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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The writer is an FT contributing editor
The decisive shift in nationalist opinion during the Northern Ireland peace talks was recognition that persuasion is the only route to a united Ireland. It was not enough for the British to leave. The principle of popular consent was duly enshrined in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. There is something to learn here for unionists worried about holding on to the province’s Britishness.
The Democratic Unionist party, the largest unionist grouping, has been stalling a return to devolved government in Belfast by refusing to form a power-sharing executive with Sinn Féin — now the biggest nationalist party but not so long ago the political wing of the IRA. The Belfast assembly has been rendered powerless even as public services fall into serious disrepair.
The proximate cause of the DUP’s anger is the deal struck by Rishi Sunak’s government on post-Brexit trade between the EU and Northern Ireland. To maintain an open border between the province and the Irish Republic — mandated by the Good Friday accord — Sunak has agreed in effect to keep Northern Ireland in the EU customs union and subject to single market rules.
The DUP has a point, even if it is one the party might have thought more carefully about before campaigning in favour of Brexit. Over time regulatory checks in the Irish Sea may well tilt the economic balance towards all-Ireland trade and investment flows at the expense of those between Britain and the province. In unionist minds this is a slippery slope to Irish unity.
The insecurities thrown up by Brexit, however, are only one strand in a deepening concern that unionism is losing the argument. Secular trends also point in a nationalist direction. The latest census shows Catholics outnumber Protestants in the province. Sinn Féin is the largest party in the assembly. Removing the block on the executive would see Sinn Féin leader Michelle O’Neill appointed first minister, a post that hitherto has belonged to a unionist. That is not quite as dramatic as it sounds — power sharing would bestow equal authority on DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson as deputy first minister — but symbolism counts for a lot in Northern Ireland.
Many in the DUP still struggle to admit that the past cannot be recovered. Stormont will never again be the property of the Protestant ascendancy established after partition. What’s perceived as the British government’s betrayal in signing the so-called Northern Ireland trade protocol with Brussels has heightened visceral fears of a united Ireland.
As it happens, demography is not political destiny. Northern Ireland Catholics are overwhelmingly nationalist and Protestants unionist, but opinion polls show a sizeable number of Catholics are as yet unconvinced of the merits of Irish unity. Young voters from both faiths are increasingly eschewing confessional politics by backing the Alliance party. These are the votes that will most likely decide Northern Ireland’s constitutional future.
There have been recent signs the DUP is reconsidering its boycott. That would be the wise choice. The unionist cause has nothing to gain from retreat. Unionist abstentionism scarcely makes the case that Northern Ireland’s prosperity rests with maintaining ties with the rest of the United Kingdom. What’s required now of defenders of the union is a leap of political imagination comparable to that of Irish nationalism’s admission that unionism cannot be coerced.
The contest, in other words, is one between persuaders. The outcome is not a foregone conclusion. The post-Brexit speculation about Irish unity has been overdone. The possibility that Sinn Féin may soon be the largest party in the Republic as well as in the north will doubtless heighten unionist anxieties further. But speculation about an inexorable march to a united Ireland ignores political realities on both sides of the border.
Just as many Catholics in the north say they would opt to remain part of the UK if a vote were held today, so many nationalists in the Republic are beginning to question whether their emotional commitment to ending partition is enough to make a success of reunification. Lord make me chaste, St Augustine is reputed to have said, but not quite yet.
The Good Friday Agreement put the choice about Northern Ireland’s constitutional future in the hands of voters on both sides of the border. For many, the issue is one of identity. But swing voters will make a hard-headed judgment as to whether nationalism or unionism promises a better future. If Northern Ireland remains in the UK it will be by consent. If they want to win the argument, unionists need to show Britishness works.
