Victory 2016?

VICTORY 2016?
The Sovereign Nation October/November 2006
Liam O Ruairc

Provisional Sinn Fein is hoping that there will be Irish unity by 2016, the one hundreth anniversary of the Easter Rising.(1) It argues that the 1998 Belfast Agreement provides the transitional mechanisms for that to happen. For Gerry Adams, by accepting the Belfast Agreement the Provisional movement was entering a "new phase of the struggle": while the Agreement "is not a settlement, it is a basis for advancement", "it could become a transitional stage towards reunification". (2) Thus, the motion officially ratified by the party at its 1998 Ard Fheis read: "The Good Friday document is not a political settlement. When set in the context of our strategy, tactics and goals the Good Friday document is a basis for further progress and advancement of our struggle. It is another staging post on the road to a peace settlement. (...) The Good Friday document does not go as far as we would have liked at this time but it is clearly transitional. (...) It can be a basis for pushing forward national and democratic objectives. In short, it allows us to move our struggle into a new and potentially more productive phase." (3) This rests on two sets of arguments.
In negative terms, the Provisionals argue that it weakens the Union as well as destabilises and divides Unionists. Gerry Adams stated that thanks to the Belfast Agreement, there were no longer any raft of legislation to maintain Northern Ireland as part of the UK, with the British government's repeal of section 75 of the 1920 Government of Ireland Act. However, the replacement of the 1920 Government of Ireland Act was legally 'of no significance', rather it reconstructed British sovereignty. (4) Legally, the Agreement does not shift the balance of constitutional forces towards reunification. The only significant constitutional shift went in the opposite direction,the British state retained sovereignty in the North and the consent principle was embedded, whereas Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution were deleted. In the words of Prime Minister Blair, the settlement "is not a slippery slope to a united Ireland. The government will not be persuaders for unity." (5) As to dividing and destabilising Unionists, Provisional supporters misquote James Molyneaux, the UUP leader at the time of the first IRA ceasefire. Molyneaux merely claimed that the ceasefire (and not the Agreement signed four years later) had destabilised Unionism. “Writers fond of citing this in favour of the 'GFA is a stepping stone to a United Ireland' position invariably fail to tell us that Molyneaux explained why the ceasefire was destabilising; insisting that it was beyond his ken why republicans sold a horse and bought a saddle. Or as Stephen King puts it, Unionism was confounded as to why Republicans had fought so hard just to settle for so little. Eleven years after the 1994 ceasefire and the Molyneaux observations, we can find Eric Waugh mocking Republicans: 'the old ideal of unity is more remote than ever. Unionists are not interested.' Even one as hostile to the Agreement as Jeffrey Donaldson can still claim Republicanism was 'defeated by a partitionist settlement based on the concession of self-determination of Northern Ireland.' “ (6)
In positive terms, according to Mitchel McLaughlin: "There is steady demographic, political, social and economic change, undeniably pointing in one direction, towards support for a united Ireland." (7) But do these changes really point in that direction? The first argument is that demographics show that the Catholics will soon be in a majority position in the North and will vote for a united Ireland at the earliest opportunity. ( Partition will supposedly come to an end when Catholics reach the magic figure of 51% of the population in the North. However, the idea that a united Ireland could be brought about by demographic change has been highly disputed and dealt a blow by the most recent (2001) census figures. (9) It could be decades before the two communities will have equal numbers and before this translates into votes. On top of that, Northern Ireland Life and Times surveys indicate that 30% of Catholics would not vote for unity. The second argument is that the development of an all-Ireland economy will create a dynamic towards unification and therefore make partition redundant. Peter Hain, Northern Ireland Secretary of State, recently said on the argument that the 'all Ireland economy' is a stepping stone towards a united Ireland: "The interpretation that this is a kind of Trojan horse for a united Ireland is 100% wrong." (10) Economic exchanges by themselves will not abolish the border no more than the development of the Benelux economy merged the three countries together. Says Hain: "It has nothing to do with the constitutional future, that's entirely separate and dependent on the votes of the people and they've decided that through the referendum following the Good Friday agreement; so the border exists constitutionally, but in economic terms it doesn't; in economic terms it's about cooperating across the border and making use of best friends either side." By way of example, Hain referred to counties Derry and Donegal. It was in the interest of both to be "joined at the hip" economically and for business purposes. However, "the constitutional separation will remain unless otherwise decided by the people." (11) The third argument is that the development of cross border institutions will generate a political dynamic towards unification. Cross border bodies - cannot and will not lead to reunification and an end to British rule. In his address on 30 September 2000, Martin Mansergh, Northern Advisor to three successive heads of 26 counties administrations, stated that 'there is no evidence, let alone inevitability, from international experience, that limited cross border co-operation necessarily leads to political unification.' Such bodies have existed for decades and have not brought a united Ireland any closer. (12)
That the Agreement is non-transitional and that republican strategy is no longer designed toward destabilising the northern state which would possess the potential to create transitional structures can both be ascertained from the following exchange in 2000 between Frank Millar of the Irish Times and Gerry Adams on the question of Peter Mandelson suspending the Stormont Assembly.
Millar: "For wasn't the act and fact of suspension rooted in the legislation establishing a devolved Assembly at all times subject to the authority of the British Crown?"
Adams: "Oh yes, and, in terms of the realpolitik, we have accepted entirely, it's obvious, partition is still here, that the British jurisdiction is still here."
Millar: "Is this a peace process, about reconciliation with the unionists, accepting the existing constitutional parameters until such time as there is consent to change them? Or is Sinn Féin's real game- struggle continuing by other means - to destabilise Northern Ireland and show it to be irreformable?"
Adams: "No, that isn't the case, the second scenario isn't the case." (13)
The Belfast Agreement is not a transition to a united Ireland, but rather the transition of the Provisional Movement in the British institutions: "By claiming the GFA will lead to Irish unity, Adams et al are providing a fig leaf for an ideological retreat unequalled in Irish history.What they have done, and are anxious to conceal from their supporters , is to accept a reformed Northern Ireland that, in accordance with the consent principle, will remain British as long as one can see. In return they have avoided political extinction, kept their skins and attained respectability and access to power. The Agreement is indeed 'transformative', but not in the way 'Provo' spinmeisters suggest. By guaranteeing Catholics their place in the Northern Ireland sun, it has the potential to erode nationalist alientation from the constitutional status quo and, by so doing, dismantle the raison d'etre of the Provisional IRA." (14)
So much for a free Ireland in ten years time...

(1) Cfr. Adams Predicts United Ireland, BBC 14 January 2000, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/601115.stm and Mitchel Mc Laughlin, Towards 2016 - A United Ireland, APRN 22 August 2002
(2) 'Preparing for a new phase of the struggle': Presidential Address by Gerry Adams, APRN 23 April 1998, pp.16-18
(3) Resolution Number 1, Ard Chomhairle Paper to 1998 Sinn Fein Ard Fheis,special supplement to APRN 7 May 1998
(4) see B. Hadfield, The Belfast Agreement, Sovereignty and the State of the Union, Public Law, volume 15, Winter 1998, p.615
(5) Speech by the Prime Minister Tony Blair at the Royal Ulster Agricultural Show, Friday 16 May 1997, http://www.numberten.gov.uk/output/Page948.asp
(6) Anthony McIntyre, Jude The Obscure, lark.phoblacht.net/am2904058g.html
(7) Rosie Cowan, Census hits republican hopes, The Guardian, 20 December 2002
( Ed Moloney, Nationalists advance inexorably, making love not war, Sunday Tribune, 12 April 1998
(9) Cfr. Malachi O Doherty, Breeding schemes, The Guardian, 13 April 2001 for a refutation of the theoretical basis of the demographic argument and Rosie Cowan, Census hits republican hopes, The Guardian, 20 December 2002 for an empirical refutation of the figures on which it is based.
(10) Liam Clarke meets Peter Hain -Man with a north-south plan, Sunday Times, 15 January 2006
(11) Ray O Hanlon, An all-island economy: It's Hain's way or the highway for North pols, The Irish Echo, 2-8 August 2006
(12) Ed Moloney, Mansergh doubts the GFA will lead to unity, Sunday Tribune, 1 October 2000. Nationalist commentator Brian Feeney noted that not only is there reluctancy on the part of the Irish civil service to beef up all-Ireland structures, but the difference this time as compared to 1974 or 1986 is that Irish politicians are lukewarm too. (Brian Feeney, Ministers have lost interest in north-south links, The Irish News, 13 September 2006)
(13) Frank Millar, Is there enough time to revive the Agreement? The Irish Times, 15 April 2000
(14) Ed Moloney, The Mild Man of the North's one fatal flaw, Sunday Independent, 5 September 2004