the National Party of Ireland, going radio silent on the matter, to the point that most people simply don't know they exist, had the US media done the same with Trump, he would not have won. All they have to do is just report the complete and total success and inevitability of the remain campaign, citing poll after poll, expert after expert, and doing straw polling in the most liberal areas of Dublin city to seem to get a 'grass roots' rejection of Eirexit to demoralise the prospective patriotic voter. Meaning we have to devise alternative ways to strongarm the media into either reporting the truth (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA fat chance, they're our enemy) or else having the required infrastructure to get the word out, meaning we'll have to actually, physically build the support network, person by person, to ensure every county and every major city and town gets the real word on prospective polls, opinions, and prospective voter turnouts. It means shelling out the cash for mail in votes from out of country nationals like the state did for pro-gay marriage voters (I don't think they did the same for anti-gay marriage voters, but I have no data on that), it also means getting friendly institutions on side with us. The Iona institute I feel would gladly side with the issue, seeing an independent Ireland more likely to remain an abortion free Ireland. The National Party, if they are smart, will utilise this to propel themselves to political relevance, so we could use their resources to help propel the infrastructure. We have to fight a media war with next to no access to the media itself and no expectation of the media being balanced or neutral either. It is going to be nightmarish, but it is neccessary.

We can't rely on Sinn Fein, they are nominally Eurosceptic, but I fully expect them to cuck on us and cuck hard depending on how things go, I might be wrong, but we'll see.

What do you suggest? Anything I have missed, how else would you go formulating such an argument?