It’s time for Northern politicians to wise up

For decades Northern Irish politicians have become used to others solving their problems, writes Brendan O’Connor

IS it time for Northern Ireland to move on from its learned helplessness? When we hardly bat an eyelid at the fact that Boris Johnson’s proposed Brexit deal centres around consent voted on by a non-existent government, then you have to think there are issues around what is considered normal in Northern Ireland.

Indeed, when you think objectively about the fact that Europe, the UK and Ireland have been convulsed for a few years now, based largely on the fate of one country, and the fact that that country’s government is non-existent, it makes the whole thing even weirder.

Here we all are, dancing as fast as we can, and turning somersaults to try to facilitate Northern Ireland, and Northern Ireland’s politicians do not see fit to make their government exist. The majority of Northern politicians seem happy enough to sit back and let everyone else try to figure out how to make everything OK for them. They act almost as if it is nothing to do with them, apart from when they deign to turn up here and there and carp about what a raw deal they are getting and how everyone else is ruining their lives again.

When Boris Johnson returned to the UK parliament last Thursday to discuss his proposed deal, at what you would have thought was possibly a hugely critical time for NI politicians and for the future of their country, do you know how many politicians there were in the chamber who represented Northern Ireland? One. Sylvia Hermon, independent unionist and a woman who has recently seemed at times to be one of the sanest people in the Commons. Hermon has been a loud and consistent voice in Commons through the recent mad drama in that house, reminding them all of the realities of life in Northern Ireland.

We know why Sinn Fein weren’t there of course. Sinn Fein have complex principled and ideological reasons for their abstention. The same as they have complex principled and ideological reasons for their refusal to participate in their own democratic outlet in Northern Ireland. And you could argue that the DUP didn’t need to be heard in parliament, because their voice was loud enough last week anyway. Indeed, you would be tempted to think right now that the DUP represented the majority of people in the North, which Hermon, last week, was at pains to point out is not the case. Somehow, by default, in democratic institutions at least, Arlene Foster speaks for the North, because no one else does. The DUP chooses to participate in democracy and thus are reaping the rewards, for now anyway.

Meanwhile, we in the South use up our own capital on behalf of Northern politicians. Our leaders make Brexit and the fate of Northern Ireland their top priority. Most pressing political issues in this Republic are shoved aside in favour of an obsession with sorting out a Brexit deal which will suit the North. Even the Budget is almost a peripheral issue this year.

And be assured we are using up capital. We know that our European friends will stand by us to the bitter end, or as long as it suits them, but to think that we won’t pay for this favour at some stage would be naive.

The Telegraph may not have been right when they thundered midweek that Leo Varadkar was now the problem, the only one standing in the way of a Brexit deal, but equally, when you become the face of a problem, it can erode your welcome, and people can eventually start tiring of you.

You can certainly understand why people in Britain might start to tire of us. To your average Joe Punter, it must seem that every time Brexit can’t just ‘get done’, it is Varadkar’s face they see blocking it.

Let’s get over for a minute the fact Johnson seems mad, bad and dangerous, and let’s get over fighting our own corner, and let’s try to look objectively at how the conversation on Brexit and NI is zeroing in. What is becoming clearer and clearer is that when we, and our proxy the EU, say to Johnson that we are all ears about alternative arrangements, the reality is that what we really mean is that we will take any alternative arrangements as long as they have exactly the same outcome as the backstop. So in effect, we are not negotiating. We are saying we will, in reality, only accept the backstop. Because the only approach that would have exactly the same outcome as the backstop would be the backstop. We’re maybe not saying this in so many words, but it is becoming clearer all the time. We will put up borders rather than countenance any alternative to the backstop unless that alternative is the backstop.

What that means, in reality, is that we basically will not accept NI leaving the EU. We say to Johnson that we will not tolerate any borders and checks between Ireland North and South, while also warning that the EU will protect its frontiers, that there needs to be a border between the EU and the UK. You can’t have a border but you have to have a border. In other words, we will not allow Northern Ireland to leave the EU, because that is the only realistic way that these conflicting demands can be met.

And Leo Varadkar is now admitting that he sees a United Ireland as being one of the more acceptable ways of getting over this hump. A United Ireland, while being an aspiration for many, is a hugely complex issue that most sensible people will tell you we are not ready for on this island, certainly not without a lot more discussion on what it would look like. But again, all of those concerns must be subsumed to the only issue that matters: making Brexit OK for the non-existent democracy of Northern Ireland.

Indeed, suggesting we jump into a United Ireland, whatever that is, because we won’t accept any other solution to the Brexit issue, is a bit like a country running off and having a nebulous vote to ‘do’ Brexit, with no clear idea of what it is, apart from the fact that Brexit means Brexit.

None of this is to be unpatriotic, God forbid, but it is to point out that in the absence of a government in Northern Ireland, our Government has become the face of this problem, the face of the paradoxical demands involved in keeping the status quo in Northern Ireland, if and when Brexit happens.

This issue has been likened to a messy divorce, with two adults fighting over the children. And that is an apt metaphor when you think about how the learned helplessness of Northern Ireland politics has infantilised democracy there and its political class.

Of course we are all hugely grateful for the end to violence. But it hasn’t meant an end to dysfunction in the North. And one of those dysfunctions has been that politicians in the North are a little bit used to everyone else being obsessed with their problems, and solving them for them.

They are, perhaps, somewhat addicted to Bill Clinton and co sorting things out for them, and praising them for going along with the solutions. At this stage they feel it is their due, that everyone, and especially the Government down here, should give full attention to their issues at all times.

And a certain preciousness comes along with this, whereby Northern politicians are picky about who they will do their democracy with.

They still haven’t quite got the gist of the fact that you sometimes need to do politics with people you don’t like, don’t approve of and don’t agree with. That’s the art of politics.

But then, why would the parties in the North bother involving themselves in the messiness of grown-up politics when they have our Government and to an extent the UK government to do it for them?

It’s democracy for slow learners alright, but you wonder who the slow learners are.

‘Arlene Foster speaks for the North, because no one else does’