John Coulter: Highlighting benefits of the Union and Commonwealth could be key to undermining Irish unity calls

​One way this can be demonstrated is by taking the war of words to defend the Union right to the very heart of any nationalist or republican forums.

Unionism has not learned the strategic lesson from the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement when elected representatives refused to engage with Northern Ireland Office politicians as part of the Ulster Says No campaign.

Just because the “snub strategy” worked in 1974 by unionism against the power-sharing Sunningdale Executive, the unionist leadership assumed in 1985 that similar tactics of ignoring, walkouts and street protests would reduce the Hillsborough accord to the dustbin of history.

While that accord gave Dublin its first real say in the running of Northern Ireland since partition, the Irish and British governments learned their lessons from 1974.

Unionism has always relied on the strength of numbers and street protests. The sight of thousands of UDA members marching against Sunningdale in 1974 did not mean the estimated 250,000 unionists who packed the streets around Belfast City Hall for the inaugural monster rally against the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985 would produce similar results.

But those rallies did not stop Dublin establishing the Maryfield Secretariat near Belfast, staffing it with civil servants and discreetly extending their control of Northern Ireland.

In 2023, unionism faces the bitter reality that it is playing second fiddle to republicanism in terms of both Assembly and council seats.

Nationalism has set up a number of forums to develop the debate about what any future Irish unity might look like. Unionism is indulging in the usual tactic of “snub politics”, dogmatically refusing to engage in any such forums.

However, that only gives the totally false impression that unionism is afraid of such a debate. Instead, unionism should participate fully in such debates and forums to present the case for the Union.

Indeed, unionism should go on the argumentative offensive and present the case as to why the Occupied 26 Counties (known colloquially as the Irish Republic!) should rejoin not just the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), but also the British Commonwealth itself.

Southern Ireland may have almost milked the European Union cash cow dry, but if the EU eventually votes to allow Ukraine full membership, then a massive rebuilding programme will be needed to undo the tragedy of the Russian invasion.

In hard cash terms, southern Ireland will have to swallow the bitter financial medicine that it will have to become a major contributor to EU funding, not a lapdog receiver of EU cash.

Leinster House, even if there is a Sinn Fein-led government after the next Dail general election, needs to understand there is no British bail-out fund if the Celtic Tiger goes bust again.

The stumbling American president, Joe Biden, cannot be guaranteed a second term in the Oval Office after next year’s presidential poll. An American Republican Party president may not be as enthusiastic as Biden to pump millions of dollars into any covert Irish unity project.

Unionism needs to present links with the Commonwealth as a radical, workable alternative to Irish unity. Tactically, unionism must go on the propaganda offensive rather than be viewed as a run away, defensive ideology.

And like it or not, unionism must include loyalism in that propaganda offensive. There is the real danger that with the NI Protocol and Windsor Framework still in place, elements of loyalism (not associated with the drugs trade, racketeering or criminality) may decide on a return to street activity concluding that political unionism is incapable of combating the protocol.

As the UK’s famous wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill, once noted - it is better to jaw, jaw than war, war.

With Sunningdale slipping down the political tubes in 1974, and with political unionism not offering a workable alternative, the Irish government put forward proposals which amounted to joint authority under another name to break the logjam.

This prompted the UVF to set off no-warning car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan, murdering 30 people and leaving hundreds more wounded. Dublin quickly withdrew any proposals.

Given the advances in intelligence gathering by southern Ireland and the UK’s MI5 and MI6, the chances of existing loyalist terror gangs inflicting such carnage in the Republic are unrealistic, if not impossible.

Unionism and loyalism should only indulge in a war of words, selling the benefits not just of the Union within the UK, but also the merits of the CPA.

The CPA was formed in 1911 as the Empire Parliamentary Association, with Ireland - then an integral part of the United Kingdom - as one of its founder members.

Renamed in the late 1940s as the CPA, it now represents some 50-plus national and regional parliaments across the globe and is certainly a radical world power bloc alternative to the EU.

The key question still remains - do unionism and loyalism have the political will to undermine Irish unity with a strongly pro-active campaign for the Commonwealth?

Dr John Coulter has been a journalist since 1978, including with this newspaper.