In last weekend’s Marr show the BBC rallied behind those Brexit forces, which would appear to be almost all of them, who still can’t get their head around the idea that you can’t leave the EU without consequences and that these consequences are not a punishment but actually what they voted for.
This time it was the new leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Edwin Poots, who was allowed to forget that it was his Party that had helped deliver Brexit and in a form that didn’t allow Northern Ireland to join with the rest of the UK in its new relationship with the EU. Such a deal, as proposed by Theresa May, was opposed by the DUP as insufficiently Brexity.
Marr appeared to labour under the impression that the Northern Ireland Protocol is solely the EU’s baby and not a joint production with the British Government. Perhaps to be regarded as another one of Boris Johnson’s unrecognised children?
One even had sympathy with the EU representative who had to respond politely to the ignorant and repeated interruptions of Marr, including the latter’s injured innocence that the EU should seek to take legal action against the British for breach of their legal obligations under the Protocol. Not for him the previous obvious and hardly avoidable observation that – for the DUP – it was “arguably your political incompetence that got you here.”
Marr pushed the incoherent unionist argument that they were so offended by the very temporary suggestion of the EU to invoke Article 16 of the Protocol in order to amend its operation that this was what was required, this time by the British Government.
While sarcastically referencing the ‘sacred’ Single Market, the one Brexit supporters want out of but also to enjoy its benefits, Marr pointed to an opinion poll in Northern Ireland which showed that ‘48% hate the Protocol’.
‘Hate’ of course is a strong word; was not quite what the question asked, and presumably must mean that while 48% ‘hate it”, 46% also ‘love it’. The numbers are within the margin of error, and repeating the unionist assertion that speaks of the people of Northern Ireland as if it consisted solely of unionists, the other assertion of Marr – that ‘the people of Northern Ireland have lost faith in the Protocol’ – was hardly justified by the poll.
The BBC, through Marr, appeared to adopt the view of unionism encapsulated in such mottos as ‘we are the people’ and ‘our wee country’, which may be properly understood as ‘WE are the people and ‘OUR wee country’. That the majority in Northern Ireland voted against Brexit is ignored as unionism, and now the BBC, considers that the rights of the majority of unionism takes precedence.
But perhaps the BBC is also registering something else, which is the evolving strategy of its master – the British Government.
At the beginning of the year the incoherence of unionist rejection of the Protocol led the DUP leader Arlene Foster to point to its benefits (as the alternative to futile opposition). Unionist hostility spoke of changes to the Protocol. Now this opposition demands its complete removal.
A large part of this hardening of position derives from the encouragement of the British Government, in a cynical attempt to play the Orange card and support its own policy of seeking changes but not complete abolition.
Of course, British opposition is mainly motivated by the attempt to create leverage elsewhere in UK-EU relations and not any particular priority allotted to the North of Ireland. So, when it is reported that ‘a senior ally of the Prime. Minister’ says that the Protocol is “dead in the water” this is simply playing to the gallery, in this case just after Lord Frost and the Tory Secretary of State had met loyalist paramilitaries represented by the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC).
Similarly, Poots’ total opposition puts forward, as an alternative, checks on goods in other locations within Northern Ireland “including the ports.” This however rather undermines his argument that the level of such checks makes them impossible and doesn’t carry any weight when it is to the checks themselves that is the objection. The promise of any such alternative is about as trustworthy as a promise from Boris Johnson.
Unionists want the Protocol destroyed and the British Government would like it filleted for other purposes. Neither are acceptable to the EU.
The increased legitimacy given by the British Government to the paramilitary front organisation is illustrated by its providing a platform to the LCC at a Westminster Committee hearing, allowing a teenage loyalist to make the statement that he stands by previous remarks that “sometimes violence is the only tool you have left.”
That the Orange card is being played is made abundantly clear when the Tories reveal that the 12th July has been “privately set” by David Frost for the easing of Protocol checks. The culmination of the loyalist marching season is now aligned with deadline for acceptance of the demands of the British Government.
Such recklessness by the Tory regime passes right over Andrew Marr’s head, while he accuses the EU of endangering the peace process. He denigrates the EU Single Market, but is unwilling even to raise the question whether the vast majority of European States constituting the EU is going to roll over on account of teenage threats on behalf of criminal gangs; the pronouncements of creationist politicians, or as a result of the perfidy of the serial liars of the British Government.
Unionist opposition, backed by the British, may have hardened but the reality of their mistaken Brexit policy has simply compounded their frustration at their inability to push the peace process in a sufficiently rightward direction, a process many of them never supported in the first place. As unionism has hardened it has also thereby divided.
The DUP is now irreversibly split down the middle. The only question is what organisational from this division will take. It is haemorrhaging support to the softer unionist Alliance Party and the even more uncompromising Traditional Unionist Voice.
It has attempted to protect one flank by making overtures to the loyalist paramilitaries in the LCC (by both sides of the current split) but this has proceeded to claims that the UDA has intimidated DUP members to support the new leadership.
The paramilitaries are themselves united in opposition to the Protocol but divided on everything else, so that what appear as marginal figures present as leading spokesmen of loyalist opposition.
On the other side of unionism, its moderate commentators denounce EU ‘intransigence’ while calling on it to protect Northern Ireland from the potential for unionism to finish off the Stormont Executive. Unfortunately, the DUP has made promises in its opposition to the EU that it cannot keep and the EU has no interest in ensuring that they are kept. The party may soon no longer be the largest political party or even the largest unionist party.
To expect the EU to capitulate to such a weakened and fractured opposition and a British Government flailing about for trade deals that won’t deliver is to live in an alternative universe.
The EU seeks to become a major political as well as economic power on the world stage. It expects to be taken seriously by the likes of China, Russia and the United States. Whatever ‘pragmatic’ changes it is prepared to make to the workings of the Protocol will not amount to accepting any significant risk to its Single Market. Such changes as are proposed will require the British Government to introduce all the measures agreed by it but not implemented.
The failing and weakening of the Good Friday Agreement institutions will continue as will the parallel confusion of unionism. The Northern State will continue to hold together and no Irish unity referendum will come along soon to save everyone from the decay. Out of all these processes it is ironically only the successful operation of the EU Protocol that promises some grounds for successful, if only temporary, stabilisation.
Sráid Marx 
I usually find you thoughts concerning topical issues more worthy of comment than your expositions of what Marxists are permitted to think by referring to what Marx said about a similar sounding matter in his own time, in short I am more interested in your thoughts than the faded thoughts of your teacher.
The first thing I noticed this time is that you referred almost in passing to the Northern State holding together, are you sure that what passes for Government here is best spoken about under the rubric of A State?
Irish Nationalist opponents of the Government of Northern Ireland, used to speak about it in terms as if were a State, ‘The Orange State’, they now more often call it something less imposing ‘A Statelet’ ; Dictionary Def ‘ a small state, especially one that is closely affiliated to or has emerged from the break-up of a larger state.’
Those of a left leaning bent used to deploy the language of anti-imperialism in naming what they disliked, the north of Ireland was called ‘a colony’, then it became known as a ‘neo colony.’
There are problems with both naming conventions. It seems to wrong to refer to the north as a State in reference to our political context, to be a State means having the means to supress both internal and external enemies, the external enemy is the most important one, this has never been organized by the Government here. On two grand occasions the external enemy was designated to be Imperial Germany, 1914-1918 then again 1939-1945, loyal Ulster was praised and rewarded by the British Government for its service to the British Commonwealth.
This term commonwealth is the English equivalent for the more European term State. The British political thinker Hobbes used the term commonwealth to describe the ruling power of England, the Italian Machiavelli introduced the term il Stato to political theory, it was not part of the political lexicon of classical political philosophy, the closest approximation was the near equivalent Regime. In classical Athens there was no permanent army of political appointees so there was no State.
The alternative naming convention is just as problematic, to speak about the north of Ireland in terms of colonialism is to maintain that it has has no democratic basis, yet all those, including the Dublin Government and the nationalists political parties right up to Sinn Fein are
adherents of the Good Friday Agreement and that makes it clear the north has a familiar democratic basis, it is held by consent alone.
The Marxists use of colonial is typically more concerned with the economic matter than with the political matter, colonies are intended for economic extraction or financial tribute. It is hard to argue that that the north of Ireland is a vibrant source of economic tribute to the benefit of some residual colonial class. The region is generally thought to be a financial drain than a financial gain in respect of the British taxpayer.
I have recently began to think about the north of Ireland as a British Protectorate. Some Great Powers have island Protectorates, they maintain them not for economic advantage but for security reasons, the meaning of the term assumes a global rivalry between States. In the not so distant past the main rival to Britain was revolutionary France, over the duration of the first 50 years of the duration of the north of Ireland the main State rival was Imperial Germany. Great Britain retains a fair few Protectorates around the globe, the Falkland Islands etc.
What is up for discussion is the importance of holding on to long standing Protectorates in the present context of global State cooperation rather than flobal State rivalry. When Britain entered the EU in 1973 so did the Republic of Ireland, a new born State that held a constitutional claim over the northern Protectorate. If one used the dictionary definition of the tern Statelet one might think the Republic of Ireland to be a candidate one.
Did the British commitment cease defending and maintaining the northern Protectorate, some found a weakening resolve, was this because the British State had entered into a new Concert of Europe beginning in 1973 or had nothing really changed?
What will be the northern policy be, now that Great Britain has left the Concert of Europe? It seems to me that a Great Britain outside the Concert of Europe can only become a rival State to the EU. Will this lead to a reinvigoration of the British resolve to maintain the northern Protectorate? This is something we can only ‘interpret’ for now.