A rocky start to Northern Ireland’s centenary year

Northern Ireland marks its 100th birthday in May this year. The part of Ireland that chose to remain in the UK reaches its centenary in spite of persistent hostility to its existence, vicious campaigns of terrorist violence and, sometimes, indifference on the British mainland to its place in the Union.

For unionists, it’s an achievement to be proud of, but the celebrations aren’t off to an uplifting start.

Northern Ireland was the first part of the UK to lock down at the start of 2021, in an attempt to contain one of the country’s most serious Covid-19 outbreaks. Meanwhile, on 1 January, an economic border was drawn down the Irish Sea, separating the province from its most important market, in Great Britain, and putting its future as part of the United Kingdom in doubt.

The Government has promised to spend £3 million marking the centenary, but that money won’t compensate for empty supermarket shelves, the suspension of deliveries to Northern Ireland by many national retailers and internal border posts at its ports. Arguably, this year, the province’s political and economic links to Westminster feel flimsier than at any time since its formation.

That’s saying something, because the partition of Ireland, in 1921, was the culmination of five years of turbulence and violence started by a republican insurrection in Dublin at Easter in 1916. To retain their place in the United Kingdom, and avoid absorption by an ethnic-nationalist Irish Free State, unionists were forced to accept a home rule parliament in Belfast, though they would have far preferred to be governed directly from Westminster.

Irish separatists reacted to Northern Ireland’s creation with malevolence and rage. Michael Collins, who chaired the Republic’s provisional government, tried to avoid civil war by bringing republicans together to fight partition. His “anti-treaty” rival, Eamon de Valera, described unionists as “planters” and threatened to “kick them out” if they stood in the way of Irish nationhood.

In response, London left James Craig’s inexperienced administration in Belfast to protect its security largely on its own. The Northern Ireland government spent its formative years fending off republican violence sponsored by its neighbour to the south and managing hostility from an uncooperative nationalist minority that refused to participate in its institutions.

These traumatic experiences encouraged a defensive attitude that eventually led the administration at Stormont to mishandle challenges like the civil rights movement in the 1960s. It delayed reforming local government laws that linked votes to payment of rates and created what the Nobel laureate, Lord Trimble, described as a “cold house for Catholics”. This intransigence allowed nationalists to peddle a pernicious myth, still cited with frequency by Northern Ireland’s critics today, that Catholics were “denied the vote”.

That said, the administration also stabilised Northern Ireland in unpromising circumstances, making a contribution to the Second World War that Churchill said prevented “the light which now shines so strongly throughout the world” from being quenched. And the province became a home where people of all backgrounds flourished. The greatest obstacle to Northern Ireland’s continued success was not unionist “misrule”, but a 40-year terrorist campaign by the IRA.

Prior to Brexit, opinion polls showed that, despite the province’s troubled history, there was widespread cross-community acceptance that its future should be in the United Kingdom.

After the referendum, though, a coalition of nationalists, the Irish government and anti-Brexit liberals lobbied for Northern Ireland to have “special status” within the EU, effectively detaching it from the UK’s economic and political life. Theresa May and then Boris Johnson said this outcome was “unacceptable”, but eventually both signed up to agreements that located checks on trade at the province’s ports, rather than the existing international frontier between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Even now, the Government insists there is no Irish Sea border, though “border posts” have been created to check food and animal products in Belfast, Larne and Warrenpoint. To move goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, hauliers must complete a vast array of paperwork. The Belfast News Letter revealed that some businesses are filling-in the same declarations required to ship products to East Asia, in order to trade with the province.

As a consequence, there are empty shelves in many Northern Irish supermarkets, including Tesco, Sainsbury and Marks & Spencer, as product lines become unavailable. This situation is likely to deteriorate further after a three-month grace period elapses in March and big food retailers are asked to comply fully with the new rules. Meanwhile, courier companies are charging more to ship packages to Northern Ireland, while major retailers like John Lewis and Dunelm have suspended deliveries to the province.

These inconveniences would be difficult to tolerate even without the political sell-out that they represent. Put simply, Northern Ireland’s place in the UK internal market, and its political links to the rest of the UK, have been sacrificed so that Irish nationalists can pretend there is no land border with the Republic. In consequence, the province remains within the EU’s single market for goods and its conduit to Brussels is likely to become the Dublin government.

It’s an example of the UK’s repeated weakness in the face of separatism. And it’s part of the reason that many commentators question whether the Union will last another 100 years, never mind whether Northern Ireland will be part of it.

For Ulster unionists, their future now depends upon adapting to the new arrangements, while trying to realign the province’s economy with the rest of the UK and play a more whole-hearted role in British national and political life. For its part, Westminster should be more responsive to unionists’ fears and more willing to challenge separatists who wish to break apart the United Kingdom. If the Government learns these lessons from the Brexit protocol, then Northern Ireland’s centenary may yet be an event worth celebrating,

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