Boris has failed Unionists – but that doesn’t mean they should support Corbyn

The Labour party has promised to avoid creating a regulatory border in the Irish Sea, according to its general election manifesto.

If Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister, he claims he will negotiate a new deal with Brussels that results in “close alignment” with the single market and a customs union that spans both the EU and the UK. The manifesto doesn’t divulge any further detail, but the theory is that a soft Brexit bypasses the need for checks on trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

This offer, from a Labour leader whose sympathies with Irish Republicanism have been recorded at length, seems more appealing to unionists in Ulster than the deal negotiated by a Conservative and Unionist PM who makes a great noise about his support for the Union.

Nevertheless, the DUP maintains it will not negotiate with Corbyn, in the event of a hung parliament. “He would destroy the economy,” Arlene Foster told an interviewer at the weekend. “He would wreck the defence of our nation as well and more than that it would lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom.” She can imagine “no circumstances” under which the DUP would support the Labour Party, while Jeremy Corbyn is still in charge. The new Ulster Unionist leader, Steve Aiken, was even more categorical. Speaking to the BBC’s Nolan Show he said, “under no circumstances will anybody from the Ulster Unionist Party be supporting Jeremy Corbyn”.

It may seem surprising that Northern Ireland’s two main unionist parties have so explicitly limited their options ahead of an election where a tight result is possible. After all, their biggest priority currently is to prevent a border in the Irish Sea. Sam McBride, the political editor of Belfast’s unionist newspaper, the News Letter, argued in Saturday’s edition that the decision amounted to a “tactical mistake”.

It’s true that, since becoming Labour leader, Corbyn has spoken about Northern Ireland in a strikingly moderate tone, considering his closeness to senior members of Sinn Féin.

Last year, he visited the province and confirmed his preference for a “united Ireland”. But Corbyn denied that he was calling for a border poll to decide Ulster’s future and said he would not campaign for a 32 county state if a referendum were called.

When Sinn Féin and the Dublin government called for the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference to make decisions about Northern Ireland in the absence of a devolved Assembly, Corbyn rejected this demand for joint authority. He noted that the BIIC “can’t do that constitutionally”. It was a logical and accurate response, but it was at odds with republicanism’s looser interpretation of the Good Friday Agreement.

Most significantly, the Labour leader has consistently ruled out creating an “effective border” in the Irish Sea, even while his nationalist and republican allies agitated for a “special status” for Northern Ireland that would compromise its place in the UK and protect its links with the Republic.

Corbyn has been careful not to provoke unionists in Ulster, but his history of activism means that they can never trust him. Boris Johnson might be regarded as a slippery character who quickly abandoned his promises to protect Northern Ireland’s place in the Union, but he was never an apologist for IRA terror. The Labour leader now uses more diplomatic language, but he’s never renounced the view that the British state is an occupying force in Ireland.

If the numbers are right after the election, unionist MPs could find themselves in a position to forge a pragmatic alliance with Corbyn for long enough to kill Boris Johnson’s deal and replace it with something they find more amenable. In theory, they could always withdraw their support and collapse his government, if they felt he was acting contrary to the national interest in other policy areas.

It is unlikely, though, that this strategy would offer anything more than a short-term, tactical victory. The Union is built on laws and institutions, but it also requires a degree of social solidarity between its nations and regions.

If unionists in Northern Ireland inflicted a Corbyn government on the rest of the UK – and potentially derailed Brexit – they would risk destroying any goodwill from the people who, in theory at least, have been most supportive of their position. There is already alarming evidence that Tory voters care more about leaving the EU than preserving the Union. It’s exceptionally unlikely that Ulster unionism will find long-term support for its place in the UK from Corbyn’s Labour party.

The Conservative party’s manifesto also contained a short section on Northern Ireland. It promised, “we will never be neutral on the Union and (that’s) why we stand for a proud, confident, inclusive and modern unionism.” It’s tragic that these fine words are undermined by a Brexit deal that threatens to create an economic and political border that hives off one part of the UK.

Unionists in Northern Ireland are in a deeply uncomfortable position. However badly they’ve been treated by Boris Johnson, they’ve decided they can’t risk an inveterate supporter of Irish republicanism like Jeremy Corbyn getting into Number 10.