It really is no surprise that political unionism and loyalism are struggling with the Windsor Framework right now. And it’s no surprise because unionism and loyalism have spent most of the past 50 years struggling with White Papers, Green Papers, Framework documents (the latest is the third one, I think), declarations and a confetti of agreements from a succession of UK governments, dating back to October 1972. And I’m not even including the legislation which prorogued the Northern Ireland parliament in March 1972 and introduced direct rule.
Rishi Sunak’s team had spent a few weeks briefing that the pending deal would address the concerns listed in the DUP’s 7 Tests, as well as providing unionists with assurances that Northern Ireland’s position within the United Kingdom was secure, that Northern Ireland would be treated in exactly the same way as the rest of the UK in terms of Brexit and that the deal would restore sovereignty over this part of the UK. Some tails in the DUP were up with a few representatives daring to hint that Sunak, unlike Boris Johnson, could be trusted.
Those hopes appear to have been dashed. Jim Allister, leader of the TUV, noted on Tuesday morning: “So, all in all, for anyone whose compass is set by sovereignty considerations and whose goal is the strengthening, not weakening, of the union with GB, this is a deal which falls far short. As for it being enough to cause unionism to give up its Stormont leverage and settle for this deal, which comes with the added packaging of a Sinn Féin First Minister, then, no thanks!” It’s a conclusion that I think is likely to be reached by others, including some in the DUP and even the generally more flexible UUP.
His is an important intervention. The TUV (which was formed after Allister broke away from the DUP when it agreed to enter government with Sinn Féin in May 2007) gained about 40,000 votes from the DUP at last May’s Assembly election and Allister remains a very potent thorn in Jeffrey Donaldson’s flesh. His opposition to the Framework deprives the DUP of wriggle room and makes it extraordinarily difficult for Donaldson to sound welcoming, particularly with local council elections due in about ten weeks.
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It’s a position that unionism has been in many times. The DUP burrowed its way into the UUP’s support base between 1998 and 2003, accusing David Trimble of being a “rollover unionist”. Today it is the TUV that is burrowing into the DUP’s base, with Allister having similar rollover concerns about his former colleagues. In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s a number of smaller parties, along with the DUP, were all burrowing into the UUP base, accusing Brian Faulkner, Harry West, Jim Molyneaux and David Trimble of being too complacent in their relationship with British governments. Indeed, almost every prime minister since Edward Heath, responsible for direct rule in 1972, has been accused by one section of unionism or another (and sometimes all of them) of treachery and anti-unionism.
What precisely is it that makes Northern Ireland unionism so hard to stand beside for both Labour and Conservative governments?
All of which raises an interesting question: what is the precise nature of the relationship between Ulster unionism and British governments? Or, putting that another way, why do British governments seem so reluctant to take the side of unionism? There is clearly no emotional attachment and I’m not even sure there is any particular constitutional attachment either.
The way in which the DUP has been treated since its confidence and supply agreement with the Conservatives in 2017 suggests that unionist priorities are not national UK priorities – even when their parliamentary votes are required. Indeed, back in July 1993, when the UUP reached an “understanding” with John Major during a couple of close votes on the Maastricht Treaty, UUP leader Jim Molyneaux assured colleagues that the PM “owes me a favour”. Yet a few months later the Downing Street Declaration contained the “no selfish strategic or economic interest in NI” doctrine, which rattled unionist cages and psychology.
I don’t think there is one member of Sunak’s parliamentary party who is not aware of how much unionism had been discomfited by the Northern Ireland protocol. It wasn’t just the fact that Boris Johnson lied about it: he knew their concerns and yet he pushed it through as part of his “oven ready” (albeit uncooked) deal to get Brexit over the line and keep Conservative and English nationalist voters happy. Like his predecessors, stretching back to Heath, the interests of unionism in Northern Ireland were always trumped by wider, deeper UK interests.
[ Northern Ireland’s Brexit deal: Does it pass the DUP’s seven tests?Opens in new window ]
Why is that? Let’s face it, when unionism has to spend so much time complaining about UK decisions, or organising rallies to protest against those decisions, maybe it needs to ask itself about the nature of the relationship. What precisely is it that makes Northern Ireland unionism so hard to stand beside for both Labour and Conservative governments? Yes, a long line of prime ministers and secretaries of state have cobbled together a mountain of platitudes about how important Northern Ireland is to the rest of the UK yet, bit by bit and process by process, the place seems to be pushed farther and farther away. But always with the guarantee that the final decision will be made in a border poll at some point: so don’t sweat the big stuff in the meantime.
I sometimes think it’s the lack of an answer to that question that has fuelled, and continues to fuel, angst and division within unionism. But not one of the unionist critics of the Framework – or of any other “deal” – will ask, or has asked the only question that matters for UK governments: why do you do it? It’s a question that needs to be asked and answered, not least because unionism needs to know what it must do (or stop doing) in order to win over a more sympathetic audience in Westminster, the national media and its fellow citizens across the entire United Kingdom.
Alex Kane is a commentator based in Belfast. He was formerly director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party