Trump Wants to Break Up the UK

Donald Trump said that he would “love to see” a united Ireland during a trip to the Republic of Ireland over the weekend.

It’s an astonishing statement for a U.S. president, especially the day after 9/11:

• The Irish Republican Army waged a brutal, decades-long terrorist campaign aimed at forcing Protestant Northern Ireland to reunite with the Catholic Republic of Ireland.
• The ira killed at least 600 civilians and more than 1,000 British security force members, murdered Lord Mountbatten (second cousin to Queen Elizabeth ii), and tried to murder Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
• America supposedly declared war on terrorism, declaring it wrong as a tactic, no matter what the objectives are. Yet American presidents have consistently been soft on Irish Catholic terrorism because of the large numbers of American voters of Catholic Irish descent.

This comes at a crucial moment for the United Kingdom: Leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are meeting in Cardiff today, where they aim to publish a joint declaration on their right to hold independence referenda.

• Independence parties are in power across all three nations for the first time.
• Scotland’s first minister said Andy Burnham “will go down in history as the final prime minister of the United Kingdom.”
• Scotland voted against independence in a 2014 referendum. However, nationalists are determined to keep holding votes until they get the outcome they want.

President Trump’s comments appear to throw America’s weight behind this movement to break up the UK.

Breakaway efforts signal a demoralized country. As we wrote at the time of Scotland’s referendum:

One hundred years ago, being British meant being an enthusiastic and unapologetic child of a globe-girdling empire. This empire wasn’t perfect (what human empire is?), but it was far more benevolent than others and was a force for great good and civility in the world. Scotland was an integral part of this empire and made countless important contributions. …

Today, that willingness to identify with being British is gone. The sense of identity no longer exists, at least not in the traditional manner. … There is no longer respect and admiration for the empire and what it stood for. There is no loyalty to Judeo-Christian values. No admiration for Great Britain’s heritage, for its vital contributions to the English language and culture, or to the economies, infrastructure and legal systems of peoples and countries the world over. In contemporary Britain, there is no such thing as being British. … It’s just as King Solomon stated 3,000 years ago: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Today there is no vision of being British, and Britain is perishing.

Trump is backing this anti-British movement perhaps without considering the implications. Though he has done some great things for America domestically, he has no understanding of the Catholic-led Holy Roman Empire rising in Europe. The push for a united Ireland not only divides and conquers the UK but does so to the direct benefit of that European empire.