Eoghan Harris: Jeffrey Donaldson and the DUP deserve the thanks of Irish democrats

Alternatively, if an election is called, Donaldson will get an enhanced mandate from Survival Unionists, whose morale he has lifted over the past eight months by persisting with the platform on which the DUP was elected, and not buckling under a storm of abuse from the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

By Survival Unionists, I mean unionists determined to resist Sinn Fein’s 24-year campaign, starting as soon as the GFA was passed, and passively endorsed by the UK, to erode the status of unionism, as a prelude to some kind of joint authority.

Donaldson's defiant stance is actually far more important than the Protocol issue itself because it marks a major blowback by unionism against the passivity of London, the aggressiveness of Dublin, and the determination of the mass media to demonise the DUP. Let me take these three actors in turn.

First, the UK. For the past 24 years, the policy of successive UK governments towards unionism can be summed up in William Wordsworth’s line: "Greetings where no kindness is meant." Britain has been a reluctant sovereign, a roi faineant, as medievalists would call it, lacking the will to defend the Union, or defend those who defend it.

In any crisis, one UK foot is always on the Sinn Fein accelerator, the other on the unionist brake. This culminated in Boris Johnson throwing the DUP under a Dublin bus by agreeing the Protocol, so he could call and win an election in 2019.

Second, Dublin showed a shameful willingness to betray the GFA's principle of parity of esteem by weaponising the GFA, enrolling it the Brexit battle of the backstop, and mobilising the EU and Washington in a campaign it knew would eventually undermine the status of unionism.

Stephen Collins’s recent book, ‘Ireland’s Call, Navigating the Backstop’ reveals how DFA ( Department of Foreign Affairs) officials took advantage of Boris Johnson’s lack of interest in detail to bounce him into the Protocol.

Basically, Dublin did a deal with the Brits to shaft Northern Irish unionists, whom we treated as outsiders, rather than Irish people with whom we claim to seek unity, and to whom, under the GFA, we owed a political duty of care. Yes, it was a great stroke for Dublin and the DFA - if the object was to build distrust and disunion.

Finally, the British and Irish media present the DUP as a pariah party. In a brazen inversion of reality, the BBC, Guardian and Irish Times continually project Sinn Fein's narrow nationalism as a woke progressive universalism, whereas the DUP is presented as a dinosaur of introverted localism.

The most recent proof the BBC has swallowed the Sinn Fein playbook came last week when a Today reporter, clearly astonished by Donaldson’s “yes” to a question about whether he would work with a Sinn Fein First Minister, repeated the question.

Against that background of British and Irish betrayal, Donaldson’s hard line on the Protocol was also a symbolical hard line against Sinn Fein’s 24-year campaign to subvert unionist status which recently produced two chilling revelations.

First, Michelle O’Neill’s “no alternative” of August 2022, aimed at packaging all IRA atrocities into a single emollient entity: the just war. Second, the LucidTalk poll confirming that a majority of northern nationalists had fully adjusted their moral system by doubling down on their delinquent vote for Sinn Fein, a party which condones the Provo murder campaign.

Behind these chilling endorsements of a campaign that I believe was sectarian, lies a long litany of Sinn Fein erosions of unionist status, stretching from the strategic to the spiteful. Here's a small sample:

- the IRA’s erosion of early GFA hopes by delaying decommissioning;

- Sinn Fein collapsing the Executive, allegedly due to ‘cash for ash’ then changing the reason to an Irish Language Act;

- The Legacy scandal and the weakness of the UK Government in the face of the shameless application of lawfare by republicans;

- Twenty years of mainstream media in NI (BBC NI, Belfast Telegraph and Irish News) harping on about 'collusion' and the 'dirty war';

- Revelation of ‘on the run’ letters ensuring non-prosecution of Provos;

- The relentless pursuit of Army and RUC members over unlawful killing while not manning up to IRA atrocities;

- Proliferating victim lobbies and NGOs, beloved of nationalists, like the Finucane Centre, Relatives for Justice and CAJ. All largely focus on state forces and overlook republican paramilitaries, the biggest killing force during the Troubles. All are treated with uncritical deference by BBC NI and the NIO;

- QUB and Ulster University legal academics who treat NI as akin to Pinochet’s Chile;

- Elimination of UK statutory flag days, particularly City Hall’s union flag;

- Petty insults to the unionist heritage. Although Arlene Foster stood for the Republic of Ireland's national anthem at a GAA game, Sinn Fein minister Caral NI Chuilin did not take her seat at Windsor Park for NI v Faroe Islands until after God Save The Queen;

- Spiteful nationalist behaviour around the NI Centennial celebrations which even prevented the planting of a tree at Stormont.

By standing firm against the Protocol, Jeffrey Donaldson is also symbolically standing firm against Sinn Fein’s subversion of the GFA, a stand of crucial importance to all democrats on the island of Ireland.