Opinion

Alex Kane: We are seeing everything measured against how it helps or hinders the Union or unity

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.

I still think the Irish government will continue to tread very cautiously about upping the ante and suddenly prioritising a border poll. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
I still think the Irish government will continue to tread very cautiously about upping the ante and suddenly prioritising a border poll. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin I still think the Irish government will continue to tread very cautiously about upping the ante and suddenly prioritising a border poll. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin

I've just been reading the Flackes/Elliott Northern Ireland Political Diary 1968-1999 entries for November 1990.

It was quite an interesting time. On the 9th, Secretary of State Peter Brooke told his constituency association that Britain had no selfish economic or strategic interest in Northern Ireland. On the 14th, figures released by the NI Social Attitudes survey indicated 56 per cent of Catholics supported Irish unification. And on the 16th, the SDLP's Alban Maginness - addressing the party's annual conference and probably influenced by Brooke and the survey - said the party had the task of converting 10 per cent of unionists to unity.

On the 20th Fine Gael's new leader John Bruton, who may well have been reflecting Brooke, the survey and Maginness, endorsed proposals for changes in Articles 2 and 3 of the Republic's constitution to include consent. By the 24th, Ian Paisley, obviously miffed by everything and everyone at that point, roared to the DUP's conference that there would be no power-sharing and no role or place for the Irish government in Northern Ireland's internal discussions.

Reading the reaction to these events in my personal diary was also interesting, because it was clear that unionists - who still hadn't recovered from the shock of the Anglo-Irish Agreement five years earlier - had got it into their heads that there was some sort of coordinated push for Irish unity. They were particularly angry with Brooke who, in May, had promised he would consider alternatives to the AIA, yet by September was telling journalists he would 'produce' his own proposals.

Almost a decade later Irish unity seemed to be on the back burner again and it seemed possible - although by no means certain - that 'moderate' unionism and nationalism might be able to make a half-decent fist of working together in common cause. Even the DUP, (which, had it chosen to, could probably have mustered a unionist majority to topple Trimble within weeks of the assembly election in 1998) seemed prepared to live with power-sharing and a role for Dublin. Mind you, it needed the cover of its own side deal (St Andrews) with Sinn Féin and the keys of the first minister's office in return for not wrecking the Good Friday Agreement.

Of course Irish unity hadn't disappeared altogether. Some in Sinn Féin believed it would be delivered by 2016. In an interview for RTE on November 21, 1998, Bertie Ahern spoke of the 'irresistible dynamic' towards unity, suggesting it would take place within 20 years. And within a couple of days of the Brexit referendum, various voices across political nationalism, civic nationalism/republicanism and Sinn Féin were convinced that rooms should be booked early for 'A Nation Once Again' parties.

I think there are two big differences between now and November 1990: nationalism/republicanism has reached the 'inevitability' stage of unification and is now focusing all of its attention and effort on that cause; while increasing numbers within mainstream unionism and the broader pro-Union community (which isn't quite the same as political unionism) are accepting, albeit reluctantly, that a border poll is now far more likely than not. All of which means that almost everything else - including the response to Covid - is measured by the help or hindrance it is to the Union or unity.

Sinn Féin has another 'Economic Benefits of a United Ireland' discussion paper due at the end of the week and seems intent, even in the middle of a pandemic, to blame the Irish government for not pushing at the unity door hard enough. The reality, though, is that there isn't actually a proper debate taking place on unity within the Republic. Fair enough, Sinn Féin is focused on it, but the coalition isn't (the Shared Island Unit and Micheál Martin's recently announced 'dialogues' are all long-term stuff) and nor are the wider political/business/economic sectors, let alone the general public or media. And, as I've noted before, whatever it may think about the value of its own propaganda exercises the fact remains that Sinn Féin, alone, cannot deliver unification.

I suspect that public and political opinion in the Republic won't really be getting too exercised until it sees what happens after January 1, 2021. Yes, Brexit remains a problem for Northern Ireland, but if Johnson manages to pull off some sort of deal acceptable to the EU and Dublin then it's likely to lower the temperature of the unity debate. And even if he doesn't I still think the Irish government will continue to tread very cautiously about upping the ante and suddenly prioritising a border poll.