The Irish border question: can the Union survive?

‘Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold’, WB Yeats wrote a century ago. On the centenary of the partition of Ireland, are the poet’s words an apt metaphor for the future of the Union?

If the border between the North and South of Ireland has always been contentious, recent events – especially the consequences of Brexit – seem to have put further strain on the idea that Northern Ireland is firmly part of the UK. When Boris Johnson agreed to the Northern Ireland Protocol, under pressure to ‘get Brexit done’, it seems to have initiated a period of instability far beyond trade relations. If placing an economic border between Britain and Ireland down the Irish Sea was an attempt to placate Nationalist and EU concerns, in reality it means that Northern Ireland is now treated differently to the rest of the UK and remains, to some extent, under EU rules.

The reverberations of that decision have left unionists angry and in disarray claiming their Britishness has been undermined. Rank-and-file unionists feel abandoned and betrayed not only by Westminster but by their own leaders, too. Many former DUP voters have deserted the party, blaming it for a disastrous Brexit strategy and the ‘hated’ Protocol.

But is the Protocol the main cause of strains on the Union? Is Northern Ireland still (if it ever was) ‘as British as Finchley’, to quote Margaret Thatcher’s famous remark? If Unionists remain loyal to the UK, it isn’t clear that the feeling is mutual. According to a recent YouGov poll, Britons see themselves as having less in common with Northern Ireland and support the region holding a reunification referendum by 36 per cent to 25 per cent. Can the Union survive if increasing numbers of British people are disinterested in its fate, even seeing it as an inconvenience?

Some argue that the impact of Brexit and the Protocol disguise deeper problems with the Union. Irish political allegiances seem in turmoil and the whole question of the North-South border is back on the mainstream agenda. Peter Hain, a former Labour secretary of state for Northern Ireland, claims the movement towards a border poll is now ‘inexorable’. Two-thirds of people in Northern Ireland back holding a border poll, according to the Observer, even if a small majority support the status quo. The topsy-turvy atmosphere is reflected in an apparent collapse in support for the DUP, now trailing Sinn Fein by an unprecedented 12-point margin. Indeed, Sinn Fein is polling as the biggest party by a significant margin in both North and South.

Some argue that the Unionist community is in denial about changing realities. For example, if Unionists once objected to a united Ireland because the Republic was controlled by the Catholic Church, too socially conservative and too economically backward, this is hardly the reality in 2021. Meanwhile, if the practical reality of life under the Protocol means increased bureaucracy, supply shortages and an inability to trade, is being more closely aligned with the South really such a big issue, regardless of older political allegiances?

Do these developments make a united Ireland inevitable in the long term? Is it time for Unionists to accept a border poll as a democratic resolution and prepare their best arguments to save the Union? How should British citizens view the threat to the Union? If Lord Frost eventually tears up the Protocol, will that save the Union and resolve the border tensions? Or has the unravelling of the border become a fait accompli, based on the instability inherent in partition?