Opinion

Alex Kane: Unionists need to wake up to social and economic change in the Republic

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.

Leo Varadkar
Leo Varadkar Leo Varadkar

If, twenty years ago—indeed maybe even much more recently than that—someone had merely suggested to me that it wouldn’t be all that long before a whopping majority of voters in the Republic would vote in favour of abortion I would have dismissed the idea out of hand.

If they had told me that there would be massive support for same-sex-marriage I would have been similarly dismissive.

If they had told me that at some point the taoiseach would be openly gay I would have smiled and shaken my head.

If they had told me that the political and moral influence of the Catholic Church was going to be ground down and ignored by increasing numbers of people I would have laughed outright.

If they had told me that the Republic was on its way to becoming one of the most ‘liberal’ states in western Europe I would have shaken my head and made a mental note to cross the road the next time I saw this person.

Yet all of this has come to pass. And I’ve just remembered that this was also the first Easter that the licensing laws were relaxed and it became much easier to buy a drink on Good Friday. Dublin is now one of the most relaxed, relaxing cities in the world, with tens of thousands of young people from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland flocking to it every weekend. It’s certainly not the gloomy, slightly oppressive city I remember from the 1970s, when I used to visit university friends. Nor is it that city which seemed to be stuck in some sort of time warp, where the views of the Pope counted for more than those of the Dail.

The whole country has changed. The south used to be the butt of standing jokes and stereotyping from UK comedians. The roads were riddled with potholes and the economy was, for long periods, little short of a basket case. Yet everything began to change when it joined the EEC in January 1973 (after a referendum in May 1972, in which 83 per cent voted in favour). The Republic embraced membership and has clearly benefited from it. The small, insignificant, conservative country of the 1950s/60s has blossomed into an entirely different state. When I was growing up, in the late 1960s/early 1970s, it was still common - and routine during July 12 speeches - for unionist politicians to mock the ‘backwards’ Republic. They don’t do that any more.

I’m not for a moment suggesting that the Republic doesn’t continue to have economic problems, because it does. It isn’t that long ago that the UK exchequer had to help them out of a financial hole. It was done willingly, because that’s what good neighbours do: particularly when those neighbours are, to all intents and purposes, equal. The days of the Republic being the ‘poor cousin’ have gone. It stands alongside the UK as co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement and, until Brexit, had probably the best relationship with the UK it has had in almost a century.

I’m not sure that unionism in general and the DUP in particular has fully appreciated what has happened to their southern neighbour over the last 45 years or so. Listening to some unionist politicians I’m left with the impression that they still look down their noses; still imagine that Northern Ireland remains a stronger, more progressive place than the Republic. Still obsessed with - and still peddling for electoral ends - the fantasy that the Republic is preparing some sort of takeover or 'annexation'.

That said, in a recent conversation with a couple of unionist representatives about Irish unity they both said: “The south couldn’t afford us.” Hmm. Yet without the substantial financial input from the UK exchequer Northern Ireland couldn’t afford to run itself.

Unionists need to understand what has happened—and continues to happen—in the Republic. With social/ethical issues as much as economic ones. They need to ensure that Northern Ireland doesn’t look like a ‘place apart’ across Ireland and Great Britain. They need to understand that even though most unionists—in all their guises—still support the Union, many of them also support same-sex-marriage, abortion reform, liberal social policy, licensing reform, increasing secularisation et al.

The ‘young’ unionists of the 1960s/70s are not the ‘young’ unionists of 2018. They may still be unionist, but they have other priorities, too. I see those priorities reflected in the thinking of my 19-year-old daughter and her friends. I hear it when I’m invited to address A Level Politics students at schools across Northern Ireland.

A decade ago I would have put the chances of a border poll as fairly low. I think it is now inevitable: not in the next couple of years perhaps, but certainly within ten years. The DUP is not ready. It is nowhere near to being ready. There's an element of unionism which quite likes Northern Ireland being a 'place apart'; stupidly unaware that difference, as a policy, is, in fact, the greatest danger to the very Union they claim to champion.