Saturday, May 17, 2008
Unionism: pragmatism versus idealism
Alex Kane has a very interesting piece on the Newsletter website this week. It is a book review of Frank Millar’s book on Trimble and David Vance’s book “Unionism Decayed.” The whole article is well worth reading but one paragraph in particular stood out for me:
“What they document is the clash between pragmatic unionism (which can be summed up as making the best of unpleasant political realities) and moral high-ground unionism (the view that almost anything is better than terrorist appeasement). The pragmatists have carried the day, so far. Yet, to be brutally honest, I acknowledge that as a matter of fact, rather than as a matter of pride.”
Although I am extremely reticent to claim the high moral ground for an anti agreement unionist position, as that ground is very likely to be found to be a high horse instead; Kane encapsulates the dilemma which many unionists may feel over the current dispensation. Many unionists who support the agreement do so with a heavy heart, there are still massive misgivings regarding the current process. Incidentally I am sure this position is mirrored within nationalism / republicanism.
Supporters of the agreement (or maybe acceptors would be a better term for many of them?) will often assent to all the criticisms made of the current agreement and then, with varying degrees of unhappiness, say that they still support it. Even here on slugger we have self proclaimed unionists from positions as disparate as Jo to Bigger Picture and many, many in between clearly not delighted by what has happened but willing to accept it for varying reasons but essentially either because it was a necessary price to end the conflict and / or because it was better than the alternatives.
Whilst I do not in any way impugn the moral rectitude of those who make this argument, I would submit that this is a very flawed approach and one which is not going to help build a civic society here. The lack of an alternative is also a very valid criticism albeit one which Jim Allister has begun trying to address.
Alex Kane’s last comment is also extremely valid and on it (as well as other issues) may depend the future of the agreement, the UUP, DUP and the TUV: “The electoral strength of the TUV… has yet to be properly gauged; but I’m increasingly of the opinion that it is much stronger than any of us think.” Then again of course I want to believe that.
Turgon @ 09:16 AM
RoI = Socialist Paridise ? ? ?
lol
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 11:32 PMI don’t think Alex sees it that way, there will always be a rump of loyalisa prepared to go the full hog.
I’ve never heard Alex or any other of the SB-UUP talking about repartition. I’ve heard them lamenting a few things of course.
What I meant was that Northern Ireland was itself, ‘the compromise’, and with that package was the seeds of future trouble.
Whether what we have at the moment is ultimately good for Unionism, I don’t know, i hope for a more settled, collegiate conservative future,
‘The real problem now for unionism, as it was in 1921, is that we (the pragmatists) are being forced to defend a structure of government which we never really wanted and which may, in the long-term, prove to be thoroughly bad for us.’
Maybe today is the same as 1921, Republicanism can’t really look back the same way,
I think maybe what they got now, is as much a problem for unionism as the original Orange Junta State, which as Alex as has said, was the prefered option.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 11:36 PM‘not the preferred option’
my typo
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 11:38 PMDriftwood,
Unionists have had their chance on being treated ike the rest of Britiain but that would have been before the trouble broke out in 1967. Now the British have realised after over 30 years of trouble that there has to be an Irish solution to an Irish problem hence Ruane, Paisley etc in bed together. They have signed up to this deal with ROI under the watchful eye of (their special friend) the US of A ensuring they behaved honourably.
The British have cut a deal with the Provos which requires compromise on all sides with dissident republicans, TUV etc and possibly your good self still having difficluty coming to terms with it.Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 11:54 PMre: attack on british colonial policeman in Strabane .......... ‘dissident republicans are blamed’ no no nooooooooooooo ‘dissident republicans are in ‘government’- republicans are blamed, get your terminology right.
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 01:26 AMGeorge and Greenflag, Ahern’s hypocrisy is clear as he was pressing for SF in government here in 2002.
I didn’t here him objecting to paramilitary control of restorative justice systems here yet he wouldn’t have tolerated such systems in the RoI.
I think it’s fair to assume that he sanctioned President McAleese’s endorsement of Finaghy Crossroads Group, a ‘cross-community’ paramilitary group.
I’m previously described how a FF administration in the late 60s acted to decapitate the then ‘commie’ leadership of the IRA during the ‘rights/socialist revolution’ that was designed to sweep away the conservative administrations in Belfast and Dublin. NI’s subsequent difficulty became the RoI’s opportunity.
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 08:43 AMOOPs - ‘hear’ for ‘here’ in sentence 2 :)
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 08:46 AMTurgon
Thanks for comments, another observation surely the UUP are just as bad in your opinion as the DUP? considering that the TUV probably wont win any seats at the next westminster election by standing they may cost Unionism some seats to Sinn Fein, would you agree this could be the case?
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 09:58 AMIn terms of UUP: I guess I have run out of anger with them. I spent years going to UUC meetings which failed to change policy and spent ages telling people what we were doing was electoral suicide (not that I was important enough to say it to people who mattered). Of course the UUP are as bad. I just hoped the DUP would not repeat the same (in my view) mistakes. I feared they might but still felt pretty aggrieved when they did.
Very fair comment re elections, something which needs to be looked at, and in fairness I think it can be resolved.
I did not realise you were not in the DUP. Clearly I know nothing about you but you argue your case very well on here. You should think about politics. Send me an email sometime.
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 11:20 AMThe real problem now for unionism, as it was in 1921, is that we (the pragmatists) are being forced to defend a structure of government which we never really wanted and which may, in the long-term, prove to be thoroughly bad for us.
I’m sorry, but this is revisionism. Unionism could not have maintained the Union for the entire country, but they had a range of options in 1921. Many more than they had now.
Unionism was offered autonomy within a Home Rule Parliament. It was offered 9 county Ulster. It was suggested that counter balances be created to protect the Catholic minority. Unionism resisted them all, and it had it’s choice. I don’t see much evidence of a big split within Unionism in 1921, or any attempt to cripple the new state from the Unionist side after its formation.
Unionism got what it wanted. If it was “thoroughly bad” for it, then that came out of problems inherent within Unionism, not through an ideological divide.
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 11:36 AMTurgon, surely the TUV faces the same choices as the UUP and the DUP were it to get a substantial number of seats in the Assembly: going into government with SF or living under Direct Rule where London and Dublin implement side-deals with SF. Which one do you choose?
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 12:00 PM“I’m sorry, but this is revisionism”
How so, Kensei? I understood that (Conservative and Liberal) Unionists wished the island of Ireland to remain within the UK and that they saw Home Rule as a stepping stone to a ‘Catholic State for a (mainly) Catholic people’ outside the UK.
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 12:35 PMHow so, Kensei? I understood that (Conservative and Liberal) Unionists wished the island of Ireland to remain within the UK and that they saw Home Rule as a stepping stone to a ‘Catholic State for a (mainly) Catholic people’ outside the UK.
Certainly Carson wanted to keep the entire island within the Union. But from what I’ve read Craig did not give a stuff, and I don’t think it’s too hard to point out that any aspirations for the whole of Ireland was mostly rhetorical. After we were hearing about the right of “Ulster” for a long time before 1921.
But in nay case, for the comparison to hold there would have been some sustained attack from the Unionist Right about the new structures. Again I see no evidence for that either. Unionism didn’t get to keep the whole island in the Union. But beyond that, it what it wanted, and more or less got what it chose.
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 03:25 PMNevin,
‘NI’s subsequent difficulty became the RoI’s opportunity.’
Opportunity for what exactly ? The Republic did not benefit from the Norths self imposed difficulties -quite the contrary.
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 03:36 PMGregory,
‘What I meant was that Northern Ireland was itself, ‘the compromise’, and with that package was the seeds of future trouble. ‘
Northern Ireland was not a ‘compromise’. It was an imposition by a minority on this island over a large section of the majority within the new Unionist State . There was a ‘compromise’ between the Free State and the UK/Northern Ireland in the sense of normal relations being restored between the new Irish State and Westminster . After 1920 there was virtually no relationship -compromise or other between the politicians on both sides of the border. The ice was eventually broken in the 1960’s between respective Prime Ministers Lemass and O’Neill.
More importantly there was no compromise within the State of Northern Ireland which was where it mattered most.
‘Maybe today is the same as 1921’
No it’s not . The entire economic and political dynamics on the island have changed in favour of the Republic . Northern Ireland in it’s present format cannot ‘make’ it as a separate State and the UK does not want to ‘integrate’ NI into the UK like say the Isle of Wight’
‘ Republicanism can’t really look back the same way,’
True.
‘I think maybe what they got now, is as much a problem for unionism as the original Orange Junta State, which as Alex as has said, was NOT the prefered option.’
It may not have been the preferred option but circumstances and the political realities and demographics within Northern Ireland in 1920 very soon pushed NI into a quasi fascist junta state ruled by the ‘landed gentry’ and or retired military . It took until the 1970’s before the first ‘civilian ‘ /commoner Brian Faulkner became Prime Minister and even then only for a couple of weeks or so IIRC.
Unionism might have avoided the worst aspects of their later misgovernance had they accepted a smaller more Unionist State i.e the 4 county model as offered by John Redmond the Irish Nationalist /Home Rule party leader.
IMO ‘unionism’ as a political ‘ideology’ belongs to a different age -the age of empire and european colonialism . In modern Ireland it’s an anachronism out of step with the vast majority on this island and with few sympathisers anywhere else in the world not even from the ‘mother ‘ country.
What is to become of it ?
As I’ve said before it can only have a political future in a smaller Northern Ireland State mainly east of the Bann although time is running out on even that possibility .
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 04:05 PMHigh moral ground, anti-agreement unionists?
You are joking. Give many of these jokers a rub and they turn out to be Orange supremacists who never had any intention of offering catholics anything like equality. They showed their true blue colours a few times, bringing down the power sharing executive in 1974 and providing effective ideological support to a gang of irish separatist gunmen who would have failed long ago without them.
They lost the plot. How could they imagine that the Brits would underwrite the oppression of - yes - british citizens, and on a religious basis.?
Their only crime was stupidity.
Oh, and gutlessness under fire. They did not value ‘british’ values enough to offer them on an equal basis to their catholic neighbours when they did not, in fact, then support the Provos.
Perhaps ‘Antis’ still imagine there is security in a self-selected crowd.
There is not. It only demonstrates to back home Brits how distinctly ‘other’ they are, forcing the Brits to conclude that they must be Irish, for they are not British.
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 07:42 PMTurgon
“we have self proclaimed unionists from positions as disparate as Jo to Bigger Picture and many, many in between clearly not delighted by what has happened but willing to accept it for varying reasons but essentially either because it was a necessary price to end the conflict and / or because it was better than the alternatives.”
Where am I in this sliding scale?!
“The lack of an alternative is also a very valid criticism albeit one which Jim Allister has begun trying to address.”
I read this a month or so back. What exactly is new in this that he has not been saying before and is progressive in setting out a TUV way forward?
Clearly the democratic institutions we have are not perfect but I am disgusted by the argument that Jim Allister constantly uses that Direct Rule, the man who called it Rome Rule in the run up to the Leeds Castle talks. A HMG who made side deals with SF on Super Councils, the Maze, on the runs, p&j;and an Irish Language Act. I am glad that as a unionist I have seen a party who has been able to stop these measures taking a stranglehold in Ulster. Under direct rule Jim would have had us all outside protesting while direct rule ministers carry on implementing deals designed to favour SF/IRA.
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 09:05 PM“They lost the plot. How could they imagine that the Brits would underwrite the oppression of - yes - british citizens, and on a religious basis.? “
I neither need nor want SF to protect me from the Orange Order, TUV or anybody else.
Why is that? Quite simply, SF are not Catholics. SF can be plenty pro-British when the fancy takes them, they love London.
SF are anti-Vatican.
G.
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 09:06 PM“Under direct rule Jim would have had us all outside protesting while direct rule ministers carry on implementing deals designed to favour SF/IRA. “
So what’s changed? Adams can have as many meetings with Goggins as he wants with a trail of PSNI hi-rankers to keep him company.
The people of South Belfast are not able to get that out of the DUP, SDLP or UUP.
SF have ‘Googins’ stitched up. The only thing SF has to do to keep Goggins happy is not to ban sex offenders from our schools.
Ruane is helping Goggins
and Gamble.
:o))
G.
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 09:15 PMBigger Picture,
You are on the almost me end of the spectrum I suspect.Yet again your criticisms are valid. The only bit I would disagree with is that the final manifestation of Direct Rule was a punitive one designed to force unionists (the recalcitrant ones at that time) into the agreement. I still think had we called HMG’s bluff what we would have got would have been less bad than we were threatened with, especially as Brown seems much less interested in NI and so was not forcing some sort of agenda to get his place in history.
If Direct Rule came due to unionists rejecting devolution, the opposite to 1972, then I suspect HMG might have to think through a different strategy.
However, on balance I do prefer power sharing devolution it is just how that system is set up which I object to and my problem with terrorists in government.
As I have said repeatedly: if your party can change the current system to a more acceptable one I will be delighted. If you out flank the TUV by being to its right (although again I hate the right left terms, they are good short hand, however), I will be happy. I simply do not think it is possible in the current context and I also in all honesty doubt the commitment of some of your leaders to such a project.
Anyhow were you at Balmoral Show? please do not tell me you are a townie?
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 09:40 PMGreenflag, had the ‘rights/socialist revolution’ swept away the State (and Church) institutions in Dublin I don’t suppose there would have been any mention of a Celtic Tiger.
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 10:26 PMGordon Brown has no interest in NI, except the subsidy, which is going to be reduced. The assembly haven’t fully realised this yet, and therein lies conflict. As the tap slowly turns off, we can forget about irish language, stadiums, community based funding, etc shite- and start thinking about cutting the collossal public sector cushion. The so called community workers, etc are going to have to find real jobs (McDonalds)and the assembly turkeys are going to have to come to terms with christmas. Including the vast bueracracy that goes with their oasis of comfort zone nest feathering.
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 10:27 PMTurgon any chance of addressing the issue I riased? Cheers.
Posted by on May 18, 2008 @ 11:18 PMNevin
‘had the ‘rights/socialist revolution’ swept away the State (and Church) institutions in Dublin ‘
There was no chance of a ‘socialist’revolution in 1969 in the Republic other than in the minds of a small number of ‘intellectuals’ . The vast majority of voters in the Republic then and now have never shown any preference for the extreme left or for that matter the extreme right .
The Celtic Tiger phenomenon emerged in the early 1990’s from a mix of three major factors - a) The ability of the Republics Government to reduce the huge public sector borrowing requirement and out of control public sector pay, b) The ability of the economy to attract significant direct foreign investment c) the availability of a well educated workforce.
None of the above are available to the NI Assembly . There is of course a small number of highly educated ‘grammar school’ pupils most of whom will however not be available to the NI economy but will be available to the UK’s in England or Scotland and some no doubt to the Republics. Such is and probably will be the economic reality for a generation or more ahead .
Driftwood,
‘ start thinking about cutting the collossal public sector cushion.’
True but given the social, historical and sectarian forces barely covered over now by the thin skin of Assembly hype there had better be an ‘alternative’ to the cushion . Otherwise NI runs a very high risj of descending once again into widespread sectarian conflict with the Assembly taking the place of Sunningdale in the long list of failed political initiatives aimed at trying to make a ‘normal’ democracy out of a state which was never designed or meant to be one.
As others have pointed out NI does not have a lot of options apart from cementing the sectarian divisions and carrying on along the road of public sector dependency until HMG decides enough is enough .
Posted by on May 19, 2008 @ 10:45 AMGreenflag,
re. Irish Economic Miracle
although we dont like to boast about it let’s be honest, not only were (are ?) we the best songcontesters (c’mon Dustin) but also the best beggars in Europe and free deutchmarks was also a major factor (in my opinion) - but as nobody knows how the feck economics works we could argue about that until the heavily subsidised cows come home and of course it may equally have been as a result of divine reward for packing the churches because the lord was certainly working in mysterious ways moving stautes about the country so he could well have turned the holy hand to fiscal matters.
I can remember a debate on RTE radio where some government FF quarefellah - beggar of destiny - warned about the increased wealth of the country because it would impact on the money from the EU - I jest not.
Posted by on May 19, 2008 @ 11:08 AM
