Richard Madeley Highlights A Challenge for Unionism

Yesterday Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald popped up on ‘Good Morning Britain’ to make her case to the English, Scottish and Welsh publics on the need for a referendum on Irish unity. Those of us who live in Northern Ireland and visit this blog are of course well familiar with her case but she surely saw the value in being given a platform to articulate those arguments to people who normally wouldn’t give Northern Ireland and its issues much thought.

The standout moment of the interview didn’t come from McDonald though, it came from GMB host Richard Madeley who simply asked

“Why do you want Northern Ireland still so badly? Because, economically, I think it’s fair to say it’s close to being a basket case at the moment. This country pays it a huge amount in terms of subsidies to Ulster, far more than we get back.”

There’s actually a lot to unpack in that statement in terms of assumptions and implicit viewpoints. Madeley articulates the perception that Northern Ireland is a basket case. He then highlights the subvention, but frames it not as a transfer from a wealthier region of one country to a less wealthy region, but as a transfer from ‘this country‘ (which can be assumed to be Great Britain) to ‘Ulster’, implicitly setting the two apart. It’s the kind of blithe, off-handed and revealing remark that may cause some readers to grit their teeth and wince.

The important thing to point out is not that Madeley is right or wrong, but that the sentiments he expressed are probably ones that many in Great Britain, those aforementioned people who normally wouldn’t give Northern Ireland and it’s issues much thought, would share or agree with. And there is a risk for Unionism that when their minds do wander over to Northern Ireland, they relate to it in the most human of ways: ‘how does this impact me?’.

Mark Bain in ‘The Belfast Telegraph’ writes of the risks the sentiment poses to the future of the Union (particularly given the United Kingdom is perpetually cash strapped these days).

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