The Union: Fighting And Winning On Two Fronts

A united Ireland would be bad for Sinn Fein. What would be the point of it? A few people would still insist that the state was illegitimate. But nobody would vote for them.

By contrast, a party of fundamentalist Protestant social policy, working-class populist economic policy, and the Scots-Irish heritage industry could do quite well. It would have no trouble forming alliances with the forces of traditional Catholic social policy, working-class populist economic policy, and the Gaelic-Irish heritage industry.

However, there is a case for the Union to be made among Ulster Catholics. Seriously Catholic Cabinet Ministers are completely unimaginable in the Irish Republic, but routine in the United Kingdom. The same is true of Catholic public intellectuals. There are intellectuals in the Irish Republic, but only ever anti-Catholic ones devoted to the memory of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. Catholic intellectual life, including at school level, is far safer in the United Kingdom.

That life at school level is the glory of all glories so far as most Catholics are concerned. Not least on that basis, one orthodox (and thus pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker and anti-war) Catholic in favour of the Union should contest each Assembly seat next time. That election being by STV for multimember constituencies, at least half of them, and probably all, would be elected.

And then there are the traditional Catholics in the United States. Sinn Fein and the IRA are a Marxist guerrilla attempt to overthrow a traditional Catholic culture and society. Such Americans are the first to demand that such attempts be opposed vigorously elsewhere, and not least in Colombia, where the anti-Catholic Marxist guerrillas have close links to those in Ireland. Those Americans must be confronted with the facts.

On these two fronts, the battle for the Union can be fought and won.