The United Ireland paradox: Taking unity seriously means accepting a more realistic time frame

The number of people in the Republic who think there will be a united Ireland in 10 years has fallen to 24 per cent, down seven points from last year, according to Amarách Research. This is the first time the figure has dropped in the decade the survey has been conducted, on behalf of the European Movement Ireland think tank.

There has been an even larger rise in people believing there will not be unification in 10 years, up 15 points to 58 per cent.

Some nationalists have expressed concern or doubt at the findings, given the widespread view – also picked up in the survey – that Brexit has greatly increased the likelihood of a united Ireland.

But this is not a paradox. Taking unity seriously could be precisely why people are imagining a more realistic time frame. The task is so daunting and the capacity to deliver it so limited that it verges on the absurd. Douglas Adams might have joked about trying to merge two jurisdictions where it takes 20 years to appeal a planning application.

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Pragmatic assessment of a prospect consigned to fantasy throughout all of our lives may have finally begun.

Making a detailed plan to break up a modern state and create a new one is effectively impossible in advance

A lesson has been missed from the plight of the Scottish National Party. Before the distraction of recent scandals, the SNP’s cause was already collapsing under the weight of its own complexity. The party made a serious attempt to plan for independence in advance of the 2014 referendum. Its 670-page white paper, published the year before, may have been deeply flawed, but it still contained genuine attempts to answer difficult questions, following formal discussions with London.

When that failed to persuade the public, the SNP lapsed into unserious plans, setting out preposterous but apparently painless proposals on currency, budgets, trade – anything and everything. This has proved no more successful.

[ About 66% of people in Northern Ireland believe it is worse off since Brexit, survey finds ]

[ Even Sinn Féin is frustratingly sketchy on the details of what a United Ireland might look like ]

One conclusion is that making a detailed plan to break up a modern state and create a new one is effectively impossible in advance, practically and politically.

There are too many details for consideration, let alone consensus. It starts arguments that undermine your goal, or compels promises that undermine your credibility.

Better to achieve the goal and work out the details afterwards.

Czechoslovakia’s “velvet divorce” is perhaps the only relevant example of negotiated change, rather than a reaction to events. East Germany had to collapse before German reunification. Cyprus made a plan and Greek Cypriots rejected it.

Sinn Féin is often criticised for telling everyone else to “plan and prepare” while producing nothing itself. Yet this strategy is rational, although too cynical to admit.

Unionists avoid discussing the specifics of a united Ireland in the hope of making it less likely. Canny nationalists do the same in the hope of making it more likely.

Occasionally, a well-intentioned group or individual will be naive enough to make a concrete proposal, such as Commonwealth membership. Then they will be crucified for it. Sinn Féin will join in the denunciation, especially if the target is a political rival, but this is merely a bonus. The party’s main concern is not getting crucified itself.

[ US arm of Sinn Féin spends €110,000 on Irish unity newspaper adverts ]

[ Sinn Féin’s sudden silence on Irish unity is a deliberate and intelligent strategy ]

Failing to plan is widely seen as irresponsible, with Brexit cited as a warning. This cliche contains a contradiction: trying to plan for Brexit would probably have prevented it.

Years of argument over a united Ireland are inevitable and would certainly be more fraught than the technicalities that have dominated Brexit disputes, even in Northern Ireland. Nationalists could make a responsible case for waiting until they win a Border poll through force of sentiment, demographics or luck, all of which they will require regardless. Arguments could then take place in the settled context of a fait accompli.

Plan-free unification is implied by the Belfast Agreement, which specifies only a transfer of sovereignty after a Border poll, with nothing else changed.

This is primarily because the agreement was not a negotiation on a united Ireland. It hardly rules out prior planning, but it creates a default of Northern Ireland and all its institutions continuing after a nationalist victory, enabling detailed discussion to begin at that point. Those institutions include the North-South and east-west strands of the agreement, which could be used to negotiate and plan.

Northern Ireland’s survival into a united Ireland appears to make no sense. Why would nationalists, a majority in the region in this scenario, agree to maintain partition in any form? It seems extraordinary that nationalists themselves keep raising the idea, but again there need be no paradox.

While some in the Republic may simply be hoping for a cordon sanitaire, others must see their federal or devolved proposals as transitional, facilitating planning and preparation in the longer term.

That may even include Sinn Féin, whose newfound enthusiasm for making Northern Ireland work might not be entirely explained by becoming Stormont’s largest party.