This is not an ‘Irish problem’

If only there were Orange marches in London, we might not be charging into an awful mess. A tragedy foretold might be averted if the colours of July 12 marched up Whitehall. The orange of the sash, the red of the face and the black of the soul.

The Conservative minority government’s pursuit of a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland is grave folly.

In the UK, nobody’s first thought is ever Ireland.

In British public and political life, the idea that it’s an “Irish problem” is ingrained. The place is an afterthought to our leaders.

If only we thought of it as a “British problem”. That is what it was and that is very much what it will be if this parliamentary deal goes ahead.

The Queen’s Speech shows how the big issues of the day pivot on Ireland. The first is Brexit. The bulk of what MPs have to consider in the next two years are measures to prepare the British state for being out of the EU.

This is a vast task – commentators refer to the Tory agenda being “culled” but it’s the Tories who want Brexit and this is a gargantuan workload.

What didn’t feature was any mention of Northern Ireland, much as it didn’t feature in the Brexit campaign.

The issue is that the UK will have a land border with the EU at the edge of the six counties in the north of Ireland.

This used to be “hard” border, with customs and security checks until the Good Friday Peace agreement removed the British Army and the watchtowers which loomed over crossing points. The new soft border exists only in law and cartography – you can speed along the M1 between Belfast and Dublin without noticing the change in nation.

The problem for Brexit is trade and immigration – if there are different rules either side of the border, there has to be an old-fashioned checkpoint.

The EU and the UK have recognised that solving the soft/hard border problem without undermining the Good Friday Peace Agreement is a big problem and have said they are open to some as yet unspecified solution.

The hope is to avoid reigniting the bonfire of hatred which killed 3,000 people over the preceding decades.

There is a second pressure on the stability of Britain’s Irish outpost.

For the Queen’s Speech to pass a Commons vote next week, it needs the support of the DUP.

For most of the 20th Century, Northern Ireland’s main party was the UUP – an archetypal conservative movement which liked things just as they were.

The DUP emerged from the Troubles that erupted in the late 1960s.

It was Northern Irish unionism with an aggressive agenda of protestant defence – it was No Surrender in physical form.

It opposed the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973 and memorably said of the peace-seeking Anglo-Irish agreement of 1985 “Ulster Says No”.

It campaigned against the Good Friday Peace deal when it was put to a popular referendum, having pulled out of the preliminary talks.

Central to that agreement, which most people would regard as a success given the problem to be overcome and the ragged history of previous deals, was the show subsection five of article 1 of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

“The power of the sovereign government with jurisdiction there shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all the people in the diversity of their identities and traditions and shall be founded on the principles of full respect for and equality of, civil, political, social and cultural rights, of freedom from discrimination for all citizens and of parity of esteem and of just and equal treatment for the identity, ethos and aspirations of both communities.”

A government reliant on the DUP to pass laws, not least laws which relate to Brexit and therefore to the future condition of the UK/Ireland land border, is clearly not one of “rigorous impartiality”.

The DUP is still haggling over its support deal with Theresa May.

Imagine when they start leaning on her on the basis of what’s being said in the Brexit negotiations.

This is a disaster of fatal proportions in the making.

England will see funeral marches as a consequence – if only they had thought of Ireland and the British problem first.

It was Northern Irish unionism with an aggressive agenda of defence

Picture: Getty Images. DUP leader Arlene Foster and MP Nigel Dodds arrive at 10 Downing Street for talks with Theresa May, a development that concerns Alex.