I was struck by a comment I saw online concerning the controversy surrounding the proposed commemoration event for the Royal Irish Constabulary and Dublin Metropolitan Police.

Rather than discussing the merits or justification for such an event, the person made, in my view, a much more profound point which should be a wakeup call for both nationalists and unionists in Ireland, North and South. They simply stated that if this event can cause the level of furore it appears to have, they dreaded the prospect of discussing arguably more difficult issues such as parading, flags, language etc. in the context of Irish unity.

Given the populism, sensationalism and faux outrage from all sides engulfing this issue, and others before it (including the ongoing dispute on a standalone Irish Language Act and every single marching season), how can we, as a country or nation or region (or whatever you want to call us) possibly consider ourselves ready to have a national conversation on Irish unity and expect it to end with a positive outcome? 

When I say a positive outcome, I don’t just mean our preferred result, I also mean what comes afterwards. Can we credibly look at ourselves as a collective and say we have the political and societal maturity to discuss issues like commemorations, parading, flags etc. in the context of Irish Unity when the evidence shows we can’t even do it in the here and now?

I am, personally, an Irish nationalist but the significant criticism this article will attract from ‘my own side’ rather goes to prove the point. This is not a unionist or nationalist or ‘other’ issue – we’re all to blame. 

Moreover, it’s important not only because it’s a poor reflection on our political discourse in Northern Ireland but also because it significantly impacts on the strategic case for either the Union or reunification. 

For a part of the world so used to being a ‘deeply divided society’, we’re really quite poor at managing it. The uncomfortable truth is that despite the fact we’ve spent our entire lives with a significant proportion of the rest of society having a different view than our own, we still think that once we ‘win the argument’ all those other views are just suddenly going to go away. We’re actually rubbish at the very things required to make a success of the next major constitutional debate in Ireland – compromise and persuasion.

This populism, now deeply embedded in our politics, is what will ultimately undermine whichever case we happen to put forward and it appears to me to have three core causes.

 

The obstacles

The first is that we’ve somehow allowed an overinflated and over-conflated sense of entitlement to our own national identity to cloud any appetite for compromise or even basic common sense. This manifests itself in this obsession we have with the ‘means’ and not the ‘ends’, process rather than outcome. 

For example, a segment of our political establishment is determined that any Irish Language legislation should be standalone. Why? Surely the important thing is the impact of legislation and legal protections it provides. Why then does it matter if such protections are provided in a wider piece of legislation and encompasses other things? 

Equally, a segment of our political establishment is determined to prevent any statutory protection for Irish language, despite the fact that such language legislation is perfectly acceptable in Scotland and Wales with absolutely no evidence to suggest that it has had any impact on the constitution or the balance of rights more broadly. 

When there is an outcome to these difficult issues, it’s sold as a win or a loss rather than the compromise solution being sold as a win for everyone. We’ve allowed compromise to become synonymous with losing.

The second is an absence of leadership. Our leaders, both political and civic, have lost a sense of what their responsibilities are. Their role is to lead, not be led. Leading requires making difficult decisions for the betterment of everyone and persuading a base, uncomfortable though they may be, that the particular course of action is the right thing to do. A display of this sort of leadership is difficult to recall in Northern Ireland of late.

Finally, our trust in each other is as low as it’s been since the Good Friday Agreement. Our communities, in the traditional understanding of that term, have lost faith in each other’s motives and intentions. Both nationalists and unionists no longer (if they ever did) trust each other to adhere to the ethos behind the Good Friday Agreement; namely, that we can work together in partnership in the meantime, because our constitutional position will be decided by the people. 

We’re completely free to make our case and try to persuade others, but roads don’t build themselves. How can we move forward to discuss wider constitutional change with such a trust deficit?

Until we catch a grip of ourselves and instil some political maturity, leadership and mutual trust back into our public discourse, we are destined to a future defined by bad winners and bad losers – a perpetual cycle of conflict and stalemate.

Personally, I am terrified about the prospect of a Border Poll in Northern Ireland. But politically, I feel a genuine sense of bewilderment that neither nationalists nor unionists seem to be able to see the wood for the trees in terms of the basic mathematics of the situation.

 

The fundamentals

With half of people in Northern Ireland now identifying as neither nationalist nor unionist, and less than half of eligible voters marking their ballot for the main nationalist or unionist parties respectively, the path to victory for both sides in such a poll clearly lies elsewhere. This isn’t a new or ground-breaking piece of political analysis; it’s just a fact.  

The evidence from the 2014 independence referendum in Scotland, and indeed that on the Good Friday Agreement, is that we can expect an increase in turnout by anywhere up to 25 percentage points – that’s approximately 300,000 people (and that doesn’t include the potential increase in voter registration). It’s among those people that a Border Poll will be won or lost.

Unionists can take comfort that many of those people are likely to be de facto unionists. Not because they identify as such, but rather because the evidence shows that voters for whom the constitution is important usually vote. Therefore, one can reasonably assume that they either are content with the status quo or the constitution is not important to them.

Nationalists can feel a sense of opportunity because the strategy of political unionism of late can hardly be described as pluralistic. Such a lack of ease and self-confidence, presenting itself in very overt and aggressive displays of identity, has the potential to put people off. Additionally, the strategy of continually doing down the alternative to the status quo (unity) above building your own positive case starts to fall down when said alternative doesn’t look that bad anymore.

Crucially, how will these people, who arguably occupy the ‘middle’ of Northern Ireland, respond to campaign arguments predicated on the type of rhetoric we see from both nationalism and unionism presently? My guess is not well.

Whatever your view and regardless of the outcome of a Border Poll, if our current approach continues, you have to wonder what will be left on the other side.