Take your autonomy and stuff it

A small island located near a large country, where most people in the small island and the larger country speak the same language and have been closely integrated since the early 19th century despite distinctive cultural traditions, and lingering separatist sentiment on the island. Yes, it makes sense that we Irish should pay at least a little bit of attention to news events in Corsica.

In passing, it's worth noting the little irony that history's most famous Corsican, born there in the days before it was French, went on to lead France into battle against the United Kingdom, whose troops were commanded by the Duke of Wellington, born in Ireland before it was part of the UK. And no, we're not offering some alternative version of Irish history here. Ireland joined the UK in 1801; check out some of the gory details on the Shamrockshire Eagle.

Anyway, as is fairly widely reported today, the voters of Corsica issued a very narrow Non to plans for somewhat increased autonomy from France. The alignment of voters on this issue seems somewhat unusual. The most pro-nationalist groups favoured a Yes vote, bucking the perception that more nationalist would equate to rejecting anything that fell short of complete autonomy. Seeing that nationalists favoured a Yes vote, this seems to have awakened sentiment of if they're for it, we're against it amongst the integrationists. Whose integrationist sentiment could well be explained by the generous French public sector.

It also seems that some swing voters were unimpressed by stunt politics, and in particularly an intriguingly timed swoop late last week to capture a nationalist fugitive, who hadn't gone to especially great lengths to hide himself (e.g. like leaving Corsica).

So as things stand now, Corsica will remain just another department (or rather, two departments) of France. There has always been some element in Northern Ireland that likewise favoured complete integration with the UK and with the bitter infighting in Unionism about how to work with nationalists in governing NI, there could well be a temptation amongst local politicians to view implementing orders from London as easier than looking across the table at Gerry Adams.