It is a basic law of northern politics that one side’s difficulty is the other side’s opportunity. So the current crisis in unionism should mean that nationalism is on a roll - culturally confident, politically assured and counting down to a united Ireland.
In theory that is how it is, but with nationalism at its most optimistic for 100 years, its political leaders are making significant mistakes which, if not addressed, will mean the more they push for a united Ireland, the more difficult it will be to achieve. Welcome to a wonderful example of where arrogance may obstruct wisdom.
The main obstacle to a united Ireland is unionism. Sinn Féin’s approach has been to assure unionists that Irish unity would not represent “threat or loss” to them and that they will be welcome in the new utopian state. Unionists might therefore reasonably ask for some supporting evidence.
So far there is none. Indeed three significant pieces of evidence point the other way. The first is that in abandoning 230 years of Irish republicanism, SF insists that unionists are British, not Irish.
So the anti-British attacks by northern nationalists, Fine Gael and Dublin’s media are therefore also anti-unionist. Practising division while preaching unity is hardly the best route to a united Ireland. (It leaves nationalists more closely resembling a Wolfe Tones’ ballad, than Wolfe Tone’s aspiration of uniting Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter as Irish people.)
Traditionally Irish unity has been based on the 1916 Proclamation’s concept of a single Irish nation. (It does not mention a second nation.) The republican case for political and cultural unity has been replaced by SF’s economic argument, relegating nationalism’s core principle to politically-inspired accountancy allied to a sectarian headcount.
(That’s the advantage of Scottish and Welsh nationalism. Their enemy is London, not their neighbours.)
Sinn Féin assures unionists that they will “remain British” (whatever that means) after Irish unity. But a second piece of evidence shows that unionists already feel cut off from Britain by the Irish Sea border. If unionists cannot bring in garden plants from Britain now, what can they expect in a united Ireland?
They will also have noticed Dublin’s poor vaccination record and its pause in using the AstraZeneca vaccine. If the Northern Ireland Protocol remains unchanged, we too will be subject to the vaccine vagaries of the EU. Do nationalist leaders really expect unionists (or indeed nationalists) to approve that? (It certainly leaves USA support for the protocol looking rather premature.)
Nationalism’s mistake is to equate the DUP with unionism. The DUP is now just a leaderless rabble, which Sinn Féin can easily outwit. But SF’s anti-unionism also alienates the broad mass of unionists, whose support they need for a united Ireland. Nationalism is hindering Irish unity just as much as unionism.
Nationalism can show unionism some empathy, ignore it, or attack it. Taoiseach Micheál Martin has opted for empathy, but this has yet to result in anything concrete. The rest of nationalism is in attack mode, including, on occasion, the SDLP, political partners of Fianna Fáil. (There are no votes for the SDLP in empathy.)
The third piece of anti-unionist evidence is, of course, nationalism’s hostility to Brexit. A united Ireland will require re-joining the EU. A border poll will be another Brexit poll. Current EU involvement in the north will hardly encourage mainstream unionists, or loyalist paramilitaries, in that direction.
You may well argue that these three bits of evidence (and there are others) will do little to derail Irish unity. But even if you are right, those problems will remain in a united Ireland.
We have endured a dysfunctional Six Counties for 100 years. Unless those issues are resolved to unionism’s satisfaction, a united Ireland (if it arrives) risks being a 32 County dysfunctional state. Same problem, bigger scale.
In such a state, we can expect a campaign for a poll to re-instate the border. That’s the lovely thing about the Irish - we are remarkably skilled at repeating our mistakes.
