Peter Robinson: Bertie Ahern should be assured that East Belfast has good grasp of the Northern Ireland protocol

If it looks, swims and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck.

If there’s smoke, then there’s a fire, life is black and white, no grey, no tone, no shade and certainly no complexity.

I have known many who reach conclusions based on this style of abductive reasoning.

They come to conclusions constructed from their observations no matter how limited – sometimes they might get it right sometimes they do not.

Often they get it wrong when they mistake their own prejudice as being of greater value than their observations.

When I read the recent headlines about a southern politico referring to the ghetto-dwelling loyalists of East Belfast who he thought too stupid to understand the benefit and generosity of the EU’s protocol, a picture of Simon Coveney and Leo Varadkar flashed in my mind’s eye.

But no, the incendiary remarks came from someone I know, like and respect.

Bertie Ahern is not a unionist-hater nor is he someone who doesn’t try to understand other peoples’ views.

I have shared many platforms with him and attended many meetings mostly about peace, reconciliation, and conflict resolution. So, you can imagine my surprise at this unBertie-like outburst.

While I have read much in the media and heard even more from disgruntled unionists it appears their complaints fall into several strands.

How did Bertie manage to offend so many people all at the same time?

There are those who, unsurprisingly, took exception to being characterised as the inhabitants of a ghetto.

It would be an entirely unfair representation of East Belfast and someone from Dublin Central should be slow to throw stones at the housing, living conditions and facilities in East Belfast.

Bertie once described his own former constituency as having “the highest deprivation under every category that was listed” so I doubt if this was the thrust or purpose of his attack.

Other unionists were angry at what they saw as a strain of racism in his declaration, others defined them as sectarian.

Unionists and loyalist interpreted his comments as saying they were, as a race or people, stupid.

It was his assertion that people in the East Belfast ghettos “haven’t got a clue about the protocol, not a clue” he said, adding “even those you might consider to be a bit more intelligent and articulate”.

It is hard not to accept that these comments amount to an claim that those who oppose the protocol are less intelligent and less informed than those who support the protocol. Whether the attestation stretches to racism and/or sectarianism is less certain.

But here is the core of the issue. There is a dangerous belief that those who hold different views or reach different conclusions about the impact of a set of proposals are less intelligent or less capable of understanding the content of those proposals.

Does anyone really believe that those in East Belfast who oppose the protocol are less capable of assessing the protocol and less intelligent than Bertie’s friends in Dublin Central who support the protocol?

Those who oppose the protocol understand the High Court ruling that the protocol is incompatible with Article 6 of the Acts of Union.