So much for Unionists and Loyalists using peaceful, democratic means to halt or scrap the NI Protocol. As most will be aware now, a hoax bomb was driven to the Houben Centre on the Crumlin Road while Simon Coveney was giving a talk on peace-building. Not only was a cross-community peace-building event disrupted by the hoax, but a funeral was also halted in its proceedings as well as what we can only assume was a hard-working person’s van being hijacked by Loyalist terrorists and subsequently blown up by army technical officers…and all to protest the NI Protocol which is actually doing things for the North.
If I recall correctly, it was Nigel Dodds who put out a Tweet that republicans would use the threat of violence to stop Brexit and hold the UK to ransom. Well, Nigel, turns out it was your own folks, in your own constituency, nowhere near the border of anywhere who are threatening violence and it comes as no surprise that it was the UVF who carried out the hoax being a member of the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC). I’ve heard little from any Unionist group, political or otherwise denouncing this act of terrorism. After all, how could they when we’re approaching election time when the likes of the DUP are being threatened by the TUV, the UUP, and even Alliance.
So what has this hoax achieved? Well for a start it has severely disrupted a peace event attended by both sides of the community, all of whom, both Catholic and Protestant, and I presume nationalists and loyalists are equally as angry at those who carried out the hoax bomb attack. At a time when MI5 had recently lowered the threat level in the North to Substantial, it took only a matter of days for Loyalist terrorists to do something like this. The problem I see for these people, the UVF and Loyalist paramilitaries in general, is that even their own communities are angry at them for this. Many Loyalists actually see the Protocol working, many soft Unionists are positive about the Protocol and the only thing stopping them from fully supporting it is political Unionism peddling this idea that the NI Protocol will be the end of the Union, completely dismissing a little known document within Unionism called the Good Friday Agreement.
Article 1.1 of the Agreement states that both governments must: “Recognise the legitimacy of whatever choice is freely exercised by a majority of the people of Northern Ireland with regard to its status, whether they prefer to continue to support the Union with Great Britain or a sovereign united Ireland.”
Article 1.2 deals with the potential for a united Ireland and states this must be accepted if separate votes held at the same time on both sides of the border support this. In the text of Article 1.2, the GFA outlines that both governments must: “Recognise that it is for the people of the island of Ireland alone, by agreement between the two parts respectively and without external impediment, to exercise their right of self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, North and South, to bring about a united Ireland, if that is their wish, accepting that this right must be achieved and exercised with and subject to the agreement and consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland.”
I’ve spoken to many Unionists, many within my working day who have been told, and believe that a united Ireland can simply be ‘put upon them’ without their say so. I’ve set the record straight on many occasions that a united Ireland cannot come into being unless the people of Ireland, both North and South vote for it. Something which, I have to add, some seemed genuinely surprised at having been ‘informed’ by the DUP et al that a united Ireland would be forced upon them. One or two even suggested a united Ireland would be better as the “British government doesn’t give a f**k about us.”
The NI Protocol is at this stage just another item for political Unionism to beat their own people into submission with. The DUP are having a rough time with it because they ironically had a hand in engineering it but Jim Allister didn’t, nor did the UUP and I would urge caution to anyone who thinks nationalists and republicans are simply going to run away with this election. Yes, Sinn Fein is polled to become the biggest party in the North and South but we all know polls can be misleading and have been followed in the past leading to great frustration. One thing is for sure, republicans and nationalists should not respond to this hoax attack on Simon Coveney. If they do, they become as bad as those who created the spark, that being Loyalist terrorists who attacked a peace event attended by not only Catholics and nationalists, but also members of the Protestant and Loyalist community.
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