Unionism: an un-liberal activity?

This week Brian Feeney adopts more gentle approach in his ongoing controversialist critique of unionism, by asking, ‘why are there no liberal unionists?’ He begins by going much further than simply focusing on one side of the political equation:

Last year people wondered at the meaning of the strange rash of flags fluttering at the interfaces of impoverished loyalist and republican urban districts. Fenian districts favoured Palestinian flags and Prod districts Israeli. The first questions a lot of people asked were, where on earth people bought them and who was the genius of a salesman who had persuaded scores of eejits to part with their money to buy flags of places thousands of miles away? Like, what dope bought the first Israeli flag and the first Palestinian one? You can see a stream of dopes copying just to annoy the other side, but who started it?

He goes on to observe that Unionist policy documents tend to expound policies derived from the right, although he also believe that nationalism is simply avoiding such matters by equivocating on economic issues. He finishes with:

…no unionist leader will admit the truth of the Rev John Dunlop�s argument, namely there�s no security or justice for unionists which does not embrace security, or justice for everyone. They won�t admit that all the changes they oppose are for unionists� benefit too. So they teach their supporters to be reactionary.

He reserves his customary sting until the end:

Being liberal is a non-unionist activity like being a communist in Alabama is un-American.

Mick Fealty

Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty