Simply British

Paul Bew is one of the striking number of old sectarian Leftists who are now Crossbench Peers, and a Henry Jackson Society signatory. But never mind, he writes:

So is it business as usual in Ulster politics? Not quite. The DUP visibly fears the prospect of a Cameron predominance in British politics to the point of actually demonstrating against him on his visit to Ballymena. The party privately hopes that somehow New Labour will survive and leave the tramlines of local politics — the protracted fractious community psychotherapy process at Stormont — undisturbed.

Increasingly, the DUP makes it clear that they do not want to see Sinn Fein have to face any possible inconvenience or challenge arising from a conservative victory and, therefore, from an alleged London partiality for any local faction in the province. But the status quo in Northern Ireland means a cocooned political class in Stormont — underwritten ad infinitum by the British taxpayer, the great unsung hero of the Troubles, and playing no role in shaping, or being shaped by, the wider UK debate on public policy.

This already feels like a somewhat nostalgic vision. But there are strong local interests involved in maintaining it. It is, however, now bound to be challenged, because Northern Ireland is, after all, part of the United Kingdom.

Any incoming Cameron government requires the stability of the Agreement and its devolved institutions, but it needs to be able to move on from it in certain respects. The prospects are reasonable. Since the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, Irish nationalism has been addicted to the idea that it could progress by doing deals with London which could then be imposed on local unionists. David Cameron has emotionally distanced himself from that part of the Thatcher legacy. Nationalists, as a result, will be compelled to return to the position famously endorsed by Eamon de Valera in the Irish Senate debate of 1939, that of seeking an accommodation with unionists rather than decisive British intervention against them.

The removal of the spectre of an imposed Anglo-Irish Joint Authority, which is effectively what Cameron has done, means that the local parties have no choice but to work within the existing devolved compromise. But it also means that there will be no excuse for a Little Ulsterist failure to engage in the wider public debates of the Westminster parliament.