Last night the DUP were partying. A little over twelve hours before he unveils his masterplan to solve the Brexit question, where was Boris Johnson? Sitting at his desk going over the text of what may prove a fateful document in economic, social and political terms for the UK, Ireland and the EU? Nah. If there’s one thing Boris likes it’s a bit of fun, and he had it last night. He attended a DUP ‘event’.
You could tell it was a DUP event because, even in the short radio clips this morning, you could hear the chants of “No surrender!” and “Bor-iss! Bor-iss!”on every hand. The DUP had a chance to identify with the people in the north, whose lives are going to be gravely affected by today’s announcement, or to identify with the author of that announcemenl. Their chants made it clear: DUP thinking has evolved to the sophisticated level of “No surrender!” and “Bo-riss! Boriss!”
In any normal state, to have a political party schmoozing up to a British Prime Minister who knows so much about the north of Ireland, he thinks that cross-border trade should be as simple as moving goods from one area of London to the next, would be seen as betrayal. It would be safe to say that most business and farming people in the north don’t trust Boris. But the DUP are mad about the boy, which suggests a serious gap between the party and their voters.
Boris Johnson, having lost twenty-one Tory MPs, doesn’t depend on the DUP the way Theresa May did. So why is he allowing that party to chant his name and hail him as a saviour?
Well, vanity of course. But also for the same reason that, one hundred years ago, British politicians used and abused Irish politicians, including those of a unionist hue.
In 1921 the man whose statue dominates Stormont, Edward Carson, saw how English politicians regard the Irish: “What a fool I was. I was only a puppet, and so was Ulster, and so was Ireland, in the political game that was to get his Conservative Party into power.”
Only one question remains: will those who traditionally vote for the DUP turn their face away from this party that cares more for cozying up to English liars than it does for the livelihoods of people in all parts of Ireland?
I ask the question but sad to say, I’m pretty sure I know the answer.
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