The European Commission’s draft withdrawal agreement is “nothing short of a move by the EU to annex Northern Ireland.” So says the UUP, echoing a growing conviction across unionism that Brussels and Dublin are jointly exploiting Brexit to advance a united Ireland.
Naturally, few northern nationalists want to disabuse unionists of that notion but it is at odds with opinion in the Republic and makes no rational sense. Informed sources believe what Brussels and Dublin are actually doing is trying to bounce London into finally making up its mind on a soft Brexit for the whole UK, which Ireland needs for east-west far more than for north-south reasons, by proposing a nightmare alternative.
In other words, neither Brussels nor Dublin want the alternative or care about the effect proposing it has within Northern Ireland - an effect whose divisiveness goes against decades of Irish policy on unification, and whose timing in the absence of Stormont could hardly be worse.
This is the behaviour of people who could not give two hoots about any of us, let alone who want us all on their hands.
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The unionist response to Brussels has revealed one of the great joys of Northern Ireland politics, namely, that any good argument cuts both ways. Leading DUP and UUP figures claim changing Northern Ireland’s customs status within the UK would violate the consent principle in the Good Friday Agreement. However, it is clear in the agreement that this principle relates only to leaving the UK for a united Ireland, rather than to any technical aspect of Brexit - as unionists point out when republicans use the same argument against Brexit.
Pressing their case further, leading unionists insist any kind of customs and regulatory ‘sea border’ would be so dramatic an imposition it would alter Northern Ireland’s constitutional status within the UK. Why should a sea border be any less frictionless and invisible than a high-tech land border, as advocated by the same unionist figures?
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The high-tech border is a good argument - so much so, Leo Varadkar ordered his customs officials to stop working on it upon becoming taoiseach last year because it was undermining his preferred soft Brexit argument. So it seems harsh that UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson suffered international ridicule for comparing electronic vehicle monitoring on a post-Brexit border to the London congestion zone. Technically, the comparison was valid and as a former London mayor he was qualified to make it, although his media performance on the topic was haphazard and aggressive.
The problem Johnson revealed is that the UK government, like unionism, offers technical solutions as a way to keep their Brexit options open rather than as a way to deliver the Brexit they want. Incredibly, even at this stage, the UK does not know what it wants.
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The RHI inquiry is a political irrelevance since Sinn Féin conceded Arlene Foster can return as first minister. However, it continues to provide fascinating insights into how Stormont works, or more accurately, how it does not work. This week a senior official in Foster’s department at the time of RHI said record keeping, minuting of meetings and written communication had declined in favour of face to face conversations, with this “greater informality” possibly “creeping in” due to Freedom of Information Act requests.
It appears that to avoid basic accountability, Stormont’s civil servants are regressing to a pre-literate society.
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Last year, at a Sinn Féin-organised conference on a united Ireland, Kevin Meagher - a former adviser to Labour secretary of state Shaun Woodward - said the issue of unification must be disassociated from Sinn Féin. Instead, it looks like the party may disassociate itself from Mr Meagher.
Addressing another Sinn Féin united Ireland conference last Saturday in Cork, the former adviser told delegates that unionists are too backward for progressive engagement and should be approached on the basis that: “Once you have them by the b*lls, their hearts and minds will follow.”
Another panellist at the event, University College Cork senior lecturer Dr Thomas Paul Burgess, professed himself “appalled” and noted neither Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald or vice president Michelle O’Neill, who were both present, “gave any substance to this buffoonery.”
It must be asked how much of a hearing Meagher received from Woodward.
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A row about ‘decent unionists’ has broken out again, 13 years after the “decent people vote Ulster Unionist” election campaign, where everyone stopped voting for the Ulster Unionists.
Alliance chair Duncan Morrow has called on “decent unionists” to back Tory rebels against Brexit, causing TUV Jim Allister to ask: “what qualifies one as ‘decent’ in the eyes of Mr Morrow?”
One qualification might be not organisating a petition for the release of Greysteel murderer Torrens Knight, as TUV member Trevor Collins did in 2009, for which the party declined to discipline him.
Collins described Knight, who had just been re-imprisoned for assaulting two women, as “a decent young man.”
newton@irishnews.com
