Opinion

Newton Emerson: Unicorns make a quick appearance on the political stage only to gallop off again

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

Michelle O'Neill and Arlene Foster had contradictory views over the possible effect of the abortion referendum on voters in the north
Michelle O'Neill and Arlene Foster had contradictory views over the possible effect of the abortion referendum on voters in the north Michelle O'Neill and Arlene Foster had contradictory views over the possible effect of the abortion referendum on voters in the north

Like an invasive species on a barren island, Northern Ireland’s unicorn population has exploded, consumed everything then vanished again - all in the space of a week.

On the Sunday after the Republic’s abortion referendum, Sinn Féin deputy leader Michelle O’Neill said abortion was a “constitutional issue” that would swing unionist votes in a border poll.

At last Saturday’s same-sex marriage rally in Belfast, Sinn Féin indicated this issue too could breed more unionist mythical creatures.

The following day, DUP leader Arlene Foster claimed nationalists and republicans had told her they will vote DUP to “protect the unborn.”

DUP MP Ian Paisley said a priest in his constituency would urge his flock to transmogrify into unicorns for the same reason.

That was the final straw for Sinn Féin. A party spokesman told Sky TV: “abortion is not a unionist versus nationalist issue... While there are some strongly held views, it is not credible to suggest it will make republicans become unionist, just as it would not be credible to suggest that unionists who support and trust women on this issue will become republicans. It is simply a wrong that needs put right.”

This was a remarkable statement and not only because it contradicted O’Neill’s statement seven days before.

Foster and Paisley’s claims had been ridiculed but O’Neill had been heard seriously and could at least be seen as aligning her party with social change.

Yet Sinn Féin culled everyone’s unicorns, including its own.

This is a development of some significance.

It means Sinn Féin fully accepts the ‘two nations’ idea of distinct British and Irish peoples, with constitutional allegiances hardwired from birth and immune from even the most reasoned or passionate argument.

Instead of theoretically aiming to make constitutional converts - a theory that matters, as without it republicanism is merely nationalism - Sinn Féin is now just waiting out the demographic clock.

We tend to see this as a sterile standoff, heralding endlessly divisive politics.

But as the response to Foster and Paisley recognised, it is also brutally realistic - and realism has a high political value.

Respectfully acknowledging that British identity is as fixed as Irish identity and includes the full spectrum of social attitudes from liberal to conservative is a vast improvement on the classic republican idea that unionists suffer British false consciousness and are illiberal by definition.

Putting that self-serving rhetoric aside makes space to ‘simply right wrongs that need put right’ - in the here and now, rather than waiting for a 32-county utopia.

Sinn Féin is wise to de-escalate matters back to this level. Campaigners for abortion and same-sex marriage do not want their causes to be sectarianised, to use that imperfect but common expression. They have specific demands for delivery based on reform of the petition of concern or, failing that, Westminster legislation. Both options raise difficulties for Sinn Féin and if it is not engaging with the debate it risks being accused of doing more harm than good.

On landmark social policies, of course, the DUP does not believe it has any rights to put wrong and has shown no sign of leaving its religious conservative comfort zone. In January, the organisers of last Saturday’s march met the DUP to assure it they sought changes to civil marriage only, understood religious objections and would respect a DUP vote on those grounds. They were offering the party an honourable way out.

Progressive campaigns are succeeding because of such political adroitness, setting an agenda that Sinn Féin and the DUP are mainly just reacting to - and spotting unicorns can be a desperate reaction, at best trying to avoid change and at worst turning everything back to a narrow victory.

More generally, the main believer in unicorns is not Sinn Féin or the DUP but liberal unionism.

It is the philosophy most wedded to converting its constitutional opposite numbers, or at least earning their acquiescence, through moderate politics. It has never viewed this as its own false consciousness theory or imagined it might look as daft as the DUP claiming Catholic support.

In a land without unicorns or progressive mainstream unionist parties, liberal unionism faces the greatest challenge in untangling narrow victory from its sense of right and wrong.

The years of nationalist demoralisation before Stormont collapsed, with a declining total nationalist vote, suggests liberal unionists will respond to their predicament by slowly drifting away from the polls.

That will not make them republicans - but it is as good as a conversion for republican purposes.

newton@irishnews.com