The incessant chatter among politicians and commentators in the Republic about the prospect of a united Ireland in the wake of Brexit is guff, but it is deeply dangerous guff which has the capacity to destabilise the already fragile political settlement in the North.
Idle claims that a united Ireland will inevitably follow the exit of the United Kingdom from the EU have raised unnecessary fears among unionists and false expectation among nationalists about the public mood in the Republic.
Let’s not forget that we have been here many times before. All the way back to the Treaty of December 1921, the leaders of nationalist Ireland claimed partition was a temporary expedient that would soon vanish. In more recent times the then minister for foreign affairs Brian Lenihan claimed in December 1980, after an historic breakthrough in talks between Margaret Thatcher and Charles Haughey, that a united Ireland would come to pass within a decade.
Past miscalculations about the imminence of a united Ireland were due to a fatal misreading south of the Border about the depth of unionist attachment to their British identity. While many things have changed in the Republic over the past few decades, that gulf in comprehension remains.
Obstacles
There are two fundamental obstacles in the way of a united Ireland, and neither of them is going to disappear any time soon. One is the question of national identity and the other is the equally thorny question of how a united Ireland could ever be funded without a severe reduction in living standards on both sides of the Border.
To take the question of identity first. How would the British identity of unionists be catered for in a united Ireland? For example, how would public opinion in the Republic react to a new national anthem that incorporated a verse of God Save the Queen? Or what about the suggestion that Ireland should rejoin the Commonwealth as a way of reassuring unionists about their British identity?
Any attempt to incorporate into a State people who do not wish to belong to it is a recipe for violence and mayhem
If people who proclaim their desire for a united Ireland find these suggestions outrageous, it shows that they have not really grasped what a genuine union of Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter would actually entail.
For many in the Republic the economic argument may be even more difficult. A recent study by economists John FitzGerald and Edgar Morgenroth calculated that the cost of subsidising the North would reduce living standards in the Republic by a whopping 15 per cent. When the full impact of that, in terms of serious cuts in public service pay and welfare, is spelled out, the electorate south of the Border may not be too enthusiastic about a united Ireland.
Constitutional position
Remember, under the terms of the Belfast Agreement, it is not just the voters of Northern Ireland but those of the Republic too who would have to endorse a change in the constitutional position to provide for a united Ireland.
Speaking at the Daniel O’Connell summer school in Cahersiveen during the summer, former deputy first minister Seamus Mallon said one of his fears about a premature vote on a united Ireland was that it might be carried in the North but that the people of the Republic might say no.
In his wonderful memoir, A Shared Home Place, Mallon pondered whether a majority of people in the peaceful and prosperous Republic would really want to incorporate into their rather contented society a deeply divided and economically dependent North. “Northern Ireland was unstable for nearly 100 years because it incorporated a large minority of people against their will, and surely we are not going to make the same mistake in a united Ireland.”
This is the real crux of the matter. Any attempt to incorporate into a State people who do not wish to belong is a recipe not simply for political disaster but for violence and mayhem. In the late 1960s the noted Israeli diplomat Abba Eban warned his country against attempting to incorporate a million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who did not wish to belong. We know how that turned out.
Of course a united Ireland is not going to come about in the short term but the fact that it is being so widely touted is destabilising in itself. It may well affect the current Westminster elections in the North, helping both the DUP and Sinn Féin. That is why it is essential that the Government in Dublin is clear and unambiguous in rejecting Sinn Féin’s demand for an early border poll.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar did a good job for Ireland, South and North, with the way he handled the Brexit negotiations and ensured there would be no return to a border on the island. However, the political incompetence of the DUP has resulted in a situation where sections of the unionist community feel isolated and threatened.
Varadkar has been clear in his public statements that he does not favour an early border poll and is not pursuing a united Ireland as a short-term objective. Stronger reassurance is required to convince unionists that the deal he agreed with Boris Johnson has nothing to do with undermining the constitutional position of Northern Ireland, but is in the interests of people on both sides of the Border.