Here’s How 171 – Tilting at Monoliths

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David Maddox is the political editor of Express Online.

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Kevin and myself always appreciate feedback from listeners, we try to reply when we can, but Aengus Ryan send in a sound file, which is great cos I can include it in the podcast.

I think this is an important question, and I think that some people are thinking about it, but not enough. In particular I’d say that Unionists are not thinking about it, which might be a bit of avoiding thinking about something in the hope it never happens, a bit like whistling past the graveyard.

But we should look at the mote in our own eyes first, because we really aren’t thinking about this, we aren’t preparing. One reason for that is that it might seem like a remote possibility, but that strikes me as making the Brexit mistake, not preparing for a possible outcome that could well happen much faster than we expect, and if that snowball starts rolling, it will be hard to make detailed preparations in the heat of the debate that will bring.

Jim O’Callaghan the Fianna Fáil TD and, I think, leadership hopeful, to be fair to him, has made some proposals. I think the proposals are terrible, such as having the Dáil sit in Dublin and the Seanad in Belfast. But bad as it is, it’s helpful for him to bring this up, because at least people are thinking about practicalities.

But the short answer to Aengus’ question is that this hasn’t really been addressed in any official way since the Good Friday Belfast Agreement.

The terms of that agreement are pretty clear, but not precise. Firstly, calling a border poll is decided by the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, so that basically means the decision rests with the British cabinet of the day. The exact text says:

So that word ‘shall’ there is doing a lot of work. In legal terms it’s a requirement. When someone is given discretion in law, the word used is ‘may’, when they have to do something, it’s ‘shall’. But then in the next clause it says ‘if at any time it appears likely to him’. Is that a get-out-of-jail card? Could Chris Heaton-Harris or his successor ignore a stack of opinion polls, stick his fingers in his ears, and say ‘La la, I’m not listening it doesn’t appear likely to me that the vote would pass’.

Maybe, but not really. Because it’s the Secretary of State who makes the decision, not Chris Heaton-Harris. You might think they are the same person, but not quite. When he’s acting in his ministerial role, there is case law that basically means that his decisions have to be rational, and based on evidence.

That doesn’t mean he has to be right, the bar is higher than that. But there is a bar, and basically if he was claiming that something that was irrational, totally unsustainable given the evidence, it is possible that he could be overruled by a court.

But in the real world if there was enough evidence to take a court case forcing a border poll, then there would be other things going on at the same time. You can be sure that there would be intense campaigning on all sides, on both sides of the border. The Irish government would be likely to have an opinion on the British flouting the 1998 Agreement. So would the EU, and no doubt the American, who probably have more clout.

A situation where the British were seen to be defeating democracy by chicanery would be likely to fire up a reunification campaign more than every; so the reality is that resistance from the British government could delay a poll for a couple of years perhaps, but that would not be anything like resolution.

I’m not going to talk about how a campaign for reunification might be won, that’s a different podcast, but let’s say it is. Firstly, note that the GFA allows a vote between being part of the UK and being part of the Republic. There is no third option.

I know that Brexit headbangers in the Tory party like Steve Baker has said that there should be a higher threshold for change than for the status quo, like a 60/40 vote. Firstly, that’s crazy. Secondly, that’s completely crazy. Having, let’s say, a 59 per cent vote in the north for joining the republic, but 41 per cent of voters can overrule the majority, that would be a recipe for disaster.

The loyalist activist Jamie Bryson has said that it should require a vote of the entire UK, that is to say the north, plus the whole of Britain to vote for reunification. The fact is that that isn’t’ what’s written in the legally-binding, UN-registered international treaty that is the Belfast Good Friday Agreement.

So supposing the vote goes through. What happens then?

First of all, I would expect things to happen quickly, because it’s then in the interest of everyone who has influence to make them happen quickly. When the end outcome is certain, the British will have no incentive to drag their heels, and every incentive to get out as fast as possible, particularly because their political capital in the north will dwindle fast. They can’t incentivise anyone to do anything with promises or threats that they won’t be around to make good on.

International partners will want to return to stability, and that means reaching the end stage as soon as possible.

That leaves us, the republic, and our government. We might be the least anxious to get a move on. Or not, depending on who’s in power. But there will be an unending barrage of details to sort out. everything from telephone codes to leaving cert points to speed limits to electricity voltage to seats in a new Dáil to post offices to broadcast media to what sort of Tayto crisps we eat, and a million more.

There is a real danger here that we end up with a Brexit-style situation where all of a sudden, the dog that has been chasing the bus for more than a century suddenly catches it and only then thinks ‘What now?’

What now, indeed. That would be a good thing to have worked in advance.

Yes, and I think it’s not being thought about enough – I mean thought about in the speed limits and telephone codes sort of way, not in the Wolfe Tones songs in the pub sort of way.

And Aengus there identifies security as one big issue. Which it is. But I think that it might not be as big of a problem as people fear, if we do things right.

First of all, the police in the north would have to be retained. That’s no big surprise, the PSNI is just one of many regional police forces in the UK, as they would see it. Ireland had two police forces before independence, the RIC, which shrank to the RUC, and the DMP, the Dublin Metropolitan Police, which formed the basis for the Garda Síochána. It’s notable that the RIC was armed and the DMP was not, so that’s a precedent there.

But what is really important is the situation in the moment. Firstly, I would say that we shouldn’t over-estimate the degree or the size of Unionist rejection of a democratic. Taking the most recent general elections, Unionists got just 11.2 per cent of the all-Ireland vote. I’m not sure of his source, but David McWilliams has said that there would be as many Polish people as Unionists in a united Ireland.

And remember, despite decades of sometimes ferocious discrimination, only a small minority of northern Nationalists, only a small minority of northern Nationalists ever voted for Sinn Féin before the ceasefires. Most people just want a quiet life, and Unionists are no different. If we did a good job of making sure that Unionists’ rights would be respected, and making sure that they knew it, then I think most of them would accept a democratic vote, even if it wasn’t their first choice.

But you are right, there would likely be a number of Unionists or Loyalists who would reject the authority of the state and do so violently. The first thing that we should acknowledge here is that we have no control over that fact, we only control how we react; and it’s worth thinking of the outcome of taking the other path – refusing to honour the democratic vote of up to 59 per cent of the population.

I’m not a security expert but three good strategies jump out at me. The first strategy is that sensitivity matters. The PSNI, who are familiar to with and to people in the north, should be used to police loyalist areas, particularly where there is any suggestion of resistance. That would be a PSNI answerable to a United Ireland government, but that would at least avoid needlessly stoking tensions.

The second strategy comes from Germany, with some adaptations. The Red Army Faction, the RAF, the other RAF, was a far-left terrorist group founded in West Germany in 1970. They were given aid secretly by the communist East German government, with the aim of destabilising their Cold War rival, and carried out many bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations. Obviously after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they had no support from the communist East, and not much reason to exist.

But they kept on carrying out their attacks, including a car bombing that killed the Deutsche Bank head Alfred Herrhausen just a few weeks after the wall fell in 1989, and the 1991 murder of the SPD, centre-left politician Detlev Karsten Rohwedder, who was responsible distributing property seized by the communists in the former East Germany.

The following year, the German government did a study that concluded that most of the Red Army attacks were motivated by a loyalty to, and a wish for the freedom of its many imprisoned members. They publicly announced that the prisoners’ freedom would depend on the end of violent attacks by the RAF.

It worked. They released a statement saying:

How to apply that to the north? Well, the second strategy I would apply it to all terrorist groups, whatever their colour. I would sharply increase the penalties for membership, but base that on conviction for other crimes. So if you’re caught with a gun, or a bomb, you get convicted, you are sentenced to five years, or whatever, you must serve that. If you are convicted of membership of a terrorist organisation in parallel, you get thirty years added to that, consecutively.

But that sentence for membership is lifted, the prisoner is released if their organisation is judged, by a security analysis, to be wound up or entirely inactive. If it starts up again, those sentences are reactivated.

And the third strategy – the true republican strategy – is to make sure nobody has a motivation to reject their homeland. Compared to other countries, our problems are few – but that’s no reason not to make them fewer.

Make sure that everyone can own a decent home at a reasonable price. Make sure that every child gets a quality education. Provide the best in healthcare, free at the point of use. Make sure everyone can train for, and get a good job. Have a quality, integrated transport system. This all sounds aspirational, but really it’s mostly just standing up to vested interests. I would hope – I would hope – that the need to make a United Ireland work would give the impetus for governments to sweep aside those barriers.

After all, very few people indeed are motivated to fight against living in a country where their children can grow up in security and in prosperity, and in peace.