Ireland, North and South, needs to rediscover its Christian roots

Politicians in Belfast and Brussels, Dublin and London are understandably preoccupied by the fallout from the row over Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol. It has temporarily deflected attention from the recent — albeit premature — talk of a “Border Poll” on reunification, sparked in part by George Osborne’s “in your face” piece last month in the London Evening Standard. The former Chancellor warned the DUP that it was to blame if the Province left the Union because of Brexit. Unionists are rightly discomfited by the disrespect with which they have been treated. But speculation, however ill-founded, isn’t going away.

The Article 16 debacle, on which the European Commission has since backtracked, highlighted the anomalies Brexit has triggered on a still divided island of Ireland. It was absolutely inevitable. Brussels should have seen it a mile away. An Irish Government that was wiser would not have allowed it to happen.

This much is true: “nothing is settled until its settled right”. The injustices began with the forced displacement of the native Irish from Ulster in the 17th century. They were perpetuated by partition under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. They continued to wrack the Province and the Republic, up to the civil rights catharsis of the 1960s which in turn was weaponised by violence.

The 1998 Belfast Agreement — now generally known as the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) — brought a kind of stability, after a succession of earlier agreements had brought neither peace nor the prospect of a permanent political solution. Importantly, the GFA established the core principle of Irish unity only by consent. It also established political institutions, including the Assembly, and tripartite structures, encompassing Belfast, London and Dublin. But structures and Protocols will not cut it over the longer term. We should know that by now.

What may prove far more important has been the slow and patient increase, at multiple levels, of cross-border cooperation — towards what Sir George Quigley, one of the most enlightened civil servants during that whole period, called “a Single Island Economy”. In the midst of ideology and post-Brexit confusion, with cross-currents blowing in from Scotland, fanned by Dublin, this network of cooperation, and often of friendships, is something to build on, in the quest for a way forward.

Osborne’s “cosh” does not, and should not, deflect from the present Unionist majority. The outcome of a Border Poll on Irish unity, including any wider consultative process, is problematic. Also, loose talk of “unity” cannot wish away the real and substantial fiscal and other challenges that reunification would entail for the Republic of Ireland.

But the fact is that Northern Ireland is in stasis. The workings of the Assembly have been subverted in recent years. In the wake of Brexit, there is a sense in which the structures are running out of energy and relevance. Where should we look for a new dynamic? Allowing matters to slide is hardly an option; the dangers are manifest.

Thirty or so years ago there was a shared commitment, across the Protestant-Catholic divide, to the Christian faith. The important point is that the two distinctive traditions converged, and this convergence is the basis for a social economy that serves all of the people of the Island. Fasten on to that reality because there are now forces that stand opposed to it— forces that were not there 30 years ago.

Cultural Marxism’s ‘Woke Revolution’, at the heart of which is a profoundly anti-Christian ‘Identity Politics’, threatens democratic politics on the Island of Ireland. It has long captured and colonised Sinn Fein. In the last decade it has rolled over mainstream political parties in the Republic. But not yet the Protestant Unionists.

Christianity, even today, is the single most important common denominator cross the island. Its values and ethos are the seedbed around which a new political dynamic, North and South, could coalesce. The Protestant tradition stands out — in Chapel, politics and in the Public Square — for its espousal of the biblical scriptures. A shared “social economy” across the island is a kind of “mustard seed” from which something new could grow — and of which those same scriptures speak.

A shared identity, embracing everything from rugby to the very term “Irish”, can be re-ignited. I recall a point made by the former Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Terence O’Neill, to the effect that: “We could have enhanced our politics with our (shared) religion — instead, we have denigrated our religion with our politics.” That insight is absolutely on the money. It was never more relevant than it is today.

The point is that every economy — every kind of “unity” —needs a moral purpose and it needs a moral “core”. Marxism doesn’t have a moral purpose, or a core, beyond centralising power, commanding resources and controlling output, all in the name of the “Proletariat”. Revolutionaries begin with ideals but they end in a different place. Marxism is grounded in materialism rather than something deeper, based around God and the unique nature of every individual.

Marxism, regardless of what coat it is wearing, doesn’t do individuals. It is ideologically committed, as anyone who has read the Communist Manifesto will know, to the destruction of the traditional family, which it perceives as challenging its control. In its latest iteration as Cultural Marxism, it is well on the way to that goal.

Survivors of the Gulags, like Solzhenitsyn, warned the West of the consequences of abandoning its Christian heritage. It was, he said, in his 1978 Harvard Commencement speech, paving the way for the return of communism — a different kind of communism based, not on a class but on race and gender. He was, of course, entirely right. The “Woke” politics of Cultural Marxism is alive and well. In the wake of the upheavals of the last ten years, it has been nesting, like an oppressive cuckoo, in the politics of the Republic. There are lessons there for the Protestant political and academic leaders and the wider community in Northern Ireland.

So, back in the day, a social economy based on a shared Christian faith could so easily have led to a united Ireland, but on a very different basis to that which confronts us today. Because what confronts us today is a political entity and an economy based on Woke ideology: an oppressive politics predicated on identity and gender, and an intrusive social media that shrieks and shouts down all opposition. The disingenuous manner in which a “Woke Westminster” foisted abortion on a Northern Ireland, the majority of whose people wanted no part of it, is an example. There are others.

“Woke” has chewed up, and weaponised, politics on the Island —the Left, the Right and the Centre. It is diametrically opposed to Christian values that light up the social economy, and the institutions that Unionism has tenaciously held on to: life, marriage and family.

A social economy based on Christian values is the best and most robust foundation for a united Ireland that works for every individual, every family and every community on the island. Its scope extends well beyond the forms of cooperation provided for in the Good Friday Agreement and elsewhere.

Christianity is not a manifesto promising to deliver homes, jobs and roads. The only bit the Marxists are in dead earnest about is the “Woke” agenda. The rest is smoke, mirrors and bad arithmetic.

For Christianity, the only manifesto that counts are the Gospels. They have a track record. Christian Democracy turned on the lights in post-war Germany. A divided and bruised Germany crafted its social market economy around respect for God, religious freedom, marriage and family — and social solidarity.

These were not platitudes. The policies of Adenauer and Erhard drew on the Catholic Encyclicals dealing with work, the social economy, equality, the proper role of markets, workers’ rights, and especially the family. And, importantly, the role of conscience in politics, which is embedded in Article 50 of Germany’s Basic Law.

All of these were given concrete expression in Germany’s post-war economic and social policies. They worked. They helped forged a political consensus that has lasted more or less up to today. They were the foundations of the German “Economic Miracle” — the segue to what was to become the European Union.

The two Christian faith traditions on the island of Ireland — as in Germany — each bring something to the table of a united Ireland. The Protestant “work ethic”, including thrift and saving, are real and they are powerful — check out Germany’s “balanced budget” philosophy and its high savings ratio. These are taught to children in school. Catholic social teaching on equality, marriage and family and social solidarity is invested with great strength and grace.

These qualities are at the heart of the convictions of many Protestants, North and South. In the Republic, the distinguished journalist Bruce Arnold — a Church of Ireland man — has invested half a century of steely and principled political journalism with his Christian values.

In the absence of some kind of shared Christian Democratic movement, Protestants and Catholics are in real danger of being displaced by a politically oppressive, anti-Christian “Woke” tyranny which has weaponised “social justice” and “equality”. The Christian Gospel of equality and social justice rests, not on Marxist critical theory, but on love and service, exemplified in the universal parable of the Good Samaritan. The Sermon on the Mount offers a radically different and authentic vision of equality and social justice.

Christian Democracy — which embraces the best of the Protestant and Catholic traditions — has much to offer North and South, in the search for a shared identity and a fresh start.