Abortion stance shows DUP sees itself as wedded to a Britain that no longer exists
PUCE in the face, fingers jabbing the air, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) shared its world view in Westminster this week. True to form, its members laid down the law in bluntspeak – no surrender to the disgusting liberal agenda.
Even as they squawked from inside their time warp, before the bemused eyes of MPs unaccustomed to hardline DUP ideology, the party’s MPs continued insisting they were 100pc British. Subtext: we’re just like you except we’re decent folk and you lot have no standards.
But the Britain which the party sees itself belonging to no longer exists, as the House of Commons argy bargy over Northern Ireland’s archaic abortion laws makes plain.
That Britain began vanishing in the years following the end of World War II. Maybe the DUP needs to start campaigning for England, Scotland and Wales to coalesce with Northern Ireland, rather than the other way round.
The party is wedded to an image of Britain in its imperial heyday which few people living there today would recognise.
DUP stalwart Sammy Wilson, quivering with indignation at a move to reform the North’s highly restrictive abortion regime, must have seemed like an anachronism sprung to life.
But for the veto his party holds to block progress, it was almost a joy watching him brandish Northern Ireland as a beacon of civilisation in a world busy going to the dogs. That’s the same corner of the globe operating under a democratic hiatus for the past 18 months, give or take a few weeks.
But consistency is only for the little people. A convenient attitude which left Sammy free to spout unverifiable statistics about the “100,000” people alive today because UK abortion legislation was never applied in the North.
That anomaly is why women are taking illegal pills bought online, like women in the Republic, or catching flights to clinics in Britain. And it’s why protests are happening as the Northern populace sees itself excluded from healthcare choices.
Most British observers would have recoiled from Sammy’s graphic rant, not having seen him before in full huff-and-puff mode.
The East Antrim MP may do a British bulldog impression, but his views are as British as a hotdog. He’s no Brit to people born on what his party likes to think of as “the mainland”. On the abortion question, the party is out of step with both British public opinion and the establishment.
Does that realisation ever give the DUP a shiver of doubt about how authentic their Britishness is? If it does, members would gnaw off their own arms before admitting it.
Ironically, the party wants women living in Northern Ireland restricted to fewer rights than women have in Britain. That’s how British its version of Northern Ireland is.
So, not identical after all, despite the DUP’s sometimes hysterical insistence on its Union Jack DNA.
If it wasn’t so serious it would be hilarious to watch the party, in full betray-us-if-youdare mode, insist those dastardly British had better not take the appalling step of imposing British laws on the North.
Abortion might pass muster with “them ungodly folk” over there but it won’t be tolerated in the Wee Six.
Consistency isn’t the party’s strong point. The DUP, which does a good line in outrage, is aghast at the idea of Northern Ireland being treated any differently to the rest of the UK post-Brexit.
Special customs arrangements that take account of the land Border with the Republic? Wash your mouth out with soap for even suggesting it. But it’s determined to maintain laws on abortion and same-sex marriage that deviate from Britain’s.
And yes, we all know certain areas of legislation have been devolved to the regional parliaments, but the presumption is that those assemblies will actually sit.
Shrieking about something being a devolved matter while refusing to reconstitute Stormont to deal with it (DUP speak for “that would be an ecumenical matter”) is an undemocratic manoeuvre.
Stella Creasy, the English Labour MP attempting to drive forward abortion reform, is as passionate as Sammy on the subject.
Only one of them has Northern Irishwomen’s best interests at heart, however. Clue: it’s not him.
She has cross-party support and is hoping to force a vote in Westminster that will have a knock-on effect on Northern Ireland’s Victorian-era abortion laws. But Theresa May’s reliance on the DUP makes her highly motivated to resist a Commons vote. Not least because losing it would force the prime minister into a general election.
On Thursday, Britain’s Supreme Court ruled Northern Ireland’s abortion regime – which prevents women from ending pregnancies in the case of fatal foetal abnormality or sex crimes, for example – is not compatible with human rights law. However, the court also found the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission had no legal standing to challenge the legislation.
Northern Secretary Karen Bradley responded by claiming the judges’ comments about legal incompatibility would be clearly heard by Westminster and Northern Irish politicians. This pays lip service to the issue without making any commitment to take concrete action.
Special customs arrangements that take account of the land Border with the Republic? Wash your mouth out with soap for even suggesting it. But the DUP is determined to keeps laws on abortion and same-sex marriage that deviate from Britain’s
No one can now doubt the Tories’ willingness to compromise on social policy if that’s what the DUP wants – and it does.
Clearly it’s embarrassing for the Tories but the cabinet has had to swallow rather a lot of humiliation since attempting to strike a deal on Brexit with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier.
What’s another red face here or there?
THE cunning plan is to hope the abortion anomaly might simply vanish in a puff of smoke. But, as my granny used to say, if wishes were horses then beggars would ride. It’s in Labour’s interests to keep stirring this pot.
And what of the estimated three women a day who travel to Britain for abortions? Plus the ones who risk their health, along with a police caution or suspended sentence from the courts, by buying pills online?
Why are their rights surrendered to the DUP’s Neanderthal policies and the Tories’ thirst for power?
Socially conservative the North’s electorate may be, but like its southern equivalent it has evolved more quickly than the political class.
Finally, it’s disappointing to see how little part in this debate is played by Sinn Féin, stuck on the sidelines with no Stormont and an abstentionist Westminster policy.
First with Brexit, now with abortion, the arguments for refusing to take its seats in the Commons grow weaker day by day.