Unionists have always used violence or threats of violence to resist democracy, to defy British governments, to halt political development or simply to intimidate opponents. It’s an ignoble history.
Unionists brought the gun into Irish politics in the twentieth century in 1912 (actually resurrecting seditious plans they’d made in 1892) starting a horrendous chain of events. They initiated a vast campaign of killing and arson in the north-east of the country from 1920-22. They brought the gun back again in 1966 to try to block O’Neillite reforms by killing John Scullion, Peter Ward and Matilda Gould. They detonated the first bombs of the Troubles in 1969. They launched traditional mass arson of Catholics’ homes. They threw the first bomb at police and they killed the first policeman in the Troubles, Victor Arbuckle.
All the while, from 1912 on they were provoked, encouraged, egged on and excused by mendacious unionist politicians, be they Carson, Craig, Brookeborough, Liquidator Craig Mark II, Paisley and…add your own most despised rabble rouser to the uncountable list. In recent decades how many loyalist terrorists are recorded saying after being sentenced: “I wish I’d never listened to that man Paisley”?
Here we go again with unionist politicians following their traditional route, though on this occasion they seem to be somewhat circumspect; so far no bombast, just weasel words. Weasel words that nevertheless provide language for their less articulate supporters to use, words like anger, discontent, alienation, which these excuses for politicians explain they ‘understand’, even ‘share’. They play the role of the actor Peter Lorre as the diminutive shady character beside his enormous sinister sidekick Sidney Greenstreet in 1940s films. Lorre would say words to the effect, “Myself, I’m a peaceful cooperative person, but my friend here is unpredictable and can be very rough.” In other words, the traditional unionist ploy. If we don’t get what we want and violence ensues, well then, it’s your fault. Or, as Peter Robinson ominously wrote last Friday: “Take care.”
The intellectual dishonesty of unionist politicians is legendary, but on this occasion they have excelled themselves. The mess unionists have got themselves into is entirely their own making: they blocked every other route offered which would have avoided an Irish Sea border. They are the authors of their supporters’ misery and misfortune, yet they plead victimhood. They won’t admit to their followers that the terms of trade have changed (no pun intended) in many fundamental ways. Unionists no longer own the police and the courts. Unionists no longer have an armed militia at their disposal.
Most importantly, unionists are a minority in the assembly and significantly, for the first time also in Westminster, their MPs outnumbered 10-8. These facts haven’t yet dawned on unionists with the likes of Sir Jeffrey ‘I could live with 40,000 job losses’ Donaldson still talking on behalf of “the people of Northern Ireland”. Instead, in defiance of democracy as usual, minority unionists continue to believe they have a veto on any change.
No unionist leader will adopt the honest position and state to their supporters the obvious truth, and it’s this. They need to tell them unionists are a diminishing minority who have no alternative but to engage now to reach an accommodation with their fellow citizens on this island on how to manage the future. Now is long past the time to do so because with each year that passes their position weakens.
At present unionist leaders are ‘understanding’ the hot air emissions from armchair generals and superannuated terrorists as they have always done. The reality is that, protocol or no protocol, unionist leaders need to face dynamic political changes in demography and society which are rapidly altering the north. Ranting about the Irish protocol is a distraction from that reality which unionists will inevitably have to address. Better sooner than later.
