Northern unionism must develop the all-island identity known as ‘revolutionary unionism’ if it is to be in a strong ideological position come the centenary of the Northern Ireland state, according to political commentator, writes Dr John Coulter. You can follow him on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter.

Following their European election meltdown, it is not just the Ulster Unionists which must map out a new way forward – the entire unionist family must face the reality that it must develop an all-island identity and strategy if it is to have an ideological relevance in a post-Brexit Ireland.

Republicans love to kick around the can that they must become ‘persuaders’ for unionism; that they should ‘persuade’ unionists that their future lies in becoming a significant minority in a united Ireland.

But that was before Sinn Féin suffered an horrendous electoral performance in the recent local government and European polls in the Republic. In short, former Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams’s pet project of ‘a United Ireland via the back door of the Dáil’ has come off the rails.

If Sinn Féin’s council and European results are replicated in the next Dáil general election, there’s no way the party will be considered as a minority government partner by either of the ‘big two’ (Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil) in Dublin’s Leinster House.

To get its United Ireland project back on track, it must breathe new political life into the suspended Stormont Executive. However, the equally searching question which the unionist family must also face is: has it become a minority ideology in Northern Ireland?

Even if the recent European election outcome in Northern Ireland is taken as a benchmark, Unionism must face the bitter medicine that for the first time in 40 years, two non-unionist MEPs out of three have been returned.

There is a real fear among unionists that Brexit – should it really happen on 31 October this year – could signal the start of a border referendum campaign. This fear could be ramped up if there is a Westminster general election before Brexit and the DUP loses its cosy partnership with the poll-battered Tories, no matter who succeeds.

What unionism must do – and do urgently – is to begin a debate about an all-island strategy as opposed to an all-Ireland focus. There is a radical difference between the two political concepts.

In this respect, unionism needs to begin considering the concepts of an ideology I have penned known as ‘revolutionary unionism’, built around the three agendas of one faith, one party, one Commonwealth.

The roots of revolutionary unionism lie in my research for my Masters thesis in the early 1990s at Queen’s University’s School of Politics. Our tutors encouraged us to ‘think outside the box’.

For me, this was about mapping out a new ideology for northern unionism which took it politically beyond the realms of slogans such as ‘Not An Inch’ and ‘No Surrender’ and even beyond the geographical boundaries of Northern Ireland.

Before revolutionary unionism is dismissed as a non-starter, readers should take note that if there is one observation which I have made after 41 years in journalism, it is that Irish politics is about the art of the impossible becoming reality.

As a young cub BBC Radio Ulster freelance journalist in 1981, I covered the Fermanagh South Tyrone Westminster by-election caused by the death of the IRA hunger striker MP Bobby Sands. It was won by Sands’s election agent, Owen Carron.

Imagine what Carron would have said to me if, after his victory speech, I had told him that one day his party, Sinn Féin, would sit in a partitionist parliament at Westminster with the DUP. I’m sure he would have told me to ‘get real’. But Sinn Féin did.

Likewise, in 1985, as a News Letter journalist, I stood feet away from the late Rev Ian Paisley as he issued his ‘Never, Never, Never, Never’ speech at Belfast City Hall at the first Ulster Says No rally against the then Anglo-Irish Agreement.

Again, I could well imagine Dr Paisley’s response if I’d said to him as he came off the platform – one day you and your party will operate a power-sharing Executive at Stormont with the Provisional IRA’s political wing and your deputy will be former Derry IRA commander Martin McGuinness! But Paisley Senior and the DUP did.

So what are the core directions of revolutionary unionism? Firstly, it seeks to re-establish the values of the Christian faith in Ireland; secondly, it believes that unionism is best represented by a single political movement, simply called The Unionist Party, with a series of pressure groups to represent the broad church of pro-Union thinking. This would operate in much the same way as the original Unionist Party had the Ulster Monday Club for hardline Right-wing Unionists, the Unionist Labour group for socialists, and the West Ulster Unionist Council for Unionists living west of the River Bann.

The major plank of revolutionary unionism is the key role for the British Commonwealth and especially the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA).

This new ideology is called ‘revolutionary’ for two key reasons. Firstly, it aims to get unionists thinking outside the box of the six counties of Northern Ireland; it wants unionism to consider a 32-county role. Secondly, the word comes historically from the Glorious Revolution of the late 17th century when the Protestant Ascendancy ruled all of Ireland after the Williamite war.

Revolutionary unionism will become the ‘persuader’ of the Irish Republic that the future of the Republic of Ireland lies with it re-joining the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) to protect the 26 counties from the financial collapse of a suspected ‘no deal’ Brexit.

The backstop only exists to protect the Republic from the catastrophic meltdown which the so-called Celtic Tiger suffered a few years ago when it required millions of euros to bail it out – much of that cash coming from UK contributions.

The bitter reality which nationalists and republicans must face south of the Irish border is that a ‘no deal’ Brexit will herald a second Irish Famine, only this time it will be an economic failure, not a failure of the potato crop.

Post Brexit, Ireland – like the UK – must remain part of a major economic power block to survive. Either the Republic must receive massive cash injections from the EU, or it must join the UK in leaving the EU.

In the meantime, Ireland’s only option to prepare for ‘no deal’ is to re-join the CPA, which represents more than 50 national and regional parliaments throughout the globe, not all of whom were members of the old British Empire.

It should not be forgotten that when the CPA was originally formed in 1911 as the Empire Parliamentary Association (EPA), Ireland was a founder member when the island was then all under British rule. The EPA evolved into the CPA in the late 1940s after the end of World War Two.

Revolutionary unionists must persuade the South that its economic future lies in a more formal political arrangement with the UK, preferably in a new Anglo-Irish Treaty which undoes partition and brings the 26 counties back into a Union of the British Isles.

The foundations of this new Union already exist as the three big Protestant denominations – mainstream Presbyterianism, mainstream Methodism and the Church of Ireland – are all organised on an all-island basis.

Even the fundamentalist denomination founded by the late Rev Ian Paisley in 1951, the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, has congregations in the Republic. One of Ireland’s growing Christian denominations, the Elim Pentecostal movement, was itself founded in Monaghan in 1915 during the Great War.

The Orange Order has thriving county lodges in the Southern border counties of Cavan, Monaghan, Donegal and Leitrim, and the annual pre-Twelfth demonstration at the Donegal coastal village of Rossnowlagh is one of the largest in the Order’s parading calendar.

Like it or not, the unionist family will have to now seriously consider the all-island ideology of revolutionary unionism as its practical way forward rather than the concessions of civic unionism or the surrender approach of liberal unionism.