Are Northern Irish people proud to be British?

(It turned out that I wrote a simple answer myself. I just saw a more detailed introduction, so I reposted it. I hope the author can also adopt my answer, haha!)

According to the Irish Government Act of 1920, Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland were born at the same time in 1921. Southern Ireland was immediately renamed the Irish Free State. According to the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, after the independence of the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland can decide independently whether to join the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland decided to remain in the United Kingdom. The majority of the Irish (Unionists) wanted to remain in the United Kingdom, but an important minority (Nationalists) wanted to join the Irish Republic. The struggle between the two factions was weaponized from the 1960s to the 1990s. Northern Ireland's autonomy was revoked in 1972. Starting in the mid-1990s, the main semi-military groups of the two factions reached an unreliable ceasefire.

Northern Ireland has no formal official flag since the Northern Ireland Assembly was abolished in 1972. Unionists generally use the British flag or the "red hand flag" of Northern Ireland, while nationalists generally use the Irish flag. People from both factions sometimes use the flags of their party or religion. Some non-neutral organizations use the St. Patrick flag as their flag, but some extreme nationalists believe it is also a royalist flag, so there is no recognized flag of Northern Ireland so far, and Northern Ireland does not have its own state anthem.

Most people in Northern Ireland belong to two different factions: Unionist or Nationalist. External media often distinguish the two sects by their main religious beliefs. Most Unionists are Protestants and most Nationalists are Catholics. But not all Catholics supported the Nationalists, and not all Protestants supported the Unionists. As in other parts of Europe, the number of believers in Northern Ireland has plummeted in recent decades, but this has not lessened the differences between the two factions.

When Northern Ireland was formed in 1920, its geographical location meant that there was a Unionist majority. Unionists feared that their status would be threatened if Northern Ireland joined Ireland, so they opposed joining Ireland, but since then the proportion of Catholics has increased and the proportion of Protestants has decreased.

A majority of Catholics support union with Ireland, but opinion polls show that there is also support for remaining in the United Kingdom, although they continue to support nationalist parties. Over the past 15 years, this minority has steadily shrunk to 20%. Approximately 3 to 5% of Protestants support union with Ireland, but their numbers have not changed much. There are also many people, especially Catholics, who are not very clear about the future status of Northern Ireland.

Although Northern Ireland's elections are often seen in news reports as a poll on Northern Ireland's status, this view oversimplifies the situation on the ground. Voters often consider voting to improve their own social status or strengthen the power of their associations.

The political parties in Northern Ireland can be divided into two layers: the nationalist parties include the Social Democratic Labor Party (SDLP), Sinn Féin and other small parties, and the unionist parties include the Northern Ireland Unionist Party (UUP) , Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and other smaller parties.

In theory, Sinn Féin is an extreme socialist revolutionary party. Its goal is to establish an all-Ireland socialist republic. It is related to the Irish Revolutionary Army (IRA). connect. Its voters have traditionally come from the Catholic working class in the cities and some rural areas. Since the IRA ceasefire in the mid-1990s its influence has expanded significantly and it has gained many new supporters from traditional SDLP voters. Its experience in government has caused it to lose some of its ultra-revolutionary edge, and in the European Parliament it is generally associated with, but not a member of, the United Front of the European Left/Nordic Green Left.

The SDLP is nominally a standard social democratic party. It is a member of the European Socialist Party and the Socialist International. But Northern Ireland's parties are generally not based on social and economic class classifications, so its electorate is multi-layered and it also has a middle-class electorate. The SDLP supported the union of Ireland but opposed the use of force. The SDLP has lost many supporters over the past decade. There is currently a struggle within the party between the nationalist faction that is more aligned with Sinn Féin and the faction that is abandoning nationalism.

There is a similar trend among the federalists. The more extreme DUP has been more dominant than the more traditional UUP in the past period of time. The UUP is a super-class popular party that was the ruling party in Northern Ireland from its establishment to 1972. From the time the DUP was founded in the 1970s its main supporters were the middle class. UUP's members in the European Parliament belong to the European People's Party.

The DUP has a very mixed membership, with both devout rural supporters and irreligious worker supporters in the cities. It is right-wing on issues such as abortion, the death penalty, the European Union and women's rights, and appears to be more liberal on gay rights. The DUP's politics generally tend to favor its workers and rural voters, such as free transport for the elderly and European Union funding for agriculture. The DUP has gained a lot of support in recent years and is the only major party to oppose Friday's peace deal.

Its members do not belong to any group in the European Parliament, but are closer to Democracy and Plural Europe.

In general, since the beginning of the peace process in Northern Ireland, the more extreme Sinn Féin and DUP have developed relatively quickly. But there are also more optimistic people who believe that the issue of Northern Ireland's independence will become less and less important in the European Union.