Dublin and Brussels take note – Unionists have effective veto on North-South arrangements

As always in Irish affairs, North or South, history is basic and tragedy never far away. This does not mean that we should succumb to a pseudo-intellectual belief in historical inevitability, which may sound sophisticated, but is actually shallow. Things have gone wrong because men made bad decisions. Different approaches could have led to better outcomes.

On 12 July, an English visitor was watching the great Orange parade. Many of the banners portrayed King Billy on horseback. “Who is that man on a white horse?’ enquired the visitor, who got an instant response… “Away hame and read yer Bible.”

To understand the present discontents, we do not need to go back to 1690. The second decade of the 20th century will do. It must be remembered that back then, the Ulster question had brought Britain to the verge of civil war. As a result, two sets of important people drew different conclusions, both unhelpful, both subsequently refuted. Much of the English governing class devoutly believed that there was only one way to handle Irish questions: keep them at least two barge-poles’ lengths away. Hence the insistence that Ulster should be devolved with a Parliament at Stormont. The wisest Unionists, including Carson, resisted this. They would have preferred full integration. But that came up against the barge-pole principle.

The Unionists consoled themselves in two ways. On the basis of the menacing events around the near civil strife, they believed that they could trust the mainland. Protestant friends there would always come to their rescue. Second, most Ulster Unionists quickly came to enjoy Stormont. They could become Ministers and Privy Councillors: plenty of perks, plenty of opportunities for swanking.

For some decades, this all seemed to work. Then the troubles restarted. Stormont had made it impossible for Ulster politics to move beyond sectarianism. Instead of arguing about levels of income tax or the most efficient method of refuse collecting, the local politicians were stuck in the refuse of the past. History could always levy a tax on posterity.

Nor were the troubles of the late sixties inevitable. Terence O’Neill, the then Prime Minister, was a decent man. But he would have needed another twenty points of IQ to be fit for major political responsibility. His Unionist rival, Brian Faulkner, was clever. He was also a shit: just what Ulster needed back then.

In the South, Sean Lemmas had espoused a modernising agenda. To call him an Irish Ludwig Ehrhart would be going a bit far, but he and Faulkner would have found it easy to do business. Without making it explicit, Lemass would have broken with the de Valera tradition, while Faulkner, also without explicit repudiation, would have led his supporters away from sectarian simplicity. O’Neill made some good-hearted attempts to bring about change, but he lacked the political finesse and authority to see it through. He was also sabotaged by Faulkner.

The trouble started. To their horror, the Unionists found that England had changed, into a post-religious society, in which Protestantism had lost all resonance. Worse still, Ulster Protestantism had resonance, in the form of Ian Paisley. The English thought that he was grotesque and indeed evil. They were right, but alas, the grotesqueness did not play badly in the Province, so he retained the capacity to inflict evil.

The Nationalists, meanwhile, could field Bernadette Devlin. She came from a long Irish tradition of sentimentalising homicide and exaggerating grievance. The Bull of Bashan versus Bernadette the leprechaun: in England, that was no contest. Because of Orange-ism, the Ulster Prods still had allies in Scotland, but not respectable ones.

One of the wisest observers of Ulster life over the past forty years came up with a beautiful evocation of the Prods: “The best people on earth – but a tad basic.”

The Ulster Unionists have always been good at economising on charm. The Irish Catholics never make that mistake, though foreigners would be well-advised to remember that charm is not synonymous with truth.

So: the Ulster Unionists found themselves in a hostile new world. Broadly speaking, their response was determined by social class. The middle classes had never played a dominant role in Unionist politics. They left that to the squirearchy plus some working-class representation: more so than in mainland Conservatism. From 1970 onwards, the middle classes took even less part in politics, which helped to ensure that the old Unionist party was swept away by Paisleyites, compounding middle-class alienation. There seemed to be an endless prospect of government by murderers or bigots, or both. No wonder a lot of the middle-class gave up on politics, and there were compensations. Anyone who made a living out of  the public sector was in no danger of poverty. But a lot of bright Protestant youngsters chose to go to university on the mainland and then pursue careers there.

In any modern society, political health requires extensive middle-class participation. That is not happening in Ulster, which helps to explain the present degringolade. Before denouncing the rioters, English lefties should take note of one point. The Protestant paramilitaries are exclusively working-class organisations. The IRA has always had graduates to supply it with bomb-makers and lawyers. The Prod paramilitaries have far more tattoos than GCSEs. 

English lefties also claim to believe in working-class culture. If they went to Protestant working-class Belfast, they would find it, plus proletarian cultural alienation, which ought to arouse Leftist sympathy (though they would be sensible to observe it from an armoured vehicle). 

The Prod rioters have almost adopted an English football chant: “Nobody likes us: we don’t care.” They are rioting because they have had a bellyful of being spurned and treated with contempt.

How should the authorities deal with all this? The Duke of Edinburgh’s passing might help, by reminding those who call themselves loyalists that dignified behaviour is now in order. On Europe, there is more scope for wriggle-room than London has yet exploited. Among the global bien-pensanterie, the Good Friday Agreement now has the status of a sacred text. So cite it. It provides for East-West links between the two islands: the EU’s proposed trading arrangements would undermine those. It also gives the Unionists an effective veto on North-South arrangements. Dublin and Washington should take note. A lot of senior Southern Irish politicians are enjoying the ancient sport of twisting Albion’s tail. They will find allies in Brussels, who are happy to blame Britain. But Dublin ought to know better.

Stirring up trouble in Ulster is like playing with matches in a dynamite factory. Of course the rioters should not be behaving like that, but the history of Ireland has often been made by people who should not have behaved like that. It behoves those who think themselves to be wiser and more moral to act with wisdom and caution. We also need a Unionist leader of outstanding qualities who could bring the middle-classes into politics. He would need to be brave. In the seventies, there was just such a youngster, a lawyer called Edgar Graham. The IRA murdered him.

Northern Ireland has many attractions and most of its people would be happy to live in peace. They deserve better. It may be some time before they get it.