A border down the Irish Sea, said Boris Johnson in August 2020, would happen “over my dead body.” He was in Belfast when the words gathered in his mouth before bouncing out into the earholes of Arlene Foster, Nigel (‘Call me Lord’) Dodds and other DUP politicians starving for lack of reassurance concerning their Britishness.
Over the past month, Arlene, the good Lord and the rest of the DUP have found that, when Boris says something will happen over his dead body, it’s not to be taken literally. There are no doubt causes for which Boris would sacrifice his life, but a border in the Irish Sea is not one of them. As this fact sunk slowly through the skull-bone of Arlene, the good Lord and their colleagues, there was much shaking of heads and mutter of “Perfidious Albion!”
Now, in February 2021, Boris Johnson has again shown his dedication to the cause of North(eastern) Ireland (NEI). In a tweet two days ago, Johnson declared “Let me underline that, now & in the future, Northern Ireland’s place in the UK will be protected and strengthened.”
Is there a hint in that ‘now & in the future” bit that Johnson realises that in the past, he has shown a cavalier contempt for the place of NEI within the UK, and must now placate the DUP, a party he treated with casual contempt when he realised he didn’t need their House of Commons votes?
Equally, will the DUP put their trust in Boris Johnson as the man who will remove any customs posts between GB and NEI (apart, of course, from those that have always been there)? They sound as if that is exactly where they’re going to put their trust. Perhaps they should pause and remember Eamon de Valera’s words to Winston Churchill: ‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”.
Shame is not an emotion that you tend to associate with the DUP. But if they have learnt the hard way in the past not to buy a second-hand car from Boris Johnson, why would they buy his “Trust me, I’m a Tory” line now?
When the DUP first hitched its wagon to the Conservative government, Gerry Adams warned that this would all end in tears, which of course it did. Perhaps the DUP should put in an order for a shipment of tissues, regardless of the paperwork involved. Egg on your face is bad enough, but a public display of tears and snot would be a bridge (no, Virginia, not to Scotland) too far.
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