The threat to the Union

Unionism is facing its own existential crisis and must learn how to come to terms with it. Put simply the Democratic Unionist Party represent a clear threat to the very union they purport to uphold.

In May 1974 then Prime Minister Harold Wilson used the term “spongers” to describe unionists involved in the UWC strike. Today it is a term that many in the rest of the UK would apply to what the DUP consider robust negotiations.  

Losing the goodwill of our fellow UK citizens at a time when Northern Ireland’s position in the UK is the principle barrier to many achieving the Brexit they aspire to cannot be considered a strategic position to take.

The DUP constantly refer to the principle of consent underpinned in the Belfast Agreement, an agreement they had no hand in, yet they miss the point that while people are free to make their own determination others are free to try and persuade them of one view or the other. Ignoring this point is central to the risks attached to their threats to bring down this Government.

One of the most important aspects of the Ulster Unionist working arrangement with the Conservatives a decade ago was the commitment that the Conservative Party would never be neutral on the union. This was a key objective of the arrangement given the legacy of the Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Brooke’s statement in 1990 that the UK had "no selfish strategic or economic interest" in Northern Ireland. To change that context and ensure that the Conservatives would become persuaders of the benefits of the United Kingdom was a major goal in building the relationship.

A future Labour Government may continue to agree that the principle of consent is paramount but there is no doubt that under this current Labour leadership all of their efforts will be focused on persuading people of the benefits of a United Ireland.

It is right to say that the Union is secure, for now it is. But it would be wrong to say that it will always be so and indeed the defence of the union must start now, others have already started the next phase of the political campaign to end the union and we ignore them at our peril.

Any border poll will not be a simple yes or no based on the current socio-economic standards. Under the Belfast Agreement a simultaneous poll must be held North and South. Of course such a poll must ask the same question and if Brexit has taught us nothing else it has taught Governments to sort out the detail of what happens after the question is put.

That means the Irish Government will place before its citizens the details of far reaching constitutional change arrived at in negotiation with the British Government, particularly in consideration of any financial liabilities or inducements to the Northern Ireland population. In this the nature of the Government in Westminster will be a core consideration.

Political Unionism must know that in all of this they are bit players, there is no requirement to convince any Unionist to vote for a United Ireland. The target audience will be the constitutional agnostics, those whose votes are up for grabs, those who will be persuaded by promises of a new system of socialised health-care in the future, of guaranteed pension rights from the UK, of joint citizenship, in short the best of both worlds as they see it.

Unionism must now persuade those same individuals that the United Kingdom is still the best option for their future. That means we must move off the windowsill and into the room. We must re-join our fellow citizens and make the case that we are the same as our fellow citizens. The more the DUP say we are different the more the rest of the UK believes them. A truly United Kingdom in the future will be one where citizenship is equal for all, anything less and we make the argument easy for our detractors.