UNITED States Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke of his support for Irish reunification this week.
At a speech in New York, where one of America’s most powerful political leaders accepted an award from the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Schumer said that he had recently met First Minister designate Michelle O’Neill and during the meeting “I offered her my support for full equality and full Irish unity. Unity based on mutual respect, self-determination, protection of all people of all backgrounds on the island of Ireland".
Chuck Schumer graduated from Harvard Law School. He’s a Brooklyn-born career politician, having served a number of terms as a member of Congress before being elected to the Senate in 1998.
Schumer is Jewish and his family ancestry traces back to Chortkiv in what is now western Ukraine. He has supported the building of Israeli settlements in Palestine and in 2018, congratulated Donald Trump on relocating the United States Embassy of Israel to Jerusalem, a move condemned by 14 out of 15 members of the UN Security Council at the time.
Whilst he is a Democrat, he does not, on the face of it, appear to be a natural ally of Irish republicanism. But his comments are an illustration of why the United States administration still has skin in the game when it comes to the north.
President Joe Biden has spoken often, and with great affection, of his Irish heritage and it is part and parcel of his political identity too.
In the highly polarised American political landscape, the north is one of the very few examples of American foreign policy where there is widespread bipartisan support for the administration’s approach.
Biden was one of a group of Senators on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who began to lobby the Clinton administration into putting time and resources into brokering the Good Friday Agreement. His ongoing support for the Good Friday Agreement is an integral part of his political career and is a significant element of his political legacy.
It would be wrong to think that American support for the Good Friday Agreement is exclusively the preserve of the Democratic Party. As recently as 2020, US Special Envoy Mick Mulvanney was despatched to warn Brexiteers that the Trump administration, State Department and Congress were united in “the desire to see the Good Friday Agreement preserved and to see the lack of a border maintained”.
Likewise, George W Bush visited Hillsborough Castle to support the British and Irish governments in 2003 at a time of tense negotiations. A 2021 resolution reaffirming bipartisan support for the Agreement that was jointly introduced by a Republican and Democratic Senator was unanimously approved.
Because of this overwhelming bipartisan support, the United States took very seriously the potential of Brexit to undermine the GFA.
Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Mick Mulvaney, Congressman Brendan Boyle and many others have warned Britain that tampering with it could result in the US not agreeing to a trade deal with what has historically been one of its closest allies.
Whilst that might be years in the working out, it is still a real possibility if the current round of talks with the EU do not see agreement on the protocol.
And it is logical too that American political opinion would begin to shift from seeking to make the north workable within the terms of the GFA to looking what the next logical steps are.
For many years, supporting, coaxing and cajoling local politicians into working the Stormont institutions has been the approach and whilst it continues to be the approach to encourage all the parties to go back into the Executive, a plan B where the part of the Agreement that makes provision for a border poll is invoked is an attractive alternative.
A vote that supported reunification is perhaps the most positive of all the potential outworking of the Agreement. The only difference between legislators with Irish American heritage and those without is the emotional versus practical nature of the settlement.
Whilst many people on this island have welcomed Schumer’s comments, he (and politicians generally) should ensure that they clarify the type of unity he refers to will require dialogue with all stakeholders as to what they would want in a united Ireland.
When we don’t continually have that clarification, it allows unionism and loyalism to perpetuate the myth that a new Ireland will be foisted upon them without them having any input into its design.
As it has in the past, America will likely have a key role to play in those discussions.
Of course, if elements of unionism still won’t engage it will only have itself to blame for when they are left behind. Some are already on that road.