U and Non-U

The UUP seems to be filling the void left by the DUP, as the Unionist critic of the undemocratically enforced coalition in which it might participate, but has little clout. One would rather see the UUP than, say, the TUV fulfilling this very necessary role.

In fact, the UUP is not a million miles from the Parliamentary Labour Party that voted against the partition of the United Kingdom. From the Attlee Government’s first ever acceptance of the principle of consent with regard to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. From the Wilson Government’s deployment of British troops to protect Northern Ireland’s grateful Catholics precisely as British subjects. And from the Callaghan Government’s administration of Northern Ireland exactly as if it were any other part of the United Kingdom. Indeed, two UUP MPs voted to save the Callaghan Government (both the fact that they did so and the reason why are important) when both Irish Nationalists abstained.

The last integrationist MP to date elected specifically as such was the Labour-minded Robert McCartney, now a full-time campaigner for the grammar schools, another grand Old Labour cause against Thatcher. The British State is of continuing importance in protecting Northern Ireland’s Catholic interest against Protestant domination, whether under devolution pursuant to the Good Friday Agreement, or within such federal Irish structures as may ever be acceptable to a Dublin Establishment at once profoundly unconcerned about Northern Ireland’s Catholics and profoundly influenced by the theory of two nations with an equal right to self-determination.

And the Welfare State, workers’ rights, full employment, a strong Parliament, trade unions, co-operatives, credit unions, mutual guarantee societies, mutual building societies, and nationalised industries, often with the word “British” in their names, were historically successful in creating communities of interest between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, thus safeguarding and strengthening the Union.

How do we vote for such parliamentarians at this and subsequent General Elections? Certainly not by voting for almost any Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat candidate. Make alternative arrangements.