Fool or knave? Or both? This weekend Gerry Adams resembles a smoking, shell-shocked Wile E. Coyote from the Road Runner cartoon, as the full implications of his polarisation strategy for politics in the North have become apparent. He has snatched a major defeat from the jaws of his March Assembly election “victory” – entirely by his own misjudgement. He has handed the DUP a political status and importance that it has never enjoyed until now – that of recognised kingmaker at Westminster. He has thrown away his near-parity with the DUP vote in the Assembly elections (where each party had approximately 28% of the vote) and has instead left the DUP an open goal of a sectarian head count which has brought DUP support closer to 40%.
All of this was accomplished by his absurd demand for a border poll in the wake of the Brexit referendum – a demand which put it up to the unionist community to unite under the DUP banner for a resounding rejection of Adam’s silly and futile pursuit of an early referendum on Irish unity.
How crass and cack-handed could any politician be? How much further from being a statesman could Adams be? Admittedly Nicola Sturgeon made a strategic error in her demand for a second referendum on Scottish independence in the wake of Brexit. But at least she had the excuse of being over-optimistic.
Adams by contrast must have been aware that any early border poll would produce a defeat of 2-1 or 3-1 proportions. That didn’t bother him. His immediate goal was simply to polarise Northern politics so as to extinguish the middle ground – the only fertile ground for Orange-Green reconciliation.
The DUP now stands poised to extract and deliver extra concessions and resources from May’s “Conservative and Unionist” Party at Westminster. The DUP can now veto any future customs controls on the Irish Sea. The DUP, if it is true to its manifesto, seeks a “friction-free border” between North and South and a special deal for Northern agriculture. Delivery on the foregoing will be their achievement – not Sinn Féin’s.
The DUP now claims that it will veto any “special status” for NI post Brexit. This position will disappoint many people. But in reality the term “special status” is merely a label. An open border with free movement of goods amounts to a form of special status however it is described. Guarantees for Northern farmers also amounts to a form of “special status” unless the guarantees are extended to all UK farmers. The entitlement of all in the North to EU citizenship is also a “special status”. The DUP rejection of “special status” is really to be understood as a demand that the North should not in any political sense remain part of the EU.
As regards restoration of the power-sharing Executive, Sinn Féin now faces an unpleasant choice – a humiliating climbdown to re-enter power-sharing under Arlene Foster as First Minister or indefinite direct rule by a DUP/Tory alliance at Westminster.
We should not forget that there is now no nationalist voice in Westminster and no forum for nationalist voices in Stormont – Sinn Fein has taken representation of nationalist and republican voters out of every UK electoral assembly. By stealth it has recreated total abstensionism except in Dail Éireann.
Responsibility for this state of affairs is largely , but not exclusively, that of Adams. Nationalist voters who fell for his appeal for a tribal head-count also share the blame. Three extra Sinn Fein seats in Westminster are useless except as a further step in Adams’ “dog in the manger” policy for scorched earth on the middle ground. It will, of course, also be a “handy little earner” of Westminster expenses in the coffers of a party secretly controlled by the boys of the Belfast Brigade.
This malign scenario is entirely the creation of Gerry Adams. And while some might think that perpetual turmoil or crisis in the political life of Northern Ireland is his preferred political milieu, the reality is that, like Wile E. Coyote, the political dynamite has detonated under him. For all his clever planning.
Rather than smugly remind you that I warned here in April of the political disaster with which Theresa May was playing when she signalled her snap election or that I foretold her horrendous reverse and the reasons for it in this column last Sunday, I prefer to underline now the implications for Ireland of the weak position that she has carved out for the UK-EU Brexit negotiations which will start in the coming weeks.
Has May’s weakness emboldened the hard Brexiteers or the soft Remainers in the Tory party? Does an alliance with the DUP bring Ireland (or at least Northern Ireland) “up the agenda” in those negotiations? Has Dublin a viable, revised strategy to cope with this new situation? Does Merrion Street or Iveagh House have a robust working relationship with the DUP which can now be used to advance shared interests in both parts of this island? That is something for which we must earnestly hope, even in the absence of evidence.
As I wrote here last week Corbyn has managed to shipwreck Theresa May on the political rocks of her policies of fear and negativity. Her leaden campaign gives the impression that it might have been masterminded by Fine Gael’s strategists who dreamt up “Let’s keep the recovery going”. Perhaps it was. Such smug complacency is always a challenge to the patience of any electorate.
Finally there is the question of the impact of this electoral debacle on the UK’s negotiating strength and strategy in the forthcoming negotiations.
DUP ambitions for a free trade relationship with the UK are easy to voice but difficult to describe and even more difficult to achieve. To negotiate an outcome which preserves the strength of the Good Friday Agreement may be difficult. In the end, our EU partners may have to “handcuff” some or all of the Brexit deal to the full maintenance and implementation of the Good Friday Agreement thereby preventing the DUP from cherrypicking among its terms in the interest of their more hardline voters.
Our diplomats and ministers will need to practice a new and innovative “variable geometry” if they are to succeed. Leo Varadkar now has to assemble a competent, intelligent and politically savvy cabinet to steer Ireland through the wreckage-strewn post Brexit seascape. He will be well advised to dispense with those of his Ministers who confuse longevity with experience. We need some inspiration and energy now.