Unionists should have nothing to do with Dublin’s new ‘shared island’ unit

The Taoiseach Micheal Martin yesterday launched his government’s ‘shared island’ unit.

The unit was part of a coalition deal between his party Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Greens.

Unionists have given far too little recognition to Mr Martin, who has been scathing about Sinn Fein for many years. He has been outspoken about the legacy of terrorism in ways that Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney never seemed to be. In fact the latter pair presided over one of the ‘greenest’ recent Irish governments.

It is sad that Fine Gael, the party that emerged out of opponents of the anti treaty extremists, a party that produced a man as thoughtful as John Bruton, has ended up taking positions such as (via Mr Coveney) telling NI to accept the Sinn Fein blackmail of an Irish language act (as we duly did) and in effect telling the UK to release the dissident Tony Taylor.

But Mr Martin is battling republicans within his own party, as well as Sinn Fein. The shared island unit is part of a bid to undercut SF. That might be logical, and even admirable. All the same, unionists should have nothing to do with it.

Irish generosity towards shared infrastructure is welcome in Belfast, as UK financial support to Ireland during the financial crisis was no doubt welcome in Dublin.

But there are always forces trying to dilute UK sovereignty. This was evident during the SF collapse, when Irish leaders made clear to London that there could be no direct rule.

Why could there not be? Such thinking means that either NI has to give SF a right to impose blackmail if it doesn’t get its way, or joint stewardship by Dublin if Stormont stays down.

That is an intolerable abuse of the Belfast Agreement, that the main Irish political parties in effect backed post 2017.

The Union has been badly damaged by both the reward for the 2017 SF Stormont collapse and by the Irish Sea Boris betrayal (after an open land border was seen as sacrosanct).

There are already multiple forums for cross border co-operation, and there is no need for another one.

As Peter Robinson writes opposite, unionists now need to focus heavily on defending the Union, politically and in terms of its image and history. Nationalists will certainly not be helping them in that, and they in turn should not give nationalists cover for the New Ireland or Shared Island strategies.

• Peter Robinson: Northern Ireland needs a pro Union group that will help prepare for any border poll

——— ———

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers — and consequently the revenue we receive — we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.

Subscribe to newsletter.co.uk and enjoy unlimited access to the best Northern Ireland and UK news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.newsletter.co.uk/subscriptions now to sign up.

Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Alistair Bushe

Editor