Making Powerful Enemies – by Michael Lagan

Today Arlene Foster went so far as to claim “Biden hates the United Kingdom” leaving Unionism with quite the predicament, to support those words or not, considering it was Rishi Sunak who not only invited Biden to NEI, but welcomed him off Air Force One, and it was Biden himself who accepted the offer.  Arlene has a history of making these types of statements, from the ‘crocodile’ quip – “if you feed a crocodile it will keep coming back for more” to claiming St. Patrick’s Day is too green, a claiming which, if truth be told, blew my mind.  In fact, you’d be forgiven for thinking Joe Biden was in the RA himself at some stage with the vitriol and abuse that was spewed from some Unionist lips today.  His only crime? He has an Irish heritage.  An even greater crime is he is proud of said heritage and Unionism doesn’t like that.  Because he has an Irish heritage and is openly proud of it, he is now labeled a ‘nationalist’, a label which in the future may come back to haunt Unionism if he gets a second term in office.

To the dismay of many, President Joe Biden’s visit to Belfast today was a fleeting one, and rightly so.  The Good Friday Agreement is a powersharing agreement and as we are all very aware, there is no powersharing at all in NEI at the minute due to the DUP refusing to nominate a Speaker, which in turn means we cannot have an Assembly or an Executive which in turn denotes the fact that the DUP and by extension, Unionism are holding powersharing to ransom…so why would Biden Stand in Stormont, a base of powersharing that isn’t actually working because of one party and one denomination?  It sends the wrong signal.

While that may be the case, some within Unionism seem somewhat confused about how we got here in the first place.  One Unionist today said, and I quote – “If Biden wanted the institutions up and running, he would be locked in a room with the DUP and Sinn Fein thrashing out a deal.”  Now, the glaringly obvious problem with this quote is that the DUP’s refusal to nominate a Speaker has absolutely nothing at all to do with a breakdown in relations between Sinn Fein and the DUP, nor has it anything to do with Stormont at all but more the DUP’s unwillingness to accept a deal done by the British government and the European Union.  No negotiations or deal between Sinn Fein and the DUP will change the Windsor Framework (NI Protocol MK2) because it has nothing at all to do with the two aforementioned parties, but I suppose Unionism has to blame everyone but themselves as is their form.

It’s ironic, and it shows just how much this wee island of ours has changed since the GFA, all but NI Unionism which is in a constant state of siege due to the fact that for decades, instead of reaching out to its nationalist and ‘other’ neighbours, it chose to batten down the hatches, go nuclear, and treat every non-British and non-Unionist person as a second class citizen, and force a hardline British and Unionist stance on literally everything.

Today, almost every other political party and sector in NEI is more positive about it and its future than those who claim to love it most.  Nationalists have changed their views in that they have realised that for a united Ireland to work, NEI needs to work and be, at least to an extent, able to stand on its own two feet economically.  All other parties in the Assembly, from Sinn Fein to Alliance to the UUP are willing and able to work together to make it work.  All the while, the DUP, and the TUV seem more unwilling than anything to help make NEI a place where we can all live amicably and in peace while accepting that the NI Protocol MK2 could realistically make NEI a powerhouse of industry, tech business and more making it an actual success story.  Isn’t that what Unionism wants?

NI Unionism’s problem now, ironically, is that by making NEI work, something it claims to support, it makes it a more attractive proposition for a united Ireland.  It makes it more approachable for those in the South who wouldn’t naturally dream of a united Ireland due to the North’s economic inactivity and with some of the world’s biggest tech enterprises and biotech companies battling to get into NEI due to our well-educated and well-trained workforce as well as our coveted duel-access two the UK and EU markets, one would think the DUP would be chomping at the bit to get back to work, y’know, for all our people like those young Unionists who are contemplating voting for nationalist parties because, and again I quote – “Michelle O’Neill is talking some sense.”

While Unionism continues to make enemies with whoever they meet, from Westminster to the EU to Americans, the rest of the Stormont political parties continue to show they can work together and the youth ain’t stupid, and while politicised they aren’t about to throw away the opportunity to have a thriving, prosperous ‘Northern Ireland’ where they have jobs, a wage and safe in the knowledge that their children will get good jobs and a good wage.  With every day that passes, tired old Northern Irish Unionism is losing the youth vote because while it cares about the past, the past doesn’t define it and more than a few are looking at a united Ireland as a positive alternative to what we have now.