Tory leadership candidates make their pitch to Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland’s five hundred or so Conservative members are not accustomed to being the centre of media attention these days. The province’s handful of Tory associations fielded just eight candidates in council elections this year and five of those came from the party’s traditional stronghold in North Down.

Nevertheless, it’s important enough to Conservatives to portray themselves as a UK-wide party that one of the leadership hustings was held yesterday at the Culloden Hotel, just outside Belfast. The future of the Irish border is still the chief obstacle to parliament voting for a Brexit deal, so the event attracted substantial interest from journalists both local and national.

In front of an Ulster audience, Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson were scathing about the Northern Ireland backstop, which they said is unacceptable and cannot form part of a final withdrawal agreement. Hunt told Tory members that the arrangement “has to change or has to go”. “We are never going to have a deal with the EU that involves the backstop.”

Boris Johnson promised that “under no circumstances…. will I allow the EU or anyone else to create any kind of division down the Irish Sea.” He described Theresa May’s draft withdrawal agreement as a “dead letter” and claimed the backstop forces the UK to make an “unacceptable choice” between “abandoning the ability to govern ourselves” and giving “up control of the government of Northern Ireland”.

A recent YouGov poll suggested most grassroots Conservative members see delivering Brexit as a more pressing priority than protecting the Union, but the leadership candidates were keen to emphasise their commitment to keeping the United Kingdom together.

“The Union is something we have taken for granted for too long,” Jeremy Hunt asserted, “it’s absolutely essential that the prime minister… puts a lot of time and thought into nourishing the bonds of our Union.” “Some of that is through symbolic things, like coming here frequently and supporting the Northern Irish Conservative party but some of it is in the approach we take to policies and Brexit, if we get it right, can massively strengthen our Union.”

The foreign secretary believes that a positive EU deal, “will allow our great country to plough its furrow in the world in a way that is distinctly, uniquely British and makes all four parts of the UK proud to be British.”

On a similar theme, Boris Johnson pledged that if he is successful in the leadership contest he will act as “Minister for the Union, in which I passionately believe”. “There will be a special unit in Number 10,” he claimed, “to make sure every policy is sense and stress tested for the benefits it will bring to the Union.”

One such policy might have been a “fixed link” between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, otherwise known as a bridge across the North Channel between Ulster and Scotland, which some Johnson backers were sure would form part of his pitch to Tories in the province. He spoke positively about the project’s potential and said “finance is not the issue”, but implied that, ultimately, it was a matter for the Stormont executive.

That was another theme common to both candidates, who expressed support for same-sex marriage and abortion reform in Northern Ireland, but emphasised that devolved institutions needed to take the final decisions. They promised to energise efforts to restore the Assembly, which hasn’t sat since January 2017, after Sinn Féin pulled out of the power-sharing executive.

There were mixed views about whether the hustings resulted in a clear winner or provided a clear insight into what Northern Ireland can expect from its next prime minister. On most of the big issues, the two men took almost identical positions. The differences were largely in tone and style. One senior Conservative member said that Jeremy Hunt, was “well-prepared and managerial”, while Boris Johnson “made it up as he went along”.

They’re both now equally adamant that the backstop is unacceptable, even though both supported it as Theresa May tried to force her withdrawal agreement through parliament. Johnson held out until the third meaningful vote, but eventually reached the “sad conclusion” that backing a “bad deal” was necessary to avoid watering down or losing Brexit altogether. It was a curious rationale for an aspiring “Minister for the Union”.

In Northern Ireland, Conservatives and other unionists can fairly ask whether Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt is likely to make a similar calculation, if there’s a direct choice between delivering Brexit and protecting the Union.