Common interests
Peter Robinson has called for talks with the UUP about co-operation on issues such as voter turnout.
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What has The Third Man got to say about Northern Ireland?
Short answer: very little, other than he enjoyed the environs of Hillsborough Castle, enjoyed working with the local politicians, and has Gerry Adams to thank for Bobby his dog. Peter Mandelson’s book The Third Man has captured media headlines in recent weeks as the Times serialised the most juicy bits. But what did he have [...] read our review »
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Turas, by Colin Neill – a story of strangers in a strange land
Colin Neill’s first novel Turas peeks into a world in which many Ulster Protestants feel uncomfortable. It’s 2020 and the Irish unification that unionists and loyalists confidently predicted would never happen has become a reality. President Adams is ensconced in Phoenix Park. The newsreader reported that … a short ceremony at Stormont had confirmed the [...] read our review »
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Is Fianna Fail the new Woolworths of Irish politics?
It’s not published until 3rd March, but one book I recommend you place an advance order for from Slugger’s Bookstore is James Harkin’s Niche. Belfast émigré Harkin examines a number of stories from business, culture and politics and comes to a single insight: everywhere the broad middle is collapsing. He offers Woolworths as an iconic exemplar [...] read our review »
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Smithsonian,
The UUP traded in it’s intergrationist policies for devolution at any price a long time ago. You can’t really lecture the DUP about being crypto-nationalists when championing a form of government that is tearing the United Kingdom apart.
As for Donaldson having nothing to offer the DUP electorally have you forgotten that the UUP’s vote only went into free fall after he left the party? I’d put a good sum of money on the UUP being better off today if Donaldson were leading it rather than Empey.
This is not necessarily about the DUP gobbling up the UUP. It is very true that Robinson might want to but it will be very difficult. I remember that only 15 or so years ago people were talking about how when Paisley left the UUP would offer Robinson something to come on board. The times they have a changed but some of the people who thought that are still in the UUP and are I suspect pretty angry that they have been defeated by Robinson. Although “Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned” (though for fundamentalists that is a really stupid remark); politicians can be pretty angry when defeated.
If Robinson is playing a PR game, I suspect it is to position himself as both the clear intellectual (almost moral) leader of unionism and lay the ground for broadening his tent. He may not lead unionism the way Paisley did but he might be trying to become the clear leader in another way. Remember that this is a man who whatever else he is; is extremely patient.
Of course he might also be genuinely worried about the loss of unionist votes and the potential loss of seats. Although Graham may have a point as someone who spent the weekend house hunting in Fermanagh, I would rather have some chance of removing Gildernew.
Even with Peter Robinson, Machiavellian as he may well be; it is possible that he might be trying (now he is leader of unionism) to improve unionist chances overall. I do accept, however, that he has considerable past form for being divisive (not that the UUP were ever innocent in that).
Turgon, you used the words ‘Robinson’ and ‘intellectual’ in the same. Sentence.
DC, Paisley and Hume are very different men who used different sectarian tactics. I noted the consequences of their street politics; perhaps Hume, the historian, was unfamiliar with the tribal confrontations in his own city over the generations.
I’ve read Moloney’s book on the IRA where he describes the Reid and Redemptorist ‘Brits Out’ stepping stones to a UI strategy. AFAIK Hume joined the process by invitation much as he had been invited by senior Catholic clergy to help establish DCAC as a counter to NICRA forty years ago.
Yes, I am unsure. I do not rate him as an intellectual but I am not in a position to judge anyone’s intellectual abilities.
I do not think he is an intellectual but he is an outstanding tactician. He cannot be stupid. In some ways we do not know exactly what his intellectual vision is (or even if he has one) as he has been in Paisley’s shadow for so long. His one attempt at independent action was the initiative in the 1980s which resulted in him having to temporarily resign from the DUP deputy leadership.
Turgon,
He is certainly not an intellectual (for what it’s worth) but he has been a good tactician but only from a oppositional direction which is invariably easier. His tactical know-how seems to have come unstuck with the DUP’s move to the centre.
If I may digress from the thread but with reference to your interest in religion & politics I wonder what you think this aspect of the new DUP. It seems to me that the UUP see engagement with the Catholic community as being about trying to appeal (and usually failing) to it for electoral support. The DUP’s method seems to be to maintain its 100% “protestant” support base but to accept that it must engage with the 100r;s on the other side. The UUP might have the more decent approach but the DUP’s may be more realistic. Unless of course the UUP just has a more confused approach to cynicism.
Richard James
Surely you aren’t suggesting that the cause of the decline in the UUP vote was the departure of Donaldson?
There was mounting criticism of the UUP at the time. Donaldson didn’t like having to take the criticism and took the easy way out by jumping ship. There was no great principle at stake.
Sometime latter when the DUP ship changed course this presented no problems for a career politician who knows what side his bread was buttered on.
At one time he was a useful stick to beat the UUP with but his value to Robinson is waining and he has little real gravitas.
If Robinson promotes him to full ministerial office it will be Donaldson’s undoing.
If your argument holds true why would Robinson promote him?
IJP – “It’s actually a fair point , but there is the slight problem that both UU Ministers and its MP are known for, well, basically not being Tories…”
Those elements of the UUP should be pushing the UK Labour Party to allow candidates to stand for election in NI (I don’t know what happened to the campaign led by Andy McGivern?). Perhaps the Alliance Party could lead the way by becoming the NI LibDems e.g. Lord Alderdice of Knock sits on the LibDem benches in the House of Lords.
IJP,
Those seeking a UI need a majority not just to favour a UI in theory, but to favour changing the status quo in practice – with all the risks that accompany that.
Once again you are assuming that the status quo and prosperity for the middle class will be best served by voting to retain the union. That may be the position in 2008 but there is no guarantee that this will be the case in the future.
The greater risk could well involve a continuation of the political and economic morass that currently exists.
NI is a deeply conservative place, so those seeking a change to the status quo will have to do more than what they are currently doing.
Northern Ireland is changing by the day and in order for unionism to maintain the “status quo” that it cherishes it needs every man jack on deck and also needs to shanghai a couple of new recruits.
Robinson is starting his search at the usual drinking hole.
RSR
First of all I will apologise for my earlier comments, I do not agree with the statement that the DUP divided in order to rule. There were many players in the game that gave us 30 years of trouble and 3000 victims. The DUP may be in a position of power now but to suggest that it was their aim to cause strife and hardship for political gain is not a sustainable argument and deeply unfair on those in the DUP who they, their families and their supporters have been victims themselves. I suppose it is a bit like a red rag to a bull!
In terms of what you think about DUP gains:
Maze still not off the cards- No one is even remotley considering the Maze anymore and by all rumours Poots is on his last hurragh and destined for a return to the back benches. So there endeth the Maze fiasco.
P+J- Nothing I can add. The DUP and other unionists opposed it. No reason to suspect that that will not continue to be the case until SF can deliver. They are under no pressure to press ahead with this
RPA – A fudge you may consider it to be. But a fudge alot more in Unionism’s favour than republicans especially if the boundary changes to Belfast bring in the “Belfast” areas of Castlereagh and Newtownabbey Council.
ILA – I agree it shouldn’t have been in there to start with. However a good piece of business by the DUP to promise something to SF and then get into the Assembly to make sure it doesn’t happen. Machevellian but when it is SF who lose out I don’t really care.
On the thread. It is important that Unionists realise the position we are in in the 21st Century. The idea that unionist self interest groups can spring up and assert that unionism will remain strong are utterly wrong. It is important therefore that all the parties come together to work on issues that benefit, as my name highlights, THE BIGGER PICTURE. It does not have to be a case of amalgamating all unionist parties into one and instead it can be a case of reaching out into unionist/loyalist areas and re-engaging with them to make sure that a unionist vote remains strong. Then agreements can be made in light of Westminster in order to ensure that unionism has the highest representation possible and that we can maximise and exercise our advantage to the full. Unionists on this site need to be aware that our enemy is not amongst us but sitting on the benches opposite in the guise of SF/IRA and the pan-nationalist movement. We need to re-engage and re-organise and take the fight to Republicans both in the devolved institutions and at the ballot box. The only way forward is to come together and to negotiate over areas of mutual interest.
Bigger Picture 20/04/08
ps I took great umbridge at the assertion that I sheepishly follow the DUP line on everything. I actually like to consider myself a bit of a free thinker on DUP policies on this site!
Excuse me ignoring things that aren’t to do with the thread (you know who you are).
P&J; and George
Basically, what you say is rational. But electors are emotional.
NI has come through generations of communal (sectarian) strife. Its party system reflects this.
That is why, P&J;, the NI Conservatives have gotten nowhere, “Labour” and “Socialist” candidates have gotten nowhere, and Alliance has only gotten somewhere when it made its Liberalism relevant to NI.
That is also why, George, few Audi drivers in Upper Ormeau or Carryduff will be queuing up for a big change. There may not be very many rich people in NI, but there are a hell of a lot of comfortable people – hence the deeply conservative nature of the place.
Much thought I admire your rational and revolutionary vigour, it wouldn’t get far with the NI electorate.
Yet.
“Alliance has only gotten somewhere when it made its Liberalism relevant to NI”
Ah come on IJP, events, dear boy, events.
Is not the Alliance party cross-community-cum-non-constitutional, therefore, is this not a refinement of a very particularised situation. Sometimes you are shameless but that’s a likeable trait IMO.
Pith
I’m not sure that Robinson will promote Donaldson, but there is a premise about promoting people to their level of incompetence, that way you can keep control of them.
“Once again you are assuming that the status quo and prosperity for the middle class will be best served by voting to retain the union.” – George
Have you any evidence to support the assertion that those who have prospered with the United Kingdom will vote to terminate the entity wherein they prospered because they will make a calculation that they will attain greater prosperity by the termination? Common sense would dictate that people will support the system that they have prospered under. That is the basis of the social conservatism that IJP alludes to.
Remember, they are financially well-to-do people because they make careful calculations about what is in their own best interests. They make those calculations on the basis of examination of the available evidence (conspicuously absent in this case). Likewise, what about the financially well-to-do people in the Republic of Ireland: will they make a calculation about what is in their own best interests or what is in the best interests of the citizens of Northern Ireland? Where is the evidence that those who have prospered with the Republic of Ireland will vote to terminate that entity in favour of some new entity that is to be designed at the behest of agenda-laden political hacks from Northern Ireland?
If your logic is that successful people make careful decisions, then you should not exclude the veto that is held by successful people in the Republic of Ireland who have been presented with not a shred of evidence that a united Ireland would be anything other than a financial black hole for the Republic of Ireland (and those successful people whose taxes will be dramatically raised to pay for it).
The devil, my romantic friend, undoes the dreamers in the details. Peter Robinson has much less to worry about than he is worrying about.
Dave,
Have you any evidence to support the assertion…
I wasn’t asserting anything, I was pointing out the flaws in automatically assuming a default position that certain conservative and middle class interests would always be best served by a particular constitutional arrangement or the maintenance of the status quo.
Regarding your subsequent point, it is also flawed thinking to assume that successful people in the Irish Republic will shy away from a vote on a risk-laden national issue such as a united Ireland merely because they are successful.
Some of the most successful people in Scotland
are the strongest advocates of secession from the Union, for example, despite the many naysayers there who, like your good self, have a tendency to use similar “financial black hole” rhetoric.
By they way, the last survey in the Irish Republic in 2006 had 77% of voters favouring the idea a united Ireland and advocating that, as per the Constitution, it should be one of the priorities of Ireland’s government. 13% had no opinion and 10% said nothing should be done.
So if the SPB survey is to be believed, and it’s not too wide of the 1998 referendum result, it seems between three quarters and 90% of the Irish electorate are romantic dreamers.
Richard James (09.04: April 20);
“The UUP traded in it’s (sic) intergrationist (sic) policies for devolution at any price a long time ago.”
To the best of my knowledge the UUP never formally endorsed an integrationist platform at any stage. Mr. Molyneaux came up with a variant of it in 1979-81 and there was an integration vs devolution debate within the ranks before and after the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. But in the so-called “great” debate at the 1981 annual conference, the integrations were soundly beaten—helped, as it happens, by Enoch Powell’s support for the devolutionist wing on the day.
It was the failure of the UUP to adopt an integrationist policy which led to the kickstarting of the Campaign for Equal Citizenship pressure group which, in turn, led to the organisation of the Tories here.
I stand to be corrected on this, but I suspect that Jeffrey Donaldson was also an integrationist when he worked for Powell; converting only when he got the opportunity of a seat in the 1982-86 Assembly!
You seem, Mr. James, to be in awe of Donaldson. The decline in the UUP’s vote had been ongoing for many years—predating the Belfast Agreement— and Donaldson’s presence in the UUP until January 2004 did little to stop that decline. He, personally, would like to believe that his departure reduced the UUP, but there were very many other factors at play.
As has been noted by others, Donaldson, having jumped ship, settled for a deal which was barely different from the one the harried David Trimble over for five years. He sold his soul and satisfied his ego for a few minor cosmetic changes; changes he didn’t argue for when he was a member of the original Talks team until April 1998 and when he returned to that team a couple of years later.
Evidence also suggests that Donaldson was willing to “run” with the Comprehensive Agreement even before the Paisleys scuppered it with the “sackcloth and ashes” speech!
And how, exactly, would the UUP have been better under Donaldson than Empey? Or is it simply the case that Donaldson would have cut the same deal as the DUP—but beaten them to the post?
The DUP (assisted by Donaldson, Foster and Weir) traded in every single previous pledge in exchange for office at any price. It really is that simple, Mr. James.
Which may explain the existence of the TUV. Which may explain why the UUP held their Dromore seat, albeit only just (and it’s worth noting that a majority of unionists in Donaldson’s own backyard didn’t back his candidate of choice). Which may explain why Robinson is now so keen to do a deal with the UUP and provide himself with some cover in the years to come.
I’m told, Mr. James, that you are a member of the UUP. Judging from your post above and from other posts I have read from you you are clearly in the wrong party. Why don’t you follow Donaldson? I’m sure the UUP will get on very well without you.
Porlock
Bottom line is that Robinson has realised following Dromore that they have seriously screwed up. The obtained a sinificant mandate at the last election, promising that the wouldn’t go into government until they achieved:
SF signing up to the police & policing board
Disbandment of teh IRA and IRA army council
Verifiable decommissioning
A significant peace dividend
Removal of the water tax
Retention of academic selection
etc etc (and for Ian Junior a few backhand deals with developers).
They have delivered on only one – SF signing up to the police (to put some manners on them). As such they have alienated their own electorate, and got screwed over by the government changing the legislation so that the largest party will get the FM position (rather than the largest party from the largest community). Peter sees his tenure as FM being relatively short and won’t abide being DFM to Marty. That’s why he is now trying to backpeddle and scrounge for votes by forming alliances with the UUP. Reg should give him the birdie and so should the rest of unionism. He has done more harm to the union than anyone else, and I for one will never vote for them again. I’m one of those unionists who, following being disenfranchised after the last election by a party promising one thing and doing another, will be difficult to turn out at all, let alone vote for any alliance which involves the liars of the DUP.
Peter Robinson said the parties need to reverse the trend of low voter turnout in unionist areas.
He said: “We need to be mindful of the electoral strength of republicanism. They are getting stronger because unionist turnout is reducing.
“There is a responsibility on unionists to encourage people to come to the polling station.”
Be careful what you wish for, Peter!
There is a world of difference between ‘people in unionist areas’ and ‘unionists’. If these absent voters were unionists, then they’d prove it by voting unionist. By not voting, they may be sending another message. Maybe they are actually turned off by the DUP and the UUP; maybe they dislike the whole political game-playing; maybe they are not really very strong unionists at all – even if they are Protestants.
Peter may well find that his attempts to increase his vote might either decrease it (by alienating even more people through his inevitable scare-tactics), or increase the votes of the Alliance Party or the SDLP. In the latter caase, in some areas he may end up losing a seat!
Donaldson didn’t like having to take the criticism and took the easy way out by jumping ship. There was no great principle at stake.
Brilliant Smithsonian – think that is the basis of a PhD thesis for sure!
Donaldson was one of the critics not the target and if you take the telescope away from the blind eye you’ll be able to see clearly that he left the UUP by jumping before he was forced to walk the plank (and lets face it the court case the UUP is still paying for found that the UUP’s disciplinary procedure to comapre favourably to this process!)
His alleged crime – sticking to his election manifesto, but no great principle involved there?
“… screwed over by the government changing the legislation so that the largest party will get the FM position (rather than the largest party from the largest community).”
It’s worse than that. Moloney in his book on Paisley claims that this change was agreed by Messrs Robinson, Donaldson, Bullick and Johnston so that the DUP could bully voters to support it at any future Assembly elections to “stop McGuinness becoming First Minister”. It’s a cynical ploy but not an unexpected one, given the source.
The DUP may be in a position of power now but to suggest that it was their aim to cause strife and hardship for political gain is not a sustainable argument and deeply unfair on those in the DUP who they, their families and their supporters have been victims themselves.
I accept that this is true for the majority of “ordinary” DUP supporters but a strong case can be made that the same was not true of their leader.
For those that argue that the middle classes will vote status quo, they ignore the one great truism in western politics……….
Most revolutionairies come from the middle classes
“Surely you aren’t suggesting that the cause of the decline in the UUP vote was the departure of Donaldson?”
In 2003 the DUP had barely outpolled the UUP and they were basically neck and neck. Come 2005 the DUP outpolled the UUP by two to one. Or to look at Lagan Valley, the UUP won three seats in 2003 and only one in 2007. Now unless you believe Jeffrey Donaldson got in on the coat tails of Billy Bell I think it’s safe to say Donaldson was able to pull a large vote there and throughout Northern Ireland.
As David Burnside noted, Donaldson’s departure made it respectable to vote DUP.
“Don’t assume that the guarantee of stability and prosperity will always be best served by remaining in the union.”
But we CAN assume that- and do so with total certainty.
The Union is constantly evolving, and has changed beyond recognition since 1972, largely to keep the comfy catholics compliant. Howls from ultra-Unionists have been ignored, and from the London perspective it has probably been a success looked at from today’s perspective.
In “50% plus 1″ land, there would have to be major and rapid charm offensive to comfy prods, and an injection of the threat of force for the managing of the lumpen prods and the other rejectionists like me.
These people might never be a majority of Unionists, but they would be a hell of a sight more numerous than the element of your community that lost the bap in 1969, and they would provke the traditional communal response. Nationalism would have to have invested a decade in engaging in a conversation with Unionism about the shibboleths to be slaughtered in Eire Nua to keep the bolshies sweet. It hasn’t even recognised the need to evolve, nevermind start to talk the talk. The fact that the Republic has changed considerably since 1969 isn’t the point; symbolism is the key, just like it was with the Anglo-Irish Agreement. So tell your friends to pull on the hair shirt or get with the programme.
Porlock,
I thank you for the history lesson. None the less under Molyneaux the UUP was seeking something akin to Strathclyde regional council, not a bloated assembly with more members than the US senate. Nor does it detract from the fact prior to the restoration of devolved government we had Reg Empey complaining about “British Ministers”, hardly a strong position from which to beat others with the stick of being Ulster nationalists is it?
It is elementary my dear Porlock as to why the UUP would be better off under Donaldson than Empey. Empey has lead the UUP to the worst election result in it’s history. I very much doubt Donaldson would have managed to get less votes than David Trimble did in 2005. No wonder Empey isn’t too keen on the idea of opposition, after all the defeat inflicted on the UUP due to his incompetence was far greater than that the Tories suffered under Major. Only with our tin pot Assembly could he be a Minister!
After having gotten rid of Weir, Donaldson, Foster, and tens of thousands of voters could it be true that only I stand between the UUP and the great garden centre? I have no doubt the UUP would get on fine without me, none the less I don’t think you would hear the sound of a hundred thousand lawn mowers getting any closer to Cunningham House.
However I’m perplexed as to why I have attracted your ire while you remain a one man Alex Kane appreciation society. After all your mentor has called for Trimble’s head, argued Empey was totally unsuited to lead the UUP and slammed the PUP/UVF link all to a greater audience in the Newsletter than I could ever hope to achieve here on slugger. In fact the UUP press officer has been so exasperated by his actions he has publically asked him “Do you not have a problem slagging the living shit out the Party that you profess to be a member of?”.
Is it somehow worse for me to express my criticisms of the UUP on a discussion board than it is to get paid to do so in a national newspaper?
darth rumsfeld,
… The fact that the Republic has changed considerably since 1969 isn’t the point; symbolism is the key
You overlook two connected issues:
(1) By the time any reunification becomes likely, the area of strong unionist majority will be restricted pretty much to north Down, Antrim, and parts of north Armagh. So any ‘resistance’ is likely to be limited to these areas.
(2) There is no need for the republic to change much to accomodate the desires of such a very localised group. Just as the UK did not change to acccomodate the ‘comfy Catholics’ – only Northern ireland did – then so, in a newly reunified 32 County Ireland, the changes could be limited to the areas directly concerned. Symbolism (in those areas) can be adapted to whatever is politically expedient – just because the south is currently a fairly centralised state does not mean that it must always remain so.
Sometimes unionists give the impression that they would rather cause a Troubles Mark 2 (and thereby soil their own nests) rather than seek a genuine win-win situation for everyone.
‘As David Burnside noted, Donaldson’s departure made it respectable to vote DUP.’
Cant be long until Burnside joins the DUP can it?
“By they way, the last survey in the Irish Republic in 2006 had 77% of voters favouring the idea a united Ireland and advocating that, as per the Constitution, it should be one of the priorities of Ireland’s government.” -George
This is meaningless, since they would not be voting for unity but, rather, a raft of other changes along with it. They may well support the idea of unity in the abstract, but wait until the details of it are transcribed and properly understood. Will they still support it when it means a substantial increase in taxation to finance it and a dramatic decline in the standard of living; an increase in violence from fundamentalist protestant paramilitary groups; a forced suppression of Irish nationalist symbols and identity; a role of the British monarchy in Irish constitutional affairs, and a government that is bound by clauses within the Good Friday Agreement that will simply serve to paralyse it as a entity that promotes the aims and interests of Ireland, rendering it impotent and subservient to British nationalism, with every decision it tries to make that is not deemed impartial between the two competing nationalisms ending up in the courts? Why will the majority forsake democracy and self-determination for no advantage to them whatsoever, granting a tiny minority the same rights as the overwhelming majority? Do you really think that a man is Kerry, for example, is going to tolerate the forced removal of statues to Irish republicans from his town square because a minority of people from the north of the island will bring a case to the courts under the GFA claiming that the state is not impartial? How long will the citizens put up with that violation of democracy and self-determination before they decide that unity was the worst idea they ever voted for, and violent attacks on Protestants become the norm throughout the island?
If you ask a man “Would you like one million Euros?” he will answer in the affirmative. But attach conditions such as “You must give your kidney, your right hand, and your left lung in return for the million” and he will not be so hurried with his affirmation. This is the case with the Irish: once they understand what unity means, they’ll drop the sentiment like hot potato. And really, who in his right mind would want to make appeasement of one million disenfranchised British people a way of life?
People always support the system that they prosper under. As more people prosper under it, more people will support it. This is the way in Northern Ireland. People are prospering in the new order and their desire to alter the improving status quo is waning in proportion to the improvement. This is the process of accepting the status quo. My guess is that there has been a marked drop in support for unity, and I think it is revealing that on one who promotes the sentiment that there has been an increase in support for unity commissions an opinion poll to support the claim. Why not? If support for unity is increasing as the status quo improves, then why not commission the poll to prove it? Probably because they know it is bullshit.
Dave,
I’m repeating myself from another post, but what I feel marks the distinction between Paisley’s era and the one Robinson will face is that previously, the constitutional question has been primordial. As of this point, it is the commitment to peace and to liberal capitalism, in accordance with the close relationships between the US and the British and Irish governments – particularly the latter.
What I would expect to change then, is not that:
“People always support the system that they prosper under.”
but rather their conception of the system – less through the prism of nationality than that of a relatively dominant position in a globalised context. Hence the need to recruit for the military in schools. And to ensure statistics confirm the growth of the middle class.
The next five years could be interesting in this regard because (and I’m open to correction) it is Ireland that is more dependent on US strategy and prosperity, whereas Britain has more control over its fate. And so the risk to the economy is shared more in the South than in the City. This could be a challenge for SF and the SDLP – were the Republic to decline significantly, I can imagine middle-class Nationalism and Republicanism feeling quite patient in regards to unity.
For Unionism, this will require an updated raison d’être, and so I imagine that what Robinson is trying to balance is Unionist domination in Stormont with DUP domination over the UUP – the spider and the fly scenario mentioned. I would have thought that positioning himself as a stable Finance Minister, then, without precendent, as capable DUP First Minister with a close relationship to Brown (or Cameron) and money in Dublin is a good start. I’m not sure an equal UU motivation is at all obvious though.
“Cant be long until Burnside joins the DUP can it?”
Don’t envision it. I suspect he would have jumped by now, plus he wasn’t too keen on St Andrews. Then of course you had his and Donaldson’s spat in the Assembly. Although he probably would still like to see a united Unionist party.
A good post from Dave. Irish nationalists really do seem to think that if they rant on about the “inevitability” of a united Ireland it is somehow going to happen. Unionists can sleep easily in their beds, drifting off at yet another repartition post from GreenFlag.
Damian O’Loan, you raise some interesting points but I’m uncertain about how relevant the dynamics of the global marketplace are in determining the importance or otherwise of the parked constitutional issue in the medium to long term. I simply can’t predict that far ahead with too many subjective variables in the mix.
I think it is possible that ‘post-nationalism’ may find its raison d’être in the free market and that economic interests become paramount and acquire priority to issues of nationalism in the short to medium term but I don’t think that anything that is post-nationalist is capable of lasting. John Hume promoted the vision of competing nationalisms (Irish and British) becoming irrelevant within a European context, but that vision is still as fanciful as it ever was. On the other hand, people are willing to surrender a measure of sovereignty and self-determination to the European project (see the Lisbon Treaty) but only because they are not informed about the surrender, being informed only of the benefits of being a member of the EU (which is irrelevant since the Treaty is not a vote on our EU membership). This trickery will be undone in time when the importance of a nation being in control of its own internal affairs is revisited, and the people are reminded that it is they and not a ‘community’ of other nations who should rightly determine their own affairs. The model of the nation state is the only viable model for how people live together as a distinct group.
It’s also possible that a long term campaign of propaganda could be successful in its attempt to persuade the Irish people that they should be subservient to another nation (rejoining the United Kingdom) because the subservience could be sold to them as something that they would consider as being progressive (such as ‘parity of esteem’ between those who are British and those who are Irish). People are that shallow – just observe them self-righteously sorting coloured glass into separate bottle banks! They could be persuaded, perhaps, but I tend to think that just enough people exist who understand the actual importance of the things they are encouraged to forsake. And if they were tricked in the process, them the pendulum swings back and forth, so there will always be a counter-movement to restore independence, sovereignty, self-determination and the nation state. These are models that will always remain relevant because they are of fundamental importance.
Incidentally, Ireland was the country in Europe that was least affected by the global economic slowdown that followed 9/11, so don’t overrate the importance of the vagaries of the US economy to Ireland. Likewise, Irish bank’s have zero exposure to the US subprime mortgage fiasco whereas the UK does – not including the 10% of UK mortgage borrowers that have subprime loans. Approximately 18% of all Irish exports go to the US, thanks to technology, chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturers who are here because of Ireland’s low corporate tax rate and indigenous exports such as alcohol, food, chemicals, textiles, ect. On the other hand, we import 32% of all of our imports from the UK and Northern Ireland, so we are a very important market for the UK.
I think you have to make a working assumption that the choice remains between Irish and British nationalisms, and exclude Hume’s third way of European (post)nationalism as being the pipedream of a fence-sitting fool. In this applicable context, as long as Robinson can continue to increase the prosperity of the citizens of Northern Ireland (and the subvention is renewed), then more and more people will be satisfied with the status quo and the parked constitutional issue will stay parked. The best way for unionists to maintain the union is to link unity to a list of conditions that are not acceptable to the citizens of the Republic of Ireland.
By the way, George, the constitution does not state that unity “as per the Constitution, it should be one of the priorities of Ireland’s government.” How could it? To do so would be to pre-empt the outcome of the democratic poll that the constitution stipulates will decide the issue. In short, it is nonsense to claim that the constitution says “Unity is a matter to be decided by the people, but the government should assume that the people have decided in favour of unity without the poll and push that agenda anyway.”
Where’s Porlock? Where’s Porlock?