NAIL (Cinco De Mayo)

The Newfoundland-American Integration League, almost exclusively known as NAIL, was a political organization active in the Newfoundland Free State between 1940, when it was founded, and 1949, when it was officially disbanded in the wake of the Newfoundland Crisis. NAIL, founded by St. John's businessman Geoff Sterling, was a pro-American political operation that advocated for at the very least an "economic union" with the United States that would include a customs and passport union as well as the potential for a common currency, though some factions of NAIL, not including Sterling, supported the outright annexation of Newfoundland by the United States. NAIL was anti-Canadian, anti-Confederationist and vehemently anti-Drummondville, but was also staunchly anti-republican. It's political ideology became known in Newfoundland as "integrationist." With support mainly amongst a handful of Protestant business elites and some Catholic immigrants, it was widely derided as a fringe group for most of World War Two.

NAIL formed an alliance with the NRA in the 1946 election in electing United Newfoundland Party MA's, including integrationist Charley Crosbie, but was marginalized by republicans in the government shortly thereafter and the two integrationist MA's in government eventually broke off to form the Economic Union Party. The EUP became NAIL's political arm in the 1949 plebiscite and general election, with the EUP winning no seats, and the EUP supporting the independence question. Because it was anti-Drummondville, NAIL was for a long time regarded as part of the "Renegotiation Coalition" with the NRA/UNP despite its end goal being radically different. After the 1949 Newfoundland Crisis, NAIL ceased to exist as an entity after its members fled to the United States, and by the time of the fall of Communism in 1991 integrationism had no base of support remaining, with even Stirling having moved on by then and disavowed his old ideology.