Unity

From Unity, 6 February 2010

If you can be bought . . .

by W. Owl

The pact between the Ulster Unionist Party and the British Tories brought more than a few chuckles from many people in this part of the world. It was as plain as the nose on your face that it was a clear-cut case of political opportunism from the UUP, that by supporting their natural allies, in the belief that they will form the next British government, some sort of reward will be forthcoming.
     Unfortunately for the UUP, their only sitting Westminster MP was so appalled at the pact that she is considering standing as an independent at the next election.
     As we now know, the recent secret gathering of the Tories, UUP and DUP has blown the whole thing apart, with three Northern Ireland Conservative Party members (two of them Catholics) withdrawing their nominations as prospective candidates because of the involvement of the DUP.
     This whole scenario of a pact with the Tories was the subject of Brian Feeney’s weekly column in the Irish News on 27 January, under the heading “Unionists now puppets in Cameron’s political game.”
     He started by quoting a speech made by Edward Carson a week after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921. He made this speech in the House of Lords, and Feeney points out that as a Lord Justice of Appeal he was actually breaking with convention by making a “political” speech, but such was his fury.
     He quotes part of the speech that went: “What a fool I was. I was only a puppet, and so was Ulster and so was Ireland, in the political game that was to get the Conservative Party into power . . .”
     Another part quoted was: “Of all the men in my experience that I think the most loathsome it is those who will sell their friends for the purpose of conciliating their enemies.”
     Feeney writes that the Treaty and the setting up of what he describes as the “wee Home Rule toyshop in the north” so outraged Carson he ended up by exclaiming, “What do I care?”
     Obviously, Carson believed that Ireland should have remained as a whole within the union, and so his rage was directed against the Tories and Unionists in Westminster who had spent the previous decade opposing home rule. Now there was an independent Irish Free State and the six counties of Northern n Ireland. “They sold Irish unionists down the Swanee,” writes Feeney.
     He then moves on to 1985 and asks the question, “Is it so long since 1985 that unionists forget [that] Lady Hacksaw, the most pro-union prime minster since Bonar Law, signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement enshrining a role for the Republic in the North’s affairs?”
     He also refers to the time that they kept John Major in office in the 1990s, who thanked them by “pushing on with the Downing Street Declaration and the Framework document that laid the foundations for the Good Friday Agreement.”
     “Yes,” he goes on, “over the years Unionist MPs did get some grubby crumbs like the odd new road or roundabout in their constituency or some dodgy planning permission, but they never managed to change British government policy.”
     He then quotes from Dessie Boal QC, “Paisley’s old sidekick,” who warned in the 1970s that “every time they walked away from the negotiating table there was less on it the next time they returned.”
     The Tories are obviously courting the DUP as if there is a need of them, as there might just be a hung parliament after the next election. As Feeney points out, they need one of the biggest swings in British electoral history to gain a working majority.
     It is no use attacking the DUP for grabbing at a deal, he writes. “Why wouldn’t they?”
     Well why wouldn’t they?
     We all know the DUP would do a deal with anybody—well, maybe not the Devil—to secure their sectarian aims.
     Of course the fact that the Tories invited the DUP to their little gathering has knocked their pact with the UUP sideways. The Ulster Conservatives and Unionists, New Force (UCUNF) now seems dead in the water.
     What happens, though, if the Tories do gain an overall majority? Where does that put the UUP and DUP? Again, what happens if Labour is returned?
     The role of the UUP and DUP raises the question of whether they are fit for purpose. After all, as someone said, “If you can be bought you can be sold.”

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