Tag Archives: Unionist
The UK’s forgotten frontier?
When we think of devolution, it is not unusual for the Scottish independence referendum or the bloody struggle over Northern Ireland to spring to mind. Wales, by contrast, is often treated as an afterthought – nudged towards an Assembly when Scotland was getting one, and subsequently overshadowed in national debate by Edinburgh and Belfast.
Devolution is not the Solution
The biggest challenge facing the next generation of unionists will probably not be a direct separatist challenge to the Union.
Scottish capital-N Nationalism has stalled as Brexit pulls the rug from beneath ‘independence in Europe’; Welsh separatism remains a very minority pursuit; and whilst the situation in Northern Ireland is more precarious it’s economic circumstances are such that it would likely take the active collusion of the British Government to make any merger with the Republic viable in the decades ahead.
The task facing unionists of my generation is an internal one: shaking off the decaying intellectual orthodoxies of the devolution movement.
The Emotional Case for The Union is Just as Important as the Economic Case
The Brexit imbroglio has encouraged separatists in Northern Ireland and Scotland to intensify their attacks on the Union, as fundamental constitutional issues have become the focus of UK politics.
A little ironically, their short-term goals have coincided increasingly with the short-term goals of the most adamant remain-voting liberals, who were dismayed and disorientated by the referendum result, and are instinctively suspicious of any assertion of national sovereignty. Scottish and Irish nationalists believe they can dilute London’s influence by pursuing a closer relationship with Brussels for these regions, and therefore boosting their own visions of nationhood, while their liberal allies see the EU project as a means of containing all forms of nationalism.
Lessons from elsewhere.
I have had the privilege to live and work in one of the presently most vibrant and exciting cities in Europe, Budapest. It is not only now apparently “Party Central” for every Northern European waif and stray but it is also a place absolutely dripping in history, admittedly most of it melancholic.
Of course, like everywhere else there were aspects which I found difficult to cope with (more on that anon).
One of the indirect advantages of being there was that I could indulge my travel fetish for the obscure and “off-the-beaten track”. Ever since I left Belfast at the age of 18, I have wanted to visit places that you are unlikely to find in the typical travel brochure; places that even today where you are unlikely to access accommodation on Airbnb or Booking.com. For example, last year I was lucky enough to fly the 45 (!) minutes to Sarajevo, a place and people that have left a very real lasting impression on me.
Dreary Option of Joint Authority Emerges Once Again
In April 1994 the Cadogan Group published a pamphlet JOINT AUTHORITY AND THE NORTHERN IRELAND PROBLEM.
It was written to challenge an idea which was being touted as the logical ‘solution’ to the ‘Northern Ireland problem’. It has re-emerged not as a ‘solution’ but as another of the present Irish Government’s – unhelpful – ‘non-negotiable demands’.
Has nationalism over-reached?
There have been two interesting articles in newspapers this week. Both address the current ‘Condition of Scotland’ question.
For Northern Ireland unionism, which always likes to consider its situation unique and exceptional, there were clear commonalities with its own indulgence in a distinctive perilousness of its condition; though these articles suggest that that indulgence is overwrought.
Both articles touched on matters familiar to those who have been keeping abreast with posts to this site – cultural pessimism, historical inevitability and (alleged) superior nationalist political strategy.
Scottish and Irish nationalism feeds on a sense of inevitable, that is misplaced.
Economist Graham Gudgin has addressed two key issues for Unionists in recent weeks.
First a robust call for the UK Government to take the task of preserving the Union more seriously, particularly in respect of Scottish Nationalism. Graham notes the challenges:
Though Graham has a number of constructive responses that he suggests would start the process of meeting those challenges:
Worth a read for a broad set of first steps.
Following up on his observations in support of the Union, reference Scottish Nationalism, Graham then turns to the clarion calls for Irish Unity that have become ever more shrill in recent years because Brexit.
Graham rightly notes the constant theme of the increased flow of articles is that Northern Ireland will inevitably become part of a united Ireland, and then shows just how such a prediction is both wrong and self-serving.
In a national context, Graham places a finger one of the greatest Unionist challenges:
What Graham points out, sharply, is that with little credible polling showing any significant interest in a United Ireland, the fall back is ‘demography’ – or more crudely that Protestants with a lower birth rate will be ‘our-bred’ by Catholics, a long-standing trope. Yet:
On the future, Graham believes:
Even with Brexit:
Dr Graham Gudgin is honorary Research associate at the Centre for Business Research, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. He was Special Advisor to the First Minister in Northern Ireland 1998-2002.