The 28th September is Ulster Day; marking the occasion in 1912 when unionists across Ulster signed the Solemn League and Covenant, pledging to resist Home Rule for Ireland by any means necessary.
There is a certain piquancy that seven days this September appeared to be a particularly bad week for the United Kingdom. In Cardiff, the First Ministers of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland joined forces to declare that ‘Westminster’s time is coming to an end’. Their parties signed a memorandum of understanding calling upon HM Government to ‘prepare for, plan and facilitate constitutional change’.
If three nationalist First Ministers predicting the country’s dissolution were not bad enough, Donald Trump spouted-off while visiting the Republic. The American President announced that he would ‘love’ to see a united Ireland – and sooner rather than later. Asked about Scottish independence, he replied that he would save his opinion ‘for another day’. Presumably until someone tells him what it should be.
Nationalists could scarcely have scripted it better. For the first time, parties committed to leaving the United Kingdom lead all three devolved governments. Their leaders were apparently speaking with one voice, while the President of the United States endorsed the removal of Northern Ireland from the Union.
Yet, look beyond the headlines and the Cardiff memorandum lacks any real substance. It was not an agreement between three governments, it proposed no common route towards independence or Irish unity, and it asserted almost nothing that is not already accepted.
A memorandum of understanding normally affirms some understanding. The Cardiff document primarily records that three nationalist parties agree about nationalism.
It declares that each nation has the right to ‘determine its own future, through democratic means and in accordance with the wishes of its people’. This is presented as a bold challenge to Westminster – but it declares nothing new. Northern Ireland’s right to decide its constitutional future is embedded in the Northern Ireland Act (1998). If a majority votes for Irish unity in a border poll called by the Secretary of State, HM Government is obliged to implement it. Scotland exercised its right to decide in the 2014 referendum – and sensibly voted no thanks. In the case of Wales, where support for independence is considerably lower, no serious party claims that the Welsh must remain within the UK regardless of popular wishes. There is no dispute whether the Celtic peoples should determine their own future. On how, when, and under what conditions that choice should be tested the memorandum is silent.
Instead, it promises ‘greater ambition, greater economic opportunity and a stronger voice’. The parties will exchange ideas on creating jobs, reducing inequality, developing renewable energy, and improving co-operation. This is simply vacuous.
The memorandum announces that the parties have ‘different constitutional positions’ and that each nation will determine its future ‘in its own way and in its own time’. That admission rather punctures the idea it is asserting anything other than the status quo.
The document’s only practical innovation is a commitment to greater co-operation between the three parties. That may prove politically useful, but the devolved governments already possess established machinery through which to liaise. The signatories have agreed, in essence, to talk to one another.
The claim that ‘no Westminster government has the right to block democracy’ is equally inane. Refusing to hold a referendum whenever a nationalist government demands one is not a denial of democracy. Referenda require evidence that the question has acquired sufficient public support to be put to the electorate.
As demonstrated, Northern Ireland already has a statutory test. Sinn Féin’s complaint is not that the right to decide has been denied, but that the conditions for exercising it do not yet exist. Their grievance is actually with the majority of the Northern Irish population – not with Westminster.
Nor was this an agreement between three devolved governments. John Swinney signed as Leader of the SNP; Rhun ap Iorwerth as Leader of Plaid Cymru; Mary Lou McDonald as President of Sinn Féin; and Michelle O’Neill as Sinn Féin Vice-president. The titles beneath their own signatures reveals the distinction obscured by much of the reporting.
O’Neill was perfectly entitled to attend as Leader of Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland. She could not represent the Northern Ireland Executive at a separatist summit without DUP Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly’s agreement. The Executive Office is jointly led; the difference between their titles denotes precedence rather than a distinction in authority. In reality, the three parties borrowed the prestige of public office for the headlines. That spectacle was the memorandum’s purpose. Three separate and uncertain constitutional campaigns were made to resemble one irresistible historical movement.
What the nationalist parties aired through the language of momentum, Trump expressed in the language of a property developer contemplating a merger. Northern Ireland and Ireland had similar names and occupied the same island; putting them together consequently struck him as ‘natural’. History, identity, and popular consent did not enter into it. This perhaps also explains his attitude towards Canada.
Trump’s comments possessed significance because of the office he holds, not because they demonstrated any actual understanding of Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, a responsible American president should uphold the process created by the Belfast Agreement rather than announce which result he personally prefers.
Nonetheless, the episode is particularly embarrassing for the DUP. Sammy Wilson, Ian Paisley, and Paul Girvan were photographed holding a flag supporting Trump’s 2020 Presidential campaign. Other senior figures eagerly sought meetings and photographs, presenting him as a friend of unionism. Emma Little-Pengelly emphasised her access to his administration. The DUP mistook Trump’s hostility towards liberal orthodoxies for sympathy with unionism. It has discovered that sharing positions on immigration, religion, or the culture war does not create a commitment to Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom.
By the end of the week, however, constitutional reality had reasserted itself. Micheál Martin became the first head of government received at Burnham’s pointless ‘No. 10 North’. The Taoiseach had already criticised Sinn Féin for conflating Irish unity with Scottish and Welsh independence, arguing that Northern Ireland’s circumstances are exceptional and that the Cardiff alliance could set back the cause it was intended to advance. In Manchester, he met the Prime Minister, they reaffirmed their commitment to the Good Friday Agreement, and discussed reconciliation, trade, and the next summit between both countries.
While a humiliating week for the DUP – it was not for the Union.
The Cardiff memorandum asserted nothing new, established no common route to separation, and bound none of the three devolved governments. Trump’s intervention revealed more about his ignorance than Northern Ireland’s future. Meanwhile, the British and Irish governments quietly reaffirmed the agreement under which that future will actually be decided.
Nationalists understand the political value of making change appear inevitable, yet the United Kingdom will not be dissolved merely because its opponents announce that its days are numbered. On 19th September various loyal orders from across England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland came together and marched through central London and along Whitehall – as they do annually – to commemorate Lord Carson, the totemic leader of unionism during the Home Rule Crisis.
I don’t think our United Kingdom’s ‘time is coming to an end’ any time soon.