Talking the Talk but failing to Walk the Walk

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but have you heard the story of the Unionist leader who begins arguing that Unionism needs to reach out beyond its core constituency in order to help shore up the Union?

Peter Robinson back in the day tried it as this BBC news report from back in 2011 reminds us where he announced his intention to try and target voters outside Unionism. He reinforced this aspiration when he delivered the Edward Carson lecture in 2012 at Iveagh House, saying the following.

“What I advocate is not some new variety of unionism but the unionism of Edward Carson – a unionism that can reach out and include those from every background. Maintaining Northern Ireland’s position within the United Kingdom simply due to demographics should not be the height of our ambition. I want us to create a wide consensus for our present constitutional arrangements. In this new Northern Ireland I want to see pro-Union support grow but in parallel I want to ensure that no one, whatever their political and constitutional aspiration, is left behind. Edward Carson may now be consigned to the pages of history, but he still speaks to us today. If this generation of unionists is listening then let us work to broaden support for his vision for Northern Ireland’s future.”

But the Peter Robinson who made the argument was also the Peter Robinson who threatened to collapse Stormont if miniscule royal emblems were removed from the Prison Service logo. The same Peter Robinson whose famous ‘Letter from America’ nixed the possibility of the redevelopment of the site of the Maze, including the creation of a world-class stadium for the north (with consequences that are being felt to this day). The same Peter Robinson who said of Muslims that ‘I would trust them to go down to the shops for me’. The same Peter Robinson who backed Brexit and told Dublin to ‘wind it’s neck back in‘.

So on the one hand we have the talk of reaching out but on the other hand we have actions and words that can do nothing but alienate the very voters they need to attract.

A curious dichotomy, no?

Peter Robinson has of course been retired for many years now and those actions of his are fading in memory as time goes on, but so are the hopes he expressed some thirteen years ago. His dreams of an expanding Unionism have ultimately come to nothing, and part of the blame for that lies squarely at his own feet. He was capable of identifying the issue, that Unionism needed greater support, and he was capable of identifying the solution, that support should be found from outside Unionism, but he was incapable of actually committing to the actions that were necessary to support that vision.

Which brings us to Edwin Poots today, a man who has received good press recently given his genuinely warm reception for Armagh’s winning All-Ireland team. Like Robinson, Poots is a Unionist leader (at least a former one) who has begun arguing that Unionism needs to reach out beyond its core constituency in order to help shore up the Union. As the BBC reports in this article

‘Former Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Edwin Poots has said unionists need to “reach out” to other communities for votes and can no longer rely solely on “white working class Protestants”.’

The article further quotes him that

‘”I look at the population that I represent in South Belfast. Martin Smyth held that seat for years at Westminster based on white working class Protestants coming out and voting for him,” he told the podcast.

“That part of our demographic has reduced significantly.”

In the 1980s, the Ulster Unionist Party’s Martin Smyth won the Westminster seat with a share of up to 71% of the vote.

The combined unionist vote in the constituency at the most recent general election was just under 22%.

“We have lots of people from other communities that have chosen to come and live here,” he said.

“A lot of those people want to be part of the United Kingdom. So, you know, we need to reach out to those people and to be working with those people who wish to be unionists, who don’t fit the traditional model of unionists.”’

All very well and good of course, the same attitude that Peter Robinson expressed some thirteen years ago. Poots had identified the core issue for Unionism, the foundational demographic on which the ideology has been built has drastically shrunk. (On a personal level, I believe this is the REAL metric we need to be paying attention to when it comes to polls or censuses or surveys rather than the relatively static Catholic population). He also correctly identifies the solution, as Peter Robinson did before him…they need more voters.

But the BBC article does point out a problem with the sentiments, this interview took place before the recent riots, riots which apparently had a significant Loyalist component, and those rioters were interested in anything but ‘reaching out’ to those who don’t fit the traditional model of a unionist. Some could argue that is then a question of leadership, that it is up to Unionist leaders to educate and prepare their base for the need to be more accommodating and understanding of those whom they wish to encourage to support the union, but the BBC has been unable to get a follow up interview with Mr.Poots to see how the sentiments he expressed fare in the current climate.

I would argue this leads to an inescapable conclusion. Unionist leaders, past and present, whose job it was to stand at the heights and strategise a future, can see where the current trajectory is leading them. Not towards reunification as an inevitability, but towards a Northern Ireland that is fundamentally different from the one they grew up in. To shore up the Union and forestall reunification, as Robinson and Poots wished to do involves sacrificing some of the substance of the unionist Northern Ireland their forebears have constructed to embrace a more pluralistic vision. And the truth seems to be that a large chunk of the Unionist base sees that outcome as nearly as bad as reunification.

While I believe they truly desire more Unionist voters, they would wish for those voters outside Unionism to conform to their thinking, rather than for Unionism to stretch itself to accommodate the different aspirations those whom they seek to attract. Acquiescence to their current status quo, rather than striving towards a new shared future, is the aim. And it is probably an unrealisable one, better suited to delaying unpalatable futures to preserve an unsustainable present, as to embrace alternatives invites a reckoning within unionism that unionism itself seeks to avoid.

But so long as Unionist leaders can offer only warm platitudes, then they can’t be surprised that such empty platitudes accomplish nothing whatsoever when considered, say, thirteen years after they were said. Robinson can look back on 2011 and see his words achieved nothing, it was his actions that really mattered. Poots may look back in the late 2030s and he may feel much the same way about his words today.

I’m a firm believer in Irish unity and I live in the border regions of Tyrone.