Opinion

Tom Kelly: Unionists squandering chance to make Catholics feel more comfortable in Northern Ireland

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly is an Irish News columnist with a background in politics and public relations. He is also a former member of the Policing Board.

DUP leader Arlene Foster with deputy leader Nigel Dodds at Parliament Buildings in Stormont, Belfast. Their party is in favour of Brexit. Picture by David Young, Press Association
DUP leader Arlene Foster with deputy leader Nigel Dodds at Parliament Buildings in Stormont, Belfast. Their party is in favour of Brexit. Picture by David Young, Press Association DUP leader Arlene Foster with deputy leader Nigel Dodds at Parliament Buildings in Stormont, Belfast. Their party is in favour of Brexit. Picture by David Young, Press Association

Apparently hardline Tory MPs have given the prime minister an ultimatum over the issue of a customs union with the EU.

It’s time to call these people out for what they are - deluded fools. Diplomatic language won't suffice. Their type of politics was out of date 40 years ago. ‘The’ customs union with the EU may end but ‘a’ customs union of sorts will replace it. These numpties can call it what they want but you can’t have a trading relationship without it.

Politics is the art of the possible. It works on the basis of pragmatism. The little Englanders and their ‘mini me’ DUP cousins believe that compromise is a dirty word. Pragmatism is forsaken for dogmatic obduracy. These Brexit Lilliputians are hanging on to issues the majority of British voters have now abandoned. The British local government elections just proved that.

If Luddite Brexiteers were building the Titanic today, they would forgo lifeboats altogether to get a chance to sing Rule Britannia as the ship sinks.

The leadership of the DUP and to a lesser but no less significant degree, the Ulster Unionist Party, believe that somehow EU membership diluted Britishness and therefore being out of the EU will make Northern Ireland more British. It won’t and it doesn’t. As a matter of fact it makes the future of unionism within Northern Ireland less secure.

The changing demographics within Northern Ireland are clear to anyone with a with scintilla of common sense. But common sense is a commodity rarer than hens' teeth in the north. Rarer still within unionism.

There is a misplaced and unreliable belief within unionism that whilst a Catholic majority within Northern Ireland may be inevitable, that leaving the UK will be unpalatable to enough Catholics to maintain the Union. That’s not a given. Far from it. Unionist leaders are currently squandering, deliberately or accidentally, any potential to persuade Catholics to feel comfortable within Northern Ireland. If they believe that a British benefits system will persuade them differently, they are hugely mistaken. Catholic working and middle classes are people who work. They are not on benefits. They will look to where their prosperity and opportunity can best grow.

Let me explain it in personal terms.

A few weeks ago I came across a letter written 30 years ago by an angry militant republican criticising me. It was about a speech I made 25 years ago at Methodist College where I said that, “some day I hoped I would not have to be defined solely as a nationalist”. The Good Friday Agreement helped bring that day closer. It allowed people like me to feel comfortable in our own skins as being Irish without having to feel second class in the place we call home. The crudeness and clumsiness of the St Andrews Agreement architecture brought the clash between unionism and nationalism to the fore again. It’s now an inescapable race to the finish and there will only be one winner. This isn’t what I envisaged when voting for the Good Friday Agreement.

Meanwhile the Republic of Ireland, already a successful enough modern economy to bounce back after a devastating world economic crash within a mere eight years, is led by a mixed race, gay prime minister. It’s a new diverse, pluralist, tolerant and increasingly culturally inclusive society which seems welcoming to a younger and not so young generation of northerners. Let’s face it - who would not want Northern Ireland to take one foot out of its graveyards?

On the other side of the pond, Scotland looks to assert its own identity free from Westminster dominance as an ever narrowing and intolerant Tory leadership, bereft of any sense of benevolent paternalism, seems hell bent on asserting a global British image that's more befitting of the 1950s. The perfect storm is now forming.

Naturally Ireland will seek to continue to maintain many of the unique aspects of its relationship with Britain post Brexit. However, it's no longer some kind of colonial nodding donkey to the whims of its larger neighbour. Britain knows that too.

And of course there’s Northern Ireland, the Gordian knot which blocks access to a successful post Brexit world for Britain, Ireland and the EU. Ironically those most likely to go for a blunt solution are the Brexit supporting Tories and their tag along DUP partners.

But Northern Ireland is not the Falklands or even the EU loving contrarian Gibraltar. No, permanent change lies within our grasp and some will readily reach for it now.