Monthly Archives: December 2017
Five principled points for Unionism
Sometimes we need to address the future by referencing some fundamentals.
In an article coinciding with the centenary of the Ulster Covenant, and reflecting on its place in the historical self-understanding of Unionists, Jane McGaughey observed that while it is remembered, primacy of The Covenant in the unionist ‘collective memory’ is dubious. Interestingly, McGaughey thought that this was due to its:
‘lack of stated adherence to Reformation Era Protestant principles of anti-Catholicism and literal biblical interpretation.’
That may seem a curious argument in our secular age. Her conclusion was unambiguous:
‘Sir Edward Carson once said that he would keep his covenant until his death; he was right. Since his death in 1935, the centrality of the Ulster Covenant to the unionist imagination has faded dramatically, replaced by images of battlefield heroics, religious fundamentalism, paramilitary warfare and the promise of peace. The Ulster Covenant now lies with Carson in St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast. His tomb is its ossuary’.
That was five years ago. Evidence is that is hasn’t been quite that forgotten. Though it would be true to say that the British Covenant (1914) largely mirroring the earlier Ulster Covenant, and signed by two million people, is rarely referenced.
The UK is trading just fine, together.
This is a brief response to Ed Conway “The UK is becoming a disunited Kingdom”writing in The Times (£) on 8th December.
Mr Conway – Sky News Economics Editor – argues that the various UK regions do not constitute an “optimal currency area” and should not be sharing a single UK market and common currency.
Normally questions of single markets and currency areas would be the stuff of arcane economics – the sort of thing I’d be teaching to second and third year university students. However, it is pretty clear how commentary like Mr Conway’s could play into some current debates.
An intuitive presentation of what an optimal currency area might go something like this- because Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Newcastle-under-Lyme and Newcastle County Down do a lot of trade together it makes most sense that they share a currency: the pound sterling.
But imagine a town called Neuburg in Germany, the flow of trade between Germany and any of the UK Newcastles would be much smaller. Also, many other economic conditions would vary between the UK and Germany. Therefore, it makes sense for the UK to use the pound and Germany to use a different currency (the Euro, at the moment).
But, back to Mr Conway.
His argument that the UK-wide single market and currency area is breaking up is rather exaggerated.
He claims, for example:
“…Northern Ireland is edging closer to its immediate neighbour”
However, the most recent data show that 86% of all of the sales of the Northern Ireland economy stay within the UK – 66% to Northern Ireland itself and the rest to GB – compared to only 5% to the Republic of Ireland.
Other UK regions are also trade dependent on the rest of the UK.
The UK optimal currency area/single market still has a strong economic rationale.
Dr Esmond Birnie – Economist
That was the deal that wasn’t.
What might have been the economic impact on Northern Ireland if the Prime Minister had in fact accepted the deal which was proposed by Brussels on the morning of Monday 4 December? Here are some key points:
- In order to ensure regulations continued to be aligned between Northern Ireland and the EU notwithstanding any changes in the rest of the UK, this deal implied a substantial increase in the extent of devolution to Northern Ireland.
That begs several questions. Even if we assume devolution can be restored, would it be sensible to give Stormont extra powers when we’ve seen just how erratic the progress of devolved government has been in its almost 20 years 1999-2017?
- If regulatory harmony between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (plus the other 26 EU members) is obtained at the price of opening up a regulatory gap between Northern Ireland and Great Britain that will imply a very large economic cost.
The DUP prioritised The Union. Unionists do that.
The whole point of the DUP is to safeguard Northern Ireland’s position within the UK. As unionists, they believe in the nation state and see the UK as the rock on which our prosperity, security and identity is built.
It is unsurprising that these views have lead them into a strongly pro-Brexit stance, though even then there is a pragmatism to their politics that is sometimes missed. The government would have known what the DUP’s red lines were before the latest round of talks hit the buffers.
The Irish government denies the charge that it asked that Monday’s Brexit paper be kept from the DUP, but the reality is that the DUP had received only an emollient verbal briefing and had been asking for days to see a paper. It was passed to them only as Theresa May was going to lunch in Brussels; the frantic phone calls that followed stopped the deal in its tracks.
The issue of the Irish border is important, but not as challenging as the Irish government has made it.