Dr Stephen Goss is an historian, policy and research manager, and a Conservative councillor in Reading.
In a surprise move, Leo Varadkar resigned last month as Taoiseach, stating he was ‘not the best person for the job anymore’. Both his departure and the referendum results that precipitated it have implications for Northern Ireland, as the restored institutions attempt to navigate devolution within the confines of the Windsor Framework.
To say that Varadkar’s resignation will not be lamented by unionists would be an understatement. During the EU-exit negotiations, he made things difficult for the UK. For unionists, he engaged in undue scaremongering and interfered inappropriately in Northern Irish affairs.
In fairness, the extent to which he defended the Republic’s and nationalism’s interests was to his credit – and went far beyond what any British Government would do for Northern Ireland and the Union. Nonetheless, there is now an opportunity for the Irish Government to improve its working relationship with unionism and for the new Taoiseach to contribute constructively to Northern Ireland in its new era of de facto Anglo-EU condominium.
What of the new Taoiseach? Varadkar stepping down means it fell to his Fine Gael party to choose a new leader and the next Taoiseach. This they did quickly, with Simon Harris, the ‘Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science’ elevated to the leadership unopposed.
The wonder boy of Irish politics, he became a councillor at 19, was elected to the Dáil (the lower house of parliament) aged 24, and was in the cabinet at 30. He will become Ireland’s youngest Taoiseach and is popular in the Republic, in no small part due to his stint as Health Minister during COVID and his adept use of TikTok.
Upon hearing of Fine Gael’s choice Gregory Campbell, a Democratic Unionist MP, apparently replied ‘Simon Who?’ and with good reason: Harris is virtually unknown north of the border.
To date, he has voiced no strong opinions on Northern Ireland. As a Minister, his engagement with the Province has been limited and benign. He provided funding so that Northern Irish students could continue to access the Erasmus+ scheme; opened the student grant system to students from both Northern Ireland and Great Britain studying in the Republic; and committed the Irish Government to funding 250 nursing and 50 medical student places in Northern Ireland.
While he publicly called for the extension of marriage equality to Northern Ireland, he was more diplomatic on legalising abortion, commending the conversation being ‘reignited’.
Importantly, unlike Varadkar, Harris has not become embroiled with ‘Ireland’s Future’ – an organisation using Britain’s EU departure as a basis on which to agitate for Irish unification. The group asserts that any constitutional changes must be broad and inclusive, and emphasizes the importance of consent as laid down in the Good Friday Agreement (no mention of the Belfast Agreement). Ostensibly, it aspires to a new Ireland conceived and backed by all from both sides of the border.
In reality, it simply wants to achieve the age-old objective of absorbing Northern Ireland into an independent Irish Republic. Its failure to engage meaningfully with unionists, but eagerness to press ahead regardless, has meant it is a typical nationalist echo chamber.
At the Ireland’s Future event in 2022 (‘Preparing for a United Ireland: Together we can’), Varadkar addressed the 5,000-strong crowd gathered in Dublin. He asserted his belief in annexing Northern Ireland, but suggested that following unification, a power-sharing Stormont should be maintained, and the North-South/East-West strands of the Agreement strengthened. He was booed.
This most simple of models for transferring Northern Ireland’s sovereignty was rejected, and coupled with the resounding defeats in the recent referendums, reveals much about the Irish attitude towards Ulster and its future.
Irish voters have long been willing to rubber stamp constitutional amendments connected with EU integration, and in recent years the shift from one of the most Catholic countries in Europe to an outright rejection of the Church has seen the Constitution updated to permit divorce, blasphemy, and abortion. Ireland made history in 2015, becoming the first country in the world to introduce same sex marriage by popular vote.
However, Ireland’s electorate is more reticent about changes to institutions as conceived by de Valera when he wrote the Constitution in 1937. Proposals to replace the Single Transferable Vote with First Past the Post for Dáil elections were rejected twice; an amendment to abolish the toothless and largely irrelevant Irish Senate was voted down in 2013, as was one to reduce the candidacy age for the Presidency to 21 two years later.
The most recent proposed amendments would have amended the Constitution to expand state recognition of ‘the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution’ to include ‘Family, whether founded on marriage or on other durable relationships’. The second would have removed from the line ‘the State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack’, the words ‘on which the Family is founded’.
Arguably minor edits to reflect a 21st-century society in which marriage is increasingly uncommon – but crushingly defeated by 68 and 74 per cent of the electorate.
What about the constitutional question? Well, despite 64 per cent of people in the Republic favouring a united Ireland, if it involved a new flag and/or new national anthem, 47 and 48 per cent respectively of Irish voters would be less likely to support unification. Were Ireland re-joining the Commonwealth a condition, those less likely to favour it is just 54 per cent.
It is therefore clear that Northern Ireland as a recognised entity, and unionist identity and concerns, are unwelcome in a so-called new Ireland. Citizens of the Republic are only willing to accept a united Ireland on traditional republican terms.
Public attitudes and the resounding defeat of the recent proposed Constitutional amendments should give pause for thought to anyone suggesting that even with the economic implications of it remaining in the Single Market, Northern Ireland can be easily accommodated in an Irish state.
The DUP have reduced unionism to its weakest position in decades. It is fractured, on the back foot, and jittery due to the Protocol. Harris as Taoiseach has an opportunity to build trust (which Varadkar’s pontificating on unity could never achieve), and help steady the Stormont ship as it navigates its way through devolution under the Windsor Framework.
Unionism also has a chance to build a new working relationship with Dublin. In his leadership victory speech Harris took a swing at Sinn Féin when he condemned the Irish Tricolour being draped over the coffin of an IRA member who had murdered a Garda (police constable) with: ‘I say shame – let’s take our flag back’.
Sinn Féin are already the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly and are poised to form the next government in Dublin. With such a common enemy, and a shared desire for Stormont to work, unionism and the Harris-led coalition have a unique opportunity to build the sort of close-working relationship which can only be beneficial to both Irelands.
The post Stephen Goss: A new Taoiseach is a vital opportunity to reset relations with Northern Irish unionists appeared first on Conservative Home.
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Author: Dr Stephen Goss
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