It’s hard not to join in the schadenfreude as the British people begin to realize the kind of party their government has gone into intimate alliance with, exchanging £1 billion – or was it £1.5 billion? – for their support. The Tories now seem shocked to find that this is a homophobic, fundamentalist and generally reactionary lot they’ve teamed up with. “What have we done?” they ask each other.
Personally, I think those matters aren’t that important. The DUP as a party, and its individual members, are entitled to have whatever views they choose on homosexuality, how old the world is, and whether God is going to send all the errant fenians to hell. To each his own, I say. But it’s when they apply those views in the political world, compelling others to share them, that things get a bit messier.
However, let’s not indulge in premature despair. Maybe the DUP will with time become open to change. Shortly after Martin McGuinness’s death, Ian Paisley Jr made a few comments about getting beyond our political differences, finding the things we have in common and working to develop our relationships. At the time I thought we’d finally arrived at our de Klerk moment: that someone was about to lead unionism to a more enlightened future. Alas, Ian Jr hasn’t repeated his more enlightened line and has reverted to telling the south they’d be better returning to the UK. Farewell, de Klerk.
But hold. Professor Peter Shirlow of Liverpool University and late of this parish has come up with some interesting research. Young pro-union people here, it seems, are turned off by the DUP’s line on various social and theological issues. This distaste is so intense, they’ve stopped voting at all in Stormont or Westminster elections. So it seems clear the DUP are out of step with the under-40s.
Before we get too pleased with this further bit of bad news for the DUP, maybe better read another part of the University of Liverpool’s research: 82% of young Protestants are firmly in favour of union with Britain.
For those of us who might tend to conflate two separate issues, that 82% figure is sobering. The British government may hold their noses as they work with the DUP, young Protestants under 40 may think the DUP is stuffed with Neanderthals; but while that my be bad news for the DUP, it’s not good for nationalists/republicans either. There is no sign that young, more enlightened Protestants are moving in any significant numbers from the devotion of their forefathers to Britain. Nor, if you think of it, has the Tories’ distaste for DUP thinking made Theresa and Co any more positively disposed towards a reunited Ireland.
But there’s a factor coming down the road like a bowling ball, that may send all the well-positioned political skittles flying. It’s called Brexit.
I’m not sure why the DUP supported Brexit. I suspect that they may have done so because they thought it wouldn’t happen. This would have left them in the happy position of parading their devotion to British sovereignty in all things, while not having to pay the price of such Colonel Blimp attitudes. Unfortunately for them, the thing they said they wanted they actually got; and I’d be surprised if there aren’t a few unionist voters appalled by the economic consequences headed their way.
So here’s the thing. If Brexit proves to be the disaster most people think it’ll be, and particularly so in Ireland, where a majority of the people north and south want to remain in the EU, what will unionist reaction be?
Will they grit their teeth and suffer all the hardship and economic disaster, because that’s the price you must pay to continue being British? Or will they decide that a chicken in the pot and bread on the table trump all the old blind loyalties to Mother Britain?
It’s hard to know. The unionist commentator Alex Kane once said he is convinced, were a border poll held, 99% of unionists and 99% of nationalists/republicans would vote with their hearts and not their heads. I suspect he’s rowed back a bit from such full-blooded loyalty-predictions. Certainly there were people who would describe themselves as nationalists who would have been very worried if they were taken out of the UK and deprived of benefits such as the NHS.
But what if, in five years from now, the south of Ireland as a member of the EU was a flourishing economy, whereas the north, as part of the Brexited UK, was suffering the gut-wrenching jolt of a hard Brexit?
If our little North-East Nest still exists in five years time, it’d be fascinating to see how many under-40s still believe in the wisdom of holding tight to Mother Britain’s hand.
There’s a widespread suspicion that the DUP went for Brexit for exactly the reasons you suggest. They expected to loose.
The same is probably correct for Boris Johnston; he expected Leave to loose, and his choice was based on personal and political advantage.
The DUP and a lot of the Tories thought the brexit referendum would go the other way .i dare say if there another vote all those who didn’t bother to vote would now be out in droves getting a reversal .Boris certainly thought it would go the other way …so did Cameron or he never would have done it …so would Theresa May who is currently choking on how to digest the impossibly stupid result. The turkeys literally voted for Christmas! The giggling DUP hadn’t a bloody clue…just as Wee Sammy hadn’t a bloody clue about climate change or some of the other idiots have no clue as to the age and evolution of the world they live in.For Chrissakes , don’t ask they about quantum physics or the idea that colour in the world is an illusion that our brains create..Don’t ask them anything too difficult!!!The only reason they voted for Brexit is because they imagined getting away from that awful open-minded European influence which is anathama to the closed mindset which makes them feel comfortable.They imagined that getting out of Europe would return them to an neverland of the 1950s when all was well with the world and there were jobs in security for all their own girls and boys. …a hard border wall with watchtowers and security crossings to remind themselves that they were differnt from those Irish across the fields.Anyway …sure the border wasn’t any problem fwhen you lived in Antrim or maybe Belfast ….”out ther” was miles away and didn’t have any effect on all but a few of their voters .it was all republicands and nationalists “out there”. They also knew that most of their voters would never know how good or bad life was beyond the border because they rarely went there anyway. The bottom line is that they’d burn the place to the ground rather than admit they’d be better off in a new Re-united Ireland …no matter the eventual plan to re-make the health Service and re-regulate pensions and all the rest.They are content to feel like the “Other” rather than feel like Irishmen.That is why they wanted the tiny little six -county homeland carved out in the first place. It’s not about being smart.It’s all about not being assimilated into Ireland where their odd ideas about reality would only be a small part of a whole new national identity.
What you’re saying Paddy is that loyalists and nationalists are a mirror image of one another. Nationalists actually did burn the place to the ground rather than admit they were better off in the UK, no matter the actual reality of the health Service and pensions and all the rest. Nationalists too are content to feel like the “Other” rather than feel like Britishmen.That is why they wanted a 32-county homeland carved out in the first place.
No Tam.i did not that at all.To elaborate. Republicans had a strategy as far as I recall , to burn the place to the ground to ultimately hurt Westminster’s economic interests. They extended that ploy and eventually brought it to England itself with extended bombing campaigns, if memory serves.It was never a war fought over or about a viable health service or a pensions plan either . It was about a well-recorded imbalance in how the society had been run for some fifty years, which eventually resulted in a Civil rights movement in the mid-1960s which i remember very well and which mirrored Martin Luther King’s American model.That model was confronted by a hapless, uneducated and very right-wing political police -force and ultimately an army sponsored by unionist concerns alone.That was the reality on the streets . People were shot on the streets by police and army and right -wing unionism ppromoted the cult of unionist paramilitarism to the point of assembling them in ragtag violent groups or ultimately army-like on the streets.Ian Paisley and Bill craig had much to do with this mindset. After that followed internment without crime or trial ; first for only nationalists alone and eventually it had to be extended to loyalists . This show of force and imprisonment was the thing that set the whole thing in motion and angered and groomed enough people to confront that violence with the very same level of violence or worse. It is also a fact that those police and military forces had the wholehearted support of the unionist community and press who had developed roots in that mindset. For the most part that british militarism was not the norm for nationalists.The “32 county homeland “you refer to already existed as a unitary state in the early 20th century ,for every Irish person , whether British-connected or not. It was the cry that “Home Rule in Ireland was Rome Rule ” which created the difficulties . There may have been too much religion in the mix from all sides and too much influence but that was the mindset back then and it was based on a lot of historical folk-memory. Britain would have been quite content …as would Carson, to maintain Ireland as a 32 county unit. They both knew that (much like Brexit today, come to think of it) anything else would ultimately not really work out too well and we find now to our cost just how complicated that vision has become and how it actually did ultimately fail to deliver a permanently stable Ireland to the point where we are incapable of keeping sensible civil laws in place without the threat of paramilitary violence (bonfires!)or of even conducting local government together (Queen Arlene).
Paddy you said loyalists would rather burn the place to the ground than admit they were better off in a ‘united Ireland’. How is that any different to nationalists who would rather burn the place to the ground than admit they were better off in the UK?
Btw the Provisional movement rejected the civil rights plea for equal rights in the UK and their peaceful methodology, so you shouldn’t join in the SF revisionism that seeks to portray the PIRA as some kind of human rights organisation.
And internment didn’t ‘set the whole thing in motion’. It was a response to the ‘whole thing’, which was already in motion.
You give the impression of being an apologist for PIRA.
And your “32 county homeland “ did not exist as a unitary state in the early 20th century. The British Isles was a unitary state. Nationalists wanted to divide it. This is worrying fundamental ignorance.
”And your “32 county homeland “ did not exist as a unitary state in the early 20th century. The British Isles was a unitary state. Nationalists wanted to divide it. This is worrying fundamental ignorance”
If that is your view on things Tam, who am I to attempt to educate you otherwise? It might be best to let you ‘stew in your own juice’ so to speak and let demographics run their course. Won’t be long now !!
Did that unitary state include four fifths of the known world?
No.
Nice reply Fiosrach, I think it needs to be said that in the very first democratic election within the so-called unified state of the UK the Irish voted overwhelmingly against British rule and for the establishment of a republic. Before 1917 democracy didn’t exist in the UK. I think this says it all.
1918*
It wasn’t overwhelming. But the unionist vote in their part of Ireland was overwhelmingly ageist inclusion in such a republic.
And before 1918 there was more democracy in the UK than nearly everywhere else in the world.
Tam, in case you really are as deluded as you sound, I’ve a bit of news for you mate. You live in Ireland! When you go to your beloved Britain, you’re a Paddy just like the rest of us.
Yes I know I live in Ireland, thanks. Do you?
The point I’m trying to make is that the Irish never wanted to be ruled by Britain and they got out the first chance they got. Had there been democracy in Ireland in 1798 we would be living in a very different country right now. And indeed a very different world. Our language would be more widely spoken, our schools would have been Irish schools, our people would not have starved to death and been forced to immigrate to British colonies. And our country would not have been divided.
That’s mere speculation, and even if it were true is entirely irrelevant. Ireland wasn’t a unitary state: it was part of the UK, which was a unitary state that nationalists wanted to divide.
It wasn’t part of the UK. It was coerced into the UK in 1801 through the Act of Union. Ireland (her people) never joined out of their own free will and the first Catholic or ‘native Irish’ as we used to be called was elected under the mandate to repeal the act of Union. Ireland before this had been a colony ruled by an anglican elite landed gentry. The United Ireland rising of 1798 was led by Protestants.
To say nationalists wanted to divide the UK is erroneous. Irish people didn’t not want to be ruled by Britain, not nationalists, just Irish people. Nationalists in England, Scotland and Wales had their own agendas.
You’re now resorting to blatant falsehoods. Of course it was part of the UK, and or course Irish nationalists wanted to divide the UK. First, they wanted a separate parliament and then a completely independent separate state.
Kingdom of Ireland 1542 -1800*
Tam I know you like to argue but the UK of Great Britain and Ireland didn’t exist until 1801 so if you are going to accuse someone of resorting to lies maybe you should first of all know the facts.
Before this Ireland was known as the Kingdom of Ireland 1852-1800 and had its own parliament
You just mentioned nationalists in your post, you didn’t mention Irish nationalists. I don’t know however if Theobald Wolfetone or Henry Joy McCracken would have called themselves nationalists given the fact that Ireland was already a nation had its own parliament at the time of their rising. They sought to seperate Ireland’s ties with the English monarchy and unite Catholics, Protestants and Dissenters in a new Republic. The Union with Great Britain didn’t come about until 3 years later.
I had provided links but it looks like link have to be moderated. Just google United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and Kingdom of Ireland.
And again that is the Kingdom of Ireland 1542-1800.
I know the UK didn’t exist until 1801 and never claimed otherwise. Not sure how that means either that it didn’t exist or that it wasn’t a unitary state
What about the nationalist cry of ” We want our country back” as opposed to “We want to hold on to a bit of your country for a while longer and we are assured of the mothership’s financial and military support”
Never heard either.
Tam …I’m no apologist for the Provisional IRA or anyone else on this island. i speak only for me and what i have lived through.The provos did not exist while the Civil Rights movement were in action .In fact the old Official iRA would have been regarded as has-beens .The Civil Rights movement was attacked for daring to demonstrate on the streets for some fairness.The provos were not even in the equation but were a result of violence directed against nationalist communities.That’s the way it really was.Nationalists and come to that many working class unionists lived very humble lives.The difference was that many more nationalists endured unemployment for many reasons.Working class unionists were gulled into thinking that Civil Rights was some kind of socialist republican plot even though its aims were to improve life for everyone on an equal basis. Many of the same types of people who later got involved with the provos would probably have supported the ideal of civil rights because there was nothing to lose and everything to gain.Working class unionism has always held itself back and much of that was to do with hanging onto Big house unionism .If you look at how they still vote for an ultra right wing party such as the DUP even today you can see that not much has changed in either this last hundred years or the last fifty. They are still being gulled by claptrap talk of culture when all they are really getting is building big fires every summer and the chance to dress up in little uniforms and beat big drums. It’s still as asinine as it always was.Meanwhile the rest of the world moves on and the rest of Ireland certainly does.
You must have a great set of lungs Tam, keeping your head in the sand for such a long time surely must qualify you for an entry in the Guinness Book of Records.
Well,you won’t have that to say again.
Paddy I’m well aware of the history of the civil rights movement, the Official IRA and the Provos. There’s no need to rehearse it all.
Paddy you said loyalists would rather burn the place to the ground than admit they were better off in a ‘united Ireland’. How is that any different to nationalists who would rather burn the place to the ground than admit they were better off in the UK?
Btw the Provisional movement rejected the civil rights plea for equal rights in the UK and their peaceful methodology, so you shouldn’t join in the SF revisionism that seeks to portray the PIRA as some kind of human rights organisation.
And internment didn’t ‘set the whole thing in motion’. It was a response to the ‘whole thing’, which was already in motion.
We both know the Provos weren’t involved in the civil rights movement. They weren’t even formed until afterthe civil rights demands had had been met.
They were nothing to do with it were formed in opposition to the party of civil rights, the SDLP, and rejected the civil rights/SDLP analysis of reform. They wanted violently to overthrow the state, not reform it – only to do a vote face 25 years later and become reformists, stealing the civil rights clothes and now trying to project the civil rights analysis backwards on to their brutal and evil campaign. You appear to do the same – hence the impression that you are an apologist.
And you still haven’t explained how loyalists who would rather burn the place to the ground than admit they were better off in a ‘united Ireland’ are any different to nationalists who would rather burn the place to the ground than admit they were better off in the UK?
If you’ve a relevant point to make, James, don’t feel inhibited in making it. If you ever do, I’ll happily address it. I
How were catholics better off in a statelet in which they were systematically discriminated against?
Better standard of living, less unemployment, free health service, free education.
Tam ,you’re so uneducated about the whole scenario and the sectarian fiefdom that Unionism created here ,that it would take a blog the size ( and probably as boring ) of ” War and Peace ” to let light into your world. As I explained before , Unionism started the troubles…..realising that the Nationalist population was increasing expontentially and would soon be a threat to their tyrannical rule. The first bombs exploded were by the UVF in 1966 , the first people murdered were catholics …again by the UVF in 1966 and the first policeman killed was also killed by these ” oh so loyal and snctimonious Unionists ” …..the Provisional IRA didn’t come into existence until January 1970….after the Civil Rights had been beaten off the streets by the murderous and cowardly RUC.
I’m not uneducated about the whole scenario. I am relatively highly educated about it and certainly more so than you.
‘Who started the Troubles’ is a question that is not relevant to this discussion about whether or not people were better off in the UK.
Aidan, do want to give yourself a sore head?
LOLOL Don’t forget the wee scroll button moser saves that sore head.
Nationalists need to think more about money, and economics. By that I mean creating an economic state within this state. Politics as it exists here is a diversion and distraction from real economic growth, and the creation of new ideas. The industry if ideas is the steel industry of the future. Real economic power is not constrained by borders: ideas are limitless. What does it say about us when we haven’t yet defeated the DUP Neanderthal thinking ? Perhaps we need to buck up our ideas ?
Tam.I thought i explained that the provos didn’t think they were better off in the UK. They thought they were burning the place down to soak finances out of the British Exchequer as far as I know. The idea being that the British public would get fed up with paying to rebuild everything and push give Ireland back to the Irish. At the time they didn’t much care for their sons being sent “out there” to get killed by irate paddies, either .Whereas loyalists are currently threatening to burn the place down (today in the news) not because of any other reason than if they can’t get building and lighting their dearly beloved bonfires next summer. That’s the level of intelligence we are dealing with. If that doesn’t say it all what else possibly could? As for the civil Rights movement , I know of at least two old classmates , now dead who were radicalised by the violence they endured by police and Paisleyites while on a civil rights march and made their own decisions to join armed groups and fight back.They were both eventually killed in odd circumstances .I have to say I also had another protestant friend who joined the RUC just before the whole thing kicked off and was sent to Derry where he was killed..I saw that one on the news while in England at art college. internment was the finishing school for many of those young men who became provos. It was there that they met and compared notes and ideas. The civil rights demands came too late for them in the end and by that time those same men had made the decision thta the state was irredeemable .That was their own analysis. The SDLP had different ideas but they were seen to be from different social backgrounds and were by nature a more conservative grouping with everything to lose. These provos had nothing left to lose which is probably why they did the things they did.
There is no explaining why loyalists would burn the place down rather than live in a re-united Ireland .They seemed happy enough to live in a 32 county Ireland as long as Westmister was pulling the string back one hundred years ago ,but have less faith in a new Ireland where they help to run the place as equals to everyone else. There is no explaining any of that and I dare say they haven’t thought too hard about it in any intellectual way anyway..
And loyalists wouldn’t think they’d be better off in a ‘united Ireland’, so what’s the difference?
The point is, no amount of ‘being better off’ in whatever constitutional arrangement they oppose will lead extremists to support it or even accept it. Sure there was even a contributor here who said he’d be prepared to starve in a united Ireland than live comfortably in the UK.
Well there is that.Ireland has always been full of half -arsed martyrs of every ilk.Part of that whole Christian ideal is to find solace in suffering and sacrifice. I wouldn’t be of that mindset.There are better and more rational ways of doing things. The biggest problem is that rationality has always been in short supply in faith -based communities of any kind. Being rational somehow goes against the grain. It is why some will choose to climb mountains barefoot. That’ll really only result in cut feet and blisters.It doesn’t stop people from hanging themselves on a cross of their own making. That all said there have been generations of Irish people who have had no problem whatsoever in emigrating to live in other countries , England , Scotland and Wales included, rather than staying in Ireland to suffer poverty , unemployment or the bloody awful bigotry and racism that is still such a part of life here. My own sister and two of my children have long-since left this madhouse and I doubt that although they see themselves as Irish to the bone ,they have never doubted their choices.
The reason we get blisters on our feet when we don’t wear shoes and climb mountains is because we wear shoes in the first place, now rationalise that!
Tam,the Civil rights movement were still highly active long after “the provos” were formed and NICRA was actually formed in the house of Kevin Agnew who was a leading SF man throughout the 70s and 80s.The bloody Sunday march was NICRA and years previous to that Michele Gildernews family were involved in the Caledon squat after being refused a house.This event more than anything else brought “civil rights” to the forefront.
And?
Leading lights in “the provisional” movement were involved in CRA and thousands of CRA marchers were supporters and members of the “provisional movement” ie those who went on to form the provos in 1970… had been involved in CRA from its foundation and rather than oppose it they and thousands like them participated inthe civil rights campaign.The long march to Derry passed my house in 69 and a commemorative march highlighting the H blocks retraced their steps in 79.The footsoldiers in both cases were the same people and their families.
Have you evidence for this?
Even if what you say is true, by turning to the Provisionals these individuals were changing their position from supporting democratic reform to supporting violent overthrow.
And the long march was organised by the People’s Democracy and opposed by NICRA.
Peoples Democracy were one part of the Civil rights Movement which was quite diverse ,but being being mostly radical students , were prepared to push a little harder than some more conservative elements as far as I can recall.They were more impatient for change.
I know.
Tam ….there was no Democracy to get democratic reform from…..when those that make the law , break the law …then there is no law !
That’s untrue.
You still haven’t really explained,tam, why the huddled masses of subservient fenians – seemingly happy with their lot – were moved to insurrection, murder and mayhem. Do you think a small number of malcontents were able to galvanise their fellows to mass revolt? What sparked them off?
What part is untrue Tam…Democracy , the Civil Rights were campaigning for ” One man , one vote ” amongst many other wrongs ….. Was a Unionist Landlord or Factory Owner , with many votes , compatible with democracy ?…..maybe within Unionist’s version of ” Democracy ”
Or you naively implying that Unionism and their murderous paramilitary police force never broke the law….Wise up !
Both parts: that there was no democracy and if those that make the law break the law then there is no law.
You can’t fool with the reasoned…and you can’t reason with the fooled !
Possibly, but I prefer to have faith that even you may be able to see reason one day.