Over twenty years since the Good Friday Agreement and we haven’t had an Assembly for over two years, and Brexit threatens to fundamentally reshape the tone of the entire political landscape on this island for at least a generation. Talk of a border poll is once again in the news as Boris Johnson makes a spectacle of the UK, and his Government, during the ongoing Brexit saga. The idea that somehow the NI Assembly will be responsible for agreeing to continued alignment with EU regulations is laughable. I’m not convinced that if there was a border poll that Nationalists would win, but neither am I certain that Unionism would, either. Going by the widening gap between younger, moderate Protestants and the mainstream Unionist parties, the writing is on the wall. Unionism needs to change and modernise if it is to survive as a political entity, nevermind keeping Northern Ireland within the UK.
So let’s look at what happens if and when Unionism loses the border poll. Talk of violence and unrest aside, the Republic of Ireland would suddenly find itself with an extra two million citizens, with nearly a million of those identifying as British. Any hope of stability would rest on the reality, as much as it is uncomfortable for some, that Loyalism and Unionism would need to be accommodated in some form in a United Ireland.
It might sound crazy to suggest that the Irish Government would grant concessions to Unionism and Loyalism given the fractious and fraught history of Loyalist traditions on this island, but those people won’t just vanish the day after a border poll, and neither will their traditions and cultural expressions. A border poll will be won by moderate Protestants and disaffected former Unionists voting for Unity, but the campaign to win those hearts and minds will need to be underscored by concrete proposals as to what infrastructure and legal guarantees would exist to safeguard traditions and customs amongst Unionist communities. It’s not going to be a comfortable or even an easy debate to have, but if Republicans are truly serious about building a new, 32 county Irish Republic then there needs to be an acknowledgement that Loyalism and Unionism will still exist in the years and decades after reunification.
Bonfires, Orange parades, flute bands, et al will still need to exist, and be accommodated in some form. Ireland will need to show leadership and goodwill towards Unionism that Unionists have scarcely shown to Nationalism and Irish culture. Otherwise, it will be a failed project.
Unionist politics will still exist, the representatives will have moved one hundred miles south to take their seats in the Dáil and Seanad alongside their peers from Leitrim, and Cork. There is a significant chance that in a United Ireland, Unionist parties (in whatever form they take) will hold significant away in Irish national politics, and their constituency won’t vanish overnight. It is foolish to believe otherwise. I had been speaking to a friend of mine, a fellow writer and Unionist (who, like me, would probably be considered a Lundy in some more hard-line circles) about what a United Ireland would need to look like for people like us. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want a United Ireland; I am not by any means ignorant to the legacy of colonialism and imperialism on this island.
I am not an apologist or even sympathetic to the actions of the British state against the people here during British rule. Horrific injustices were perpetrated, an entire culture was subjugated and systematically picked apart, and the organs of Government and security were utilised as a cudgel under which an entire community was demonised, persecuted and victimised. People like myself have had their traditions and heritage preserved by the state in a way that Nationalists haven’t. People had to protest and take to the streets for basic civil rights to be granted to Catholics in a way that Protestants can never understand. We weren’t the victims of state oppression, yet there are those within our communities that would have us believe that our cultural expressions are being infringed upon and denied, which is exactly why I write this article. Dissenting voices amongst the Unionist political echelons who never supported the Good Friday Agreement are more than happy to see it shredded and to whip up fear of the Nationalist boogeyman amongst working-class Protestant communities. Sources of identity, symbols (physical and otherwise) will need to be protected in a United Ireland in a way that was denied to Republicans and working-class Catholic communities for far too long.
It’s likely that Stormont will need to exist, at least in a transitional sense, until infrastructure (health, transport, welfare, education, judiciary etc) are merged. That means having Unionist voices at the table, crafting any new arrangements that will need to exist in order to make reunification workable and to have an incentive to bring their communities with them.
This is all, by the way, entirely hypothetical and the musings of one Unionist amongst a sea of more informed political writers, but I don’t think it’s wise to outright dismiss the concerns and questions of Unionists who are now looking at a border poll as an ever-increasing possibility within the next 10 years. If Nationalism wants to win there needs to be significant outreach and guarantees towards those communities. Good faith is thin on the ground at this moment in time, but nothing is impossible.
Stephen Donnan-Dalzell is a freelance writer, commentator and LGBT activist. Working in mental health & addictions. They/Them
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