Unionism: three (misguided) reasons to feel uncheerful

If I were a unionist, I suspect I’d be feeling unhappy this morning. Unhappy X 3, in fact.

The first reason for my unhappiness would be the recent election here. While the DUP is still the largest party elected to Stormont, it’s had a dramatic slide in the number of seats it obtained and its leader is under severe pressure, from without and within. None of this means any change to the constitutional position, but it does suggest a coming time when there might be a majority of people in the NE who do want an end to partition. But gloominess on the part of unionists over the recent election is based on a possible future when unionists might be outvoted here. Since they’ve known that was a possibility with consequences since at least 1998, most unionists should and will know that in practical terms, nothing has changed.

The second reason would be Enda Kenny’s speech in Philadelphia yesterday. After years of huffing and puffing, Enda has announced that there’ll be a referendum on whether all Irish citizens, including those abroad and those here in the NE, should be allowed to vote in Irish presidential elections. This could make unionists unhappy in that it’ll seem to foreshadow a time when all Irish citizens would vote for all their  elected representatives, not just the President. Again, it’s the shadow not the substance. The President of Ireland, like Queen Elizabeth, is a figure-head without powers. Who votes him or her into office won’t change the constitutional position of unionists in the NE. So they have no call to feel other than sanguine about presidential voting rights. It’s a long way to Tipperary and it’s an even longer way from electing an Irish President to electing Irish politicians.

The third reason would be Micheal Martin’s white paper on Irish reunification. Mr Martin says it’ll consist of twelve points, laying out how a united Ireland might look and how unionists in such a reunited Ireland might fare. This is for nationalists a desirable move, since it finally features a major Irish party going a step further than sloganizing on Irish reunification. If we’re talking about Irish reunification, for or against, we should know what we’re talking about. But as Martin himself acknowledges, such a paper is a long way from realization. It’s “possible” he says, that a united Ireland might come in his lifetime. He’s fifty-six. Again, unionists have always known a united Ireland is a possibility. Martin’s move doesn’t bring a united Ireland nearer by ten seconds. It simply gives those interested a chance to know what the term ‘united Ireland’ means.

So while  the three events – the poor showing by unionists in the recent election, the extension of the Presidential vote to all Irish citizens, and Micheal Martin’s proposed white paper on Irish unity – don’t bring Irish unity closer, they show that more people are giving  thought to such a notion.  But only when a majority in the north – and the south – vote for such an outcome will it happen. And Tipperary again applies.

What unionists and everybody else should concern themselves with – and which the PUP’s Billy Hutchinson has urged people not even to mention – is the reaction of loyalist/unionist paramilitaries to these three events. History has taught us that, when under threat (real or imagined), loyalism has a tendency to react with violence. The history of the state, including its foundation, provides plenty of precedents.  While that is a worrying possibility, nobody who has any respect for democracy (and specifically the Good Friday Agreement) should allow that  possibility to enter into the equation. If we do, we allow anti-democratic forces to dominate democratic decisions. As with Brexit or the election of Donald Trump, we either believe in democracy or we don’t.