By Liam O Ruairc (for Sovereign Nation)

Is the issue of Irish national sovereignty relevant at the beginning of the 21st century? Republicans and Socialists have no doubts that the sovereignty issue today is strategically relevant. It is not just because the sovereignty issue overdetermines many issues North and South. One of the effects of the “Peace Process” is that it has effectively transformed the conflict from a political one over national sovereignty into a cultural squabble over respect for “identities”. It is about “equality” and “parity of esteem” between two sectarian blocks rather than a conflict between the British state and the Irish people. With the sovereignty issue, we are in the realm of universality, not in that of ethno-national particularism. Putting sovereignty as the central issue strategically reverses the definition of the conflict as one between “rival tribes”. But how are we to get sovereignty, the “sovereign thirty two county democratic socialist republic”? In particular, what are we going to do about it in the next decade or two?