Recalibration of union anticipated in North ahead of Scottish referendum

Whatever the people of Scotland decide in the knife-edge independence referendum on Thursday, there is a quiet recognition in Northern Ireland that at political, economic and emotional levels life never will be quite the same again.

In this very tense countdown to voting, unionists naturally, as their name implies, are hoping for a No vote so that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will be maintained.

Most nationalists in their gut would want the opposite result but some, too, would entertain reservations about what an independent Scotland might trigger on this side of the North Channel.

The front page of the Belfast Telegraph earlier this month carried a picture of what Britain and Ireland would look like constitutionally if Scotland voted Yes – the red, white and blue of the British union flag over England, Wales and Northern Ireland; Scotland and the Republic independent and separate.

It's the type of image that can generate anxiety and, indeed, there is concern within unionism. Democratic Unionist Party MP Ian Paisley jnr, in comments weeks before the death of his father, said in his North Antrim constituency he was closer to Campbeltown in Scotland, 17 miles across the sea, than to Belfast. So, what happens on referendum day matters dearly to him: "You must remember this is about kinship as well. My father's mother was Scottish, my grandparents were from Scotland. This is about affinity and proximity."

Dissident republicans

He fears a Yes vote would be a big encouragement for dissident republicans. “My huge concern is, if there is a change in the status of the constitution, that there are those who have resorted to violence to ‘smash the union’ who will see this as an opportunity to further dismember the United Kingdom and pick Northern Ireland off.

“If the dissidents were to see a major change in the status and structure of the union they would get their tails up and say: ‘Well, now this is our chance; let’s have another go at it’.”

Mr Paisley also said Scottish independence would lead to Sinn Féin clarion calls for a “destabilising” Border poll on a united Ireland. “If one side of the community pumps up one feeling, then there is automatic anti-feeling on the opposite side. I think it would all be very debilitating and that is the last thing we need in our politics at the moment.”

It's a fair assumption that the popular hope among republicans and nationalists is that Scotland will opt for independence. That's reflected in a large Braveheart billboard in west Belfast urging a Yes vote in Scotland which, interestingly, is sponsored by the Rock Bar on the Falls Road rather than by Sinn Féin. A big "Yes Scotland" on Black Mountain overlooking west Belfast also tells of the prevailing nationalist view.

Power-sharing

But a significant body of nationalists, too, would fear that a Yes vote might undermine a Stormont power-sharing administration that is shaky enough already.

Scotland opting for independence would certainly bolster the Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams’s arguments that a Border poll on a united Ireland should be held, as is permitted under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.

Northern Ireland secretary Theresa Villiers has ruled out such a referendum for the foreseeable future, but there is no doubt a Yes vote would bring renewed Sinn Féin pressure for such a poll.

Mr Adams said the referendum was solely a matter for the people of Scotland, but he wasn’t above lobbing a small grenade into the debate. In February he told the BBC that the UK as a union of four countries was “held together by a thread and that thread can be unravelled either as a result of referenda in Scotland or elsewhere or indeed, Ireland”.

But otherwise Sinn Féin has been careful not to interfere. An Irish Times request to the party's press office for a Sinn Féin politician to comment on the referendum was met by a polite but firm refusal.

“That’s a matter for the people of Scotland,” said a spokesman. “It’s for them to self-determine their future.”

In the Assembly last week Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness also kept out of the debate, while offering that he was encouraged that Scottish first minister and Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond had said that whatever the outcome he would remain a "true friend" of Northern Ireland.

SDLP leader Dr Alasdair McDonnell carefully trod the same line: “The Scottish people are entitled to their own decisions without interference from us. We would be confident in their wisdom that they will make a good decision.”

And what would a good decision be? “A good decision is whatever decision they wish to take.

“I don’t think the result of the Scottish referendum would have any immediate or destabilising effects here,” he added. “I think the effects will be longer- term. The referendum will bring inevitable change to Scotland and, in turn, some of those changes may have an impact on Northern Ireland.”

Recalibration of the union

Ulster

Unionist Party leader

Mike Nesbitt

said that regardless of whether the vote was to stay or go “there will have to be some form of recalibration of the union”. A No vote would not mean no change, he said: If a No result led to greater powers for the Scottish parliament, then Stormont, too, must gain from devo-max, possibly with one benefit the ability to bring corporation tax in the North in line with the Republic.

“No, absolutely not,” he said when asked whether a vote for independence could threaten Northern Ireland’s link to what would remain of the UK. “Our constitutional position is nailed down in the 1998 Belfast Agreement. I see no appetite based on the evidence – including the last census when only 25 per cent wanted to be described as Irish – that there is anything like a majority that would be in favour of change.”

Drew Nelson, grand secretary of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, said a Yes vote would be “incredibly destabilising” for Northern Ireland. Which explains why several hundred Orangemen plus some loyalist bands travelled to Edinburgh on Saturday for a Scottish Orange parade urging a No vote. Among the speakers was the Orange grandmaster of Ireland, Edward Stevenson.

United Ireland

David Hume, a 50-year-old member of the Orange Order who is also on the board that advises the Sinn Féin culture Minister Carál Ní Chuilín on Ulster Scots issues, is a native of Larne in Co Antrim. He traces his family back to the 17th century to the border region of Scotland.

Whatever the outcome, he doesn’t believe it will hasten the arrival of a united Ireland: “If they did vote Yes I don’t think it would change things here; it would not lead to a majority of people here saying that they want to be part of a united Ireland. The lines are clearly drawn in terms of that issue: the majority of people want to be part of the United Kingdom because they see that is to their benefit. I don’t think that any decision in Scotland is going to impact on that in a big way.”

But he doesn’t want another degree of separation from his Scottish cousins across the water.

Echoing Ian Paisley jnr’s remark about kinship he considered what a Yes vote would mean: “It would be akin to a divorce within the family, really. It would create a gap in the psyche of Ulster Scots people certainly.

“Our relationship [with] our friends in Scotland would not change but obviously the structure of our relationships would change and we would be the poorer for that.”