Duncan Morrow Shared future is only way forward if we want to avoid return to bloody past
The most persistent legacy of conflict in Northern Ireland might just be that so few believe that violence offers any way through our difficulties. We have to hope at least. Anyone wishing Northern Ireland well in its dream of a shared future has to look hard for another hope. For now we have an eerie calm.
Beneath the surface, three separate dangerous viruses are interacting in this body politic at the same time: constitutional uncertainty, sectarian polarisation and loss of confidence in the system. And that doesn’t count legacy. Brexit is the most obviously deadly.
There are two things you should avoid in a divided society with a fragile peace: unilateralism and uncertainty. Brexit gave Northern Ireland both — a decision of the UK which, intentionally or not, jolted the hyper-delicate balance around sovereignty on which the legitimacy of the peace project relies, but a decision where the consequences are guesswork.
Everything in the Agreement depends on Northern Ireland being British enough, Irish enough and unique enough to bring in deeply suspicious partners.
The architecture of Good Friday was justified because only intricate design could suggest a sustainable outcome, and no angels-on-the-heads-of-a-pin argument about what clause has been broken takes away from the conclusion that hard-Brexit Britain will destroy its core relationship, its backstop and its viability.
Brexit has become a signal from the Conservative Party for the Agreement’s most reluctant participants to return to ancient polarities — as if they have not been tried and failed before.
Even if we halt before the cliffedge, the last two years have done immeasurable damage to that most elusive yet essential element of peace: trust.
Gone are the days of Blair, Ahern and celebratory state visits. The potentially disastrous element is the new approach of the British Government. Technically committed to the Agreement, the hard-Brexit cheerleaders have increasingly realised that Ireland’s open borders are incompatible with their version of ‘taking back control’, while the alliance between the DUP and the Conservatives at Westminster has rendered the claim of a British Government to neutrality in Northern Ireland implausible.
Meanwhile Sinn Fein, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, have deserted Northern Ireland to prioritise a united Ireland, although it is unclear how total polarisation could be avoided.
Brexit ‘negotiations’ have become an exercise in brinksmanship and tactics in which governments declare their commitment to uphold the Agreement ‘in all of its aspects’, but the relationships which alone guarantee it in even a few are dissolved.
On the way, things have been said and kites have been flown which deliberately test the limits of partnership anddo long-term damage whose consequences will last long past Brexit day. Northern Ireland with its shared demography and location away from capitals has become a concept which has lost its utility, a pawn to be sacrificed in a game of chess.
The damage of Brexit to Northern Ireland has been made more virulent by its interaction with two other infections — sectarianism and corruption.
Sectarianism never left our bloodstream: a chronic and energy-sapping illness which neither Sinn Fein nor the DUP showed much interest in curing in their power-sharing years. But the recent deterioration in relationships has been ominously swift and bitter.
The two elections of 2017 were not so much exercises in enthusiasm for DUP and Sinn Fein, as expressions of fear and loathing at the opposition. But the consequences of unleashing loathing are potentially lethal for power-sharing.
Now Brexit and sectarianism have been complicated by another sickness. As the inquiry into the Renewable Heating Initiative has ground on, an examination into over-spending has become an expose of abuse of office, revealing weak Civil Service ethics and political malpractice in a system without opposition.
Each day, the Northern Irish system is revealed as defenceless against unaccountable party cliques. Had the Assembly survived, it is uncertain how much of this would have become public. Meanwhile the House of Commons report on Ian Paisley’s breach of standards has compounded the general sense of corruption — discounted by an electorate convicted of the sectarian need to protect ‘our own’, lest ‘they’ profit from ‘our’ weakness.
For 600+ days Northern Ireland has had no effective government. Both Brexit and corruption are now largely projected through the rhetoric of sectarianism. Public respect for political institutions and belief in change has descended into cynicism and a fatalism that sectarian preferences take priority over ethics.
Meanwhile, the key British-Irish relationship approaches breaking point, the relationship between local political leaders has deteriorated and neither the DUP nor Sinn Fein make much serious effort to pretend that they are bought into a shared future, except on unacceptably exclusive terms. Unable to move anywhere, the whole system has come to a halt for fear that one false breath could bring the house of cards down, exemplified by vacuous statements from the Secretary of State.
In 1969 Northern Ireland descended into carnage. It took 30 years to extricate ourselves from the resulting cycle of revenge and bitterness. ‘Taking back control’ in 1998 looked like accommodation, engagement and pluralism. A forward-looking region was an outward-looking region, shaped by engagement with different others. A special region requiring a special solution, it was and remains a question of making a shared future or enduring a scared future. But the silence is eerie and it feels like the hand of history is moving.