Opinion

Alex Kane: Dublin and unionists must forge new friendships and rebuild trust

Alex Kane

Alex Kane

Alex Kane is an Irish News columnist and political commentator and a former director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party.

First Minister Paul Givan greets Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney during an event hosted by the Presbyterian Church to mark the centenary of Northern Ireland at Union Theological College, Belfast. Photo: Peter Morrison/PA Wire.
First Minister Paul Givan greets Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney during an event hosted by the Presbyterian Church to mark the centenary of Northern Ireland at Union Theological College, Belfast. Photo: Peter Morrison/PA Wire. First Minister Paul Givan greets Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney during an event hosted by the Presbyterian Church to mark the centenary of Northern Ireland at Union Theological College, Belfast. Photo: Peter Morrison/PA Wire.

Last Friday Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign affairs minister, described the relationship between the British and Irish governments as “probably as distant as I can remember. It’s not that there’s any animosity there but it’s not a close one in the way that it has been in the past.”

While admitting that the ‘polarised environment’ in Northern Ireland had been contributed to by comments in London, Dublin and from the EU, he stopped short—well short, in fact—of accepting that some of his own contributions since 2017 (when he was appointed to foreign affairs) may have fuelled the fires and encouraged the polarisation.

He didn’t actually go into much detail about why the relationships between the governments and between the Irish government and unionism/loyalism had become so bad, but he did express hope that he and Conor Burns (the newly appointed NIO minister) could work on improving them. Ironically, he was talking about improving relationships on the very day that President Higgins’s refusal to attend a church service to ‘mark’ (not celebrate, commemorate or champion) partition was annoying even the most liberal of unionists.

Another irony, of course, is that unionist anger should probably be directed more at Boris Johnson than at the EU and the Irish government. They are doing exactly what you would expect them to do after the Brexit result: protecting and promoting their own interests. Why wouldn’t they? Johnson, on the other hand, has decided to act in the particular interests of his voting base across England. If ‘getting Brexit done’ meant hanging out unionists—along with their multiplicity of flags—then hanging them out is what he would do.

There are no votes for him in Northern Ireland. Indeed, I’m pretty sure my cat Wink—who still doesn’t do much more than lie around and lick his bits—would get more votes if he were allowed to stand in east Belfast, than the entire vote for every Conservative candidate in the next assembly election. He would certainly make more sense. But in the absence of votes and seats Johnson has no interest in the place. He has even less interest in grabbing the opportunity to win votes and seats by playing the pro-Union card. So all he does is mumble, ruffle his hair and give vague (so vague, in fact, even the political equivalent of a Satnav couldn’t locate them) commitments to uphold the union. Hmmm.

But having said unionists should be more miffed by the actions and policies of Johnson than by anyone else, it is worth noting that there have been far too many moments when Varadkar, Martin and Coveney have been tone deaf and tin-eared in their approach to unionist concerns. For example, they all knew the problems a beefing-up of the existing border would have caused—not least in terms of the response of some version or other of the IRA; so they should have known that inventing an entirely new border and plonking it between Great Britain and Northern Ireland would cause problems for unionism.

Dismissing those concerns, or worse, blaming unionists for voting for Brexit in the first place, was stupid. The sort of stupidity which erodes trust and undermines relationships forged in the very difficult days between 1992 and 1998. And I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t have been a Good Friday Agreement had those relationships not been forged and some very unlikely friendships struck. Trust and understanding are the key to any peace process. So giving two fingers to one-time allies when they have an unexpected problem was, as I say, the most stupid response imaginable.

It’s worth bearing in mind, too, that there were significant elements of unionism and loyalism which didn’t support Brexit; and many of those same elements, along with softer voices from within the pro-Union community (emerging after the 2016 referendum), were also very perturbed by the uber-unionism pursued by the DUP between 2017 and 2019. Maybe if key players in the Irish government (as well as in the EU commission) had listened to the voices and concerns of anti-Brexit unionism in Northern Ireland after 2016 it might, in turn, have made them more cautious and less cantankerous in their approach to solutions.

Anyway, we are where we are and we’ve all passed a lot of water since the referendum. Relationships will need to be improved and recalibrated. Whatever happens re the protocol there are still huge challenges facing the British and Irish governments and even greater challenges facing unionism and the Irish government. We really do need to start work on the process of forging new friendships and cementing new trust.