Eamon Mallie is not a man I always agree with – I have a pathological aversion to people who mangle or discard their native accents. But Mallie has an article in today’s Irish Times and he makes several very timely and sound points.
The article is titled (the Irish Times doesn’t believe in compressed headlines) ‘Some unionists are thinking the unthinkable about living in a united Ireland.’
This isn’t news to most of us: there are a considerable number of intelligent middle-class unionists who are capable of looking at their Irish identity and their economic future and drawing obvious conclusions. But the article emphasizes a number of other things.
It reaffirms the notion advanced by Joe Brolly around a year ago: unionism had a chance to secure the acceptance of the northern state by middle-class Catholics, after the Good Friday Agreement. Instead of seizing that, political unionism built a fortress and hurled insults at Irish culture, particularly the Irish language. As a result, middle-class nationalism has had it with the northern state. They’ll work within it, but particularly with Brexit coming barreling down the line, they’ll take any peaceful means to go for a reunited Ireland.
Mallie also is scathing about the failure of the DUP to accept the offer that was on the table in February, and is one of the first commentators I’ve heard who makes it diamond clear that the reason for the talks failure last February rests solely with the DUP, who feared their grassroots turning mutinous if they accepted it.
The second article is headed ‘This means war: psychologists try to make sense of Brexit.’ (I told you the IT doesn’t do snappy headlines.) This cites a number of academic psychologists who’ve commented on the mindset of those involved in Brexit. The Brexiteers take a pounding: they are presented as people whose whole identity is bound up in their pursuit of a political goal, and when it becomes obvious that this will be self-harming they plough on, because their sense of themselves will not allow them to adjust or compromise.
I’d agree that many Brexiteers do seem to be mentally unhinged to a greater or lesser extent; but I don’t think we should be too hard on people who forge ahead even at massive economic cost. You could argue that that is putting principles above money, which is commendable. There are a lot of pro-united Ireland people who would take a similar view: even if it meant less money in their pocket, they’d still vote for a reunited Ireland.
The difference is that a reunited Ireland shows every indication of being good for trade and commerce throughout Ireland. That’s why Irish people north and south are so passionate about remaining in the EU. The economic case for a reunited Ireland is now uncontestable. It’s already been won. The Brexiteers, however, are the reverse of that. They know in their hearts that Brexit is going to damage the UK in all sorts of ways, including economically and maybe constitutionally, but urged on by the likes of Boris and Jacob, they hug the delusion of nineteenth-century British greatness to their bosoms and insist everyone opposed to them are dupes.
We saw that in the DUP’s dismissal of the objections by the Ulster Farmers’ Union and business leaders to their stance. They’re puppets of the NIO, they haven’t read the document, they don’t know what we know – that’s been the DUP mantra. Denying the truth of what’s staring you in the face has to be a kind of madness.
In contrast, middle-class unionists aren’t thinking the unthinkable when they ponder a reunited Ireland. They’re just being rational.
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