Brexit’s children: Irish unity moves back onto the agenda

What are we going to do about Northern Ireland?

The province, which this year marks 100 years of existence as a separate entity, is slowly slipping out of its London orbit and moving into the gravitational pull of Dublin and Brussels.

Brexit has had a unique impact on what was already a unique corner of the UK. Since 1 January, thanks to Britain’s departure from the European Union last year, goods from GB bound for Belfast, Larne, Newry and Londonderry have been subject to customs checks and regulatory inspection.

On the “island of Ireland,” however, all is smooth sailing. Businesses based on either side of the Border don’t have to worry about being cut off from their natural hinterland.

Under the terms of a special protocol within the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement, Northern Ireland continues to follow many of the rules of the Single Market, and even the Customs Union. The upside to this is that if a manufacturer in, say, Ballymena or Lurgan, wishes to export his products to Aachen or Venice, he can carry on much as if nothing had happened, but via Dublin or Rosslare rather than Liverpool and Dover. He can, in other words, piggy-back on the Republic of Ireland’s continued EU status. Many firms in England might wish they enjoyed the same facility.

It doesn’t end there, of course. Citizens of Northern Ireland are entitled to Irish passports, and hundreds of thousands have already been issued, including a surprising number of those from the Protestant and Unionist community. Ulstermen and women can still work and settle in Europe. If they own a second home in France or Spain, they are not bound by the 90-day rule. All they have to do is wave their burgundy-coloured Irish passports and they have the same rights as the French or Spanish into whose countries they have moved. They can join the EU/EEA/Efta lines at ports and airports, looking on benignly as their English, Scottish and Welsh cousins shuffle along in the “global” queues.

Change, though, is afoot far beyond the impact of Brexit. Two clear demographic trends have emerged in recent years that threaten the continued existence of Northern Ireland as part of the UK. The first and more important is that the number of Catholics is about the exceed the number of Protestants, meaning that Nationalists and Republicans will within the next ten years be the new majority community.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the Union Flag is about to be replaced by the Irish tricolour. Some older Catholics, though emotionally Irish, remain cautious about abandoning the British link. They have grown up with the NHS and worry about the impact on their pension rights. There are also those who, like their counterparts south of the Border, think fondly of the Queen and regard Coronation Street and Albert Square as part of their cultural heritage.

But among those under 40, the great mass of Catholics – no pun intended; this is 2021 – are ready to rejoin the motherland, and the sooner the better. They know that Ireland has come a long way in the last 30 years and that it is now one of the richest and most progressive democracies in Europe. They appreciate the fact that it enjoys excellent relations not only with Brussels, Paris and Berlin, but with the United States. As England retreats into itself, the Irish are genuinely going global.

The second shift is within Unionism. Only about two thirds of Protestants now identify, first and foremost, as Unionists. Lots of younger Protestants have already taken up the option of Irish citizenship. They visit Dublin as frequently, and more easily, than they travel to London or Manchester. The fact that the government south of the Border will in future pay for NI students wishing to take advantage of the Erasmus student exchange scheme and that Dublin will foot the bill for Ulster residents who fall ill while on holiday in Europe only adds to the sense that, a century on from partition, the Republic is the future, not England.

None of this means that anything much is going to happen anytime soon. Loyalism, a long-standing Unionist heresy, is still strong in working-class areas. The banned UDA, UVF and UFF terrorist groups haven’t gone away anymore than the latest incarnations of the IRA. Criminality within legacy terrorist groups is rampant, as is intimidation. Further up the food chain there remains the enduringly baleful influence of the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein, each of which, it sometimes seems, exists chiefly to ensure that it continues to exist.

The DUP had hoped that celebrations of the centenary of partition, combined with the renascent Britishness afforded by Brexit, would be one long jamboree. Instead, it is shaping up to be a pre-emptive wake. But Sinn Fein, too, is starting to fracture, divided into those who regard themselves first and foremost as the Guardians of 1916 and those who see votes longer-term in a lurch to the left.

In-between elections, many Ulster voters are willing to express the contempt they feel for the two big governing parties. The problem is, when it comes to making a choice they find it hard to break the habits of a lifetime: better to vote for us than them.

In the event of unity, there is sure to be a significant exodus of Protestants from the North to the mainland. We are already seeing this, with the bulk of Protestant students taking up places in England, and then staying on, while most Catholics choose Belfast or Dublin, from which in recent years they have gone on to dominate the professions and the civil service.

Some Protestants, no doubt, would opt to give up their Britishness and live in an independent Scotland rather than a united Ireland, and it is hard to see Nicola Sturgeon or her successors turning them away. The conceit that 400 years on from the Plantation of Ulster they remain in some way exiled Scots is far from extinguished. But most will stay on, knowing on which side their future bread is likely to be buttered. The next border poll, that is certain to be held between now and 2030, may or may not produce a working majority for unity, but the one after that most certainly will.

The young are all Brexit’s children, but in Northern Ireland it is family loyalty that will be tested the most.