The following article by W. Owl was first published in Unity, the weekly paper of the Irish Communist Party.
LAST week a conference took place in Belfast with the main issue being Irish Unity. The parties present were Sinn Fein and the SDLP from the North plus Fine Gael and Fianna Fail from the Republic. Also present were representatives from the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru. All have things in common their fervent support for the European Union (EU) and in some cases their wish to end the political entity known as the United Kingdom.
The report on the conference appeared in the Irish News (26.06.26) and obviously dealt with the main topic of unity. However, there was nothing about what a united Ireland would look like and even less on how it would be achieved. There was more mention of Reform UK. In fact, throughout the article written by David Young there were up to 15 references from participants to Reform UK and a couple to English nationalism and of course Brexit.
The headline of his piece gave the game away: Reform-led government that seeks to double down on Brexit could be accelerated towards Irish Unity. This was in relation to comments by Leo Varadkar. One would have thought that the best way to achieve reunification would be by winning people as to the benefits of such a process then hoping for a Farage led government in Britain. That kind of argument smacks of a lack of confidence. Varadkar also repeated, for the umpteenth time, that Brexit was an "accelerator" for change.
Interesting then that an article appeared in the Irish Times (?.06.26) under the heading Why did economists get Brexit's impact on Ireland so wrong? We are constantly told by the EU supporters that Brexit has been a disaster for Britain. The author of the article wrote that experts queued up to state that Ireland would be hit harder than the UK after Brexit. But over the last 10 years trade with the UK has risen steadily with exports from the Republic more than double from just under €11 billion at the time of Brexit to €24.5 billion last year. Food and drink exports were €6.7 billion last year, a record, almost three times their value before the 2016 referendum. Similarly trade between the Republic and the north has also reached record levels.
The conference came at a time when Fine Gael's Simon Harris claimed they had a "blueprint" for a united Ireland. Pat Leahy writing in the Irish Times said that it was not that long ago that Harris said that a united Ireland was not a priority for him. He also wrote the "blueprint" was nonsense pointing out that repeated surveys suggest that only one and two percent of voters regarded the issue as a priority whilst the rest, about two-thirds, are vaguely in favour "as long as the do not have to do anything that might actually bring it about".
Patrick Murphy writing in the Irish News asked: Why Fine Gail have suddenly discovered a love of Irish Unity?" (27.06.26) He started off his piece by stating that a united Ireland used to be a common nationalist aspiration. Now it has become a competition between nationalist parties to see which of them can promise the best way to achieve it. As regards Fine Gael, he points out that they are the political descendants of those who fought the civil war in defence of partition. He writes that Harris's claims that their blueprint will be ready for its congress is ridiculous. Sinn Fein has yet to offer a plan for Irish Unity although they repeatedly state that we need one instead they claim that everyone is "having a conversation" about Irish Unity.
He writes that this sounds equally ridiculous as the party appears unclear as to how talking (if it exist) can be transformed into action. As regard Fianna Fail, he writes that they believe that unity can be achieved by throwing money at it and whilst some of it has made a valuable contribution, he is critical of the Narrow Bridge Water project thinking that the money could be better spent elsewhere as could the £600 million on the A5 upgrade. The SDLP used to have a New Ireland Commission "but that never came to much."
Finally there is Irelands Future (formed in 2017) which has held over 24 giant rallies where everyone agreed that a united Ireland was a great idea, but Murphy believes that their events produce more heat than fight on the way ahead.
The talk of the possible election of a Reform UK government as being an "accelerator" for unity is an insult to the intelligence of those who matter most-the people! They being the ones who will or will not make it happen.