Opinion

Patrick Murphy: What Sinn Féin won't tell you - Brexit has made Irish unity less likely

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy is an Irish News columnist and former director of Belfast Institute for Further and Higher Education.

Sinn Féin is for the EU... except when it is against it
Sinn Féin is for the EU... except when it is against it Sinn Féin is for the EU... except when it is against it

BREXIT has not made Irish unity more likely. It has pushed it further away. Now, there is a theory you were not expecting this fine Easter weekend.

It goes against the rapidly growing nationalist view that, prompted by the confusion over Brexit, Irish unity is almost here.

The idea of impending unity is most avidly articulated by Sinn Féin, supported in the north by "civic nationalists". (I think that means middle class Catholics, but I am not sure.)

Mary Lou McDonald says that unionists should prepare for a united Ireland (nationalists, presumably have all their preparations done) and Michelle O'Neill says that unity is "within our grasp". (I think "our" means Sinn Féin, but I am not sure about that either.)

Their argument for a united Ireland is not based on the traditional republican view of the Irish nation, in terms of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter. Sinn Féin abandoned the Irish nation in 1998, without explaining why.

Instead, they decided that Protestants are not Irish (maybe they are genetically different, but who knows?) so the Sinn Féin case for a united Ireland is now based on trade. (Perhaps we should replace the tricolour with a drawing of a container lorry?)

This tidal wave of anti-Brexit nationalism is based on Sinn Féin's love of the EU, which blossomed after Britain opted for Brexit. Since the first law of sectarianism here is that one side's actions produce an opposite and equal reaction, a significant section of unionism is now anti-EU.

This has deepened our sectarian divide. A united Ireland can only grow from some form of northern political consensus, so a united Ireland is therefore further away than ever.

Had Sinn Féin not reversed its original anti-EU policy, Brexit would have seen a significant step towards northern political consensus. A working Stormont could have acted as a bridge between Dublin and London in reaching agreement on cross-border trade.

Ah but, you say, Sinn Féin is now anti-EU. Well is it? In a remarkable U-turn (yes, another one) last week, the party attacked the EU in the Dáil.

Introducing a bill to include Irish neutrality in the constitution, Sinn Féin's Aengus Ó Snodaigh criticised the Irish government's "headlong rush into an EU army".

(Oh dear, I hope this column has not been a good influence on them. It was one of the few to criticise the Irish decision to join the EU's Permanent Structured Cooperation military pact in 2017.)

Mr Ó Snodaigh referred to "EU war mongers", a phrase which not even Boris Johnson has used. These are presumably the same EU warmongers whom Sinn Féin's Euro-candidate, Martina Anderson, said a few days later would defend our rights. (Philosophy exam, Question 1: Can warmongers defend rights?)

Following the Dáil debate, Sinn Féin published its "Defending Irish Neutrality", an excellent document, which deserves wide circulation - if it were not for one huge omission.

It states that the right to an independent foreign policy is the basis for national self-determination. But it does not point out that EU membership means that although individual states have their own embassies across the world, their foreign policies are determined by the EU as a bloc, led usually by Germany.

EU membership will not allow self-determination. The clue is in the word "union", as in the 1801 Act of Union between Britain and Ireland.

As a political union, the EU has its own flag, currency, anthem and parliament. Its own foreign policy and an army to implement that policy are inevitable, in what is becoming a European federation.

Meanwhile, Mary Lou claims that Brexit is "political vandalism". So northern Sinn Féin is pro-EU and southern Sinn Féin does not want Ireland to join a European army, which can only be achieved if Ireland leaves the EU. The party says that the solution to holding these opposing views is that it will work to change EU policy from within.

This makes it the modern day equivalent of the Skibereen Eagle, a Co Cork newspaper, which warned the Tsar of Russia in 1898 that it knew what he was up to and would keep an eye on him.

By remaining within the EU, Ireland will return to the days of John Redmond, when the Irish were urged to fight, not for themselves, but for the benefit of others. Putting Irish passports in our children's pockets merely gives them the right to die on some foreign field for German financial interests.

So at the Easter commemoration parades this weekend, observe the sons of Ireland marching back to the Somme or similar and away from their unionist fellow-Irish men and women. That is why a united Ireland is further away than ever.