ON the basis of last Thursday's forum elections in Northern Ireland, Robert McCartney's UK Unionist Party is no more than a marginal factor. It won a mere 3.7 per cent of the vote and in the constituencies won just a single seat.
But Robert McCartney is a more significant figure in unionism than represented by those figures, This is because he articulates the sentiments, objectives and prejudices of unionists better than the spokespersons from the mainstream unionist parties. What he says and writes should be taken more seriously than his electoral position would suggest.
On Tuesday last week, two days before the forum elections, an article by Mr McCartney was published in The Guardian. This probably best, encapsulates the mind set of unionism as they prepare for the all party talks, due to begin next Monday. It, therefore, deserves special attention.
The essential points of the article were
. That IRA ceasefire was and will remain "conditional" upon its non violent fellow travellers (constitutional nationalists) delivering Irish unity or at least a positive move in that direction.
. That opposition to the precondition of IRA decommissioning either before or during negotiations provides negotiating leverage not just to Sinn Fein but to constitutional nationalists as well.
. That a section of Irish nationalism, embracing Gerry Adams, Bertie Ahern, Dick Spring and John Hume, wants to ensure "Irish unity, ethnic solidarity and the ultimate achievement of Ireland's perceived Catholic Gaelic destiny".
. That "non-violent nationalism is motivated a constitutional imperative to absorb the tern tory of Northern Ireland".
Robert McCartney might be right about an IRA ceasefire being "conditional" on constitutional nationalists "delivering" Irish unity or at least progress in that direction. I believe he is wrong, but suppose he is right.
Why shouldn't unionists and nationalists engage in negotiations on a settlement on the basis of equality and democracy, reach an agreement and then, together, deal with whatever undemocratic opposition to that agreement arises?
And wouldn't such agreement be greatly consolidated by the full involvement of "unconstitutional nationalists" in the process of negotiations, during which their legitimate concerns and objectives are comprehensively addressed?
So even if Robert McCartney is right about IRA intentions, is there not an overwhelming tactical case for engaging in negotiations with the political representatives of the IRA, thereby subsequently cutting the ground from under the IRA and consolidating the ground for the constitutionalists in both parts of Ireland?
But suppose Robert McCartney is wrong about IRA intentions and that the republican movement is now disposed to abandon the "armed struggle" as a long term tactic. Would it not be a historic blunder to fail to reach out to them and envelop them within the mainstream of constitutionalism?
THE argument that apposition to decommissioning gives all nationalists leverage in the negotiations is curious. It is obvious that if one side in negotiations is able to exert undemocratic pressure on the other side through the threatened use of force, then there is a potential unfairness at the heart of such negotiations.
But this potential unfairness is not removed by a start to decommissioning, which was the unionist demand until the publication of the Mitchell Commission report. Neither is it removed by a start to decommissioning during the talks, not even if decommissioning is scheduled to be completed by the end of the talks.
Indeed, if Robert McCartney is right in his first supposition (that the IRA ceasefire is "conditional" on at least progress towards Irish unity), the threat would not be removed even if there were complete and verifiable decommissioning of all IRA weapons before the talks began.
In any event, is it really the case that unionist, negotiators would be influenced by the presence of an IRA arsenal? In what way is it likely that Ian Paisley, David Trimble, David Irvine, Gary McMichael and Robert McCartney himself would be influenced by such considerations?
The claim that Gerry Adams, Bertie Ahern, Dick Spring and John Hume are concerned to ensure "Irish unity, ethnic solidarity and the ultimate achievement of Ireland's perceived Catholic, Gaelic destiny" is depressing.
Apart from a tiny minority of "headers", nobody within the Irish nationalist community gives a fiddlers about Ireland's Catholic, Gaelic destiny apart from dreading the prospect that it might come about.
Far more sustainable is a contention he has stated elsewhere that nationalist Ireland has failed to comprehend the mind of unionism and that the ethos of nationalism and of the southern State is inimical to the values which underlie liberal Protestantism.
The contention that "non-violent nationalism is motivated by a constitutional imperative to absorb the territory of Northern Ireland" is founded, presumably, on the Supreme Court judgment in the McGimpsey case. In that case, the court found that "the re-integration of the national territory was a constitutional imperative".
However, the same judgment found that the requirement that any change to the de facto status of Northern Ireland would have to secure the consent of a majority in Northern Ireland was "compatible" with the Constitution.
THAT judgment was unfortunate and expressed sentiments that not many nationalists would endorse. Neither does it help Robert McCartney and other unionists to refuse to acknowledge the abandonment of nationalism by Irish nationalists, with the exception of Sinn Fein and even Sinn Fein's position on this is now uncertain.
At the core of Irish nationalism was the "principle" that the Irish people as a whole had the right to national self determination. Through the benign agency of Hume speak, this principle has been abandoned entirely.
Hume speak has introduced the nonsensical idea that there can be national self determination without there being national self determination i.e. that there has to be agreement on how national self determination is to be exercised.
And the Sinn Fein opposition to this remains temporary and tactical, for in agreeing to join in what unionists derisively call "the pan nationalist alliance" they are joining with those who have abandoned nationalism.
At the conclusion of his article, Mr McCartney expresses the hope that Irish nationalists can be persuaded that "their primary role is to create a unity of democrats rather than one of nationalists". The expression of another hope might also be appropriate that unionists such as Robert McCartney should not condescend to "persuade" nationalists of that to which all reasonable people are already committed.