The draft framework deal between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael has been described as intellectually dead. Policy-free promises of "housing for all" and "a better quality of life" are certainly waffle, but the section on a "shared island" could have a spark of life.
It proposes creating a unit within the Department of the Taoiseach "to work towards a consensus on a united island".
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are clearly trying to steal and neutralise one of Sinn Féin's flagship policies
Debate on Irish unification is so fossilised it does not take much originality to animate it. The term “united island” is the sort of sly ambiguity on which an entire peace process has been based.
For Sinn Féin, this is just more waffle. It wanted a united Ireland unit within the Department of the Taoiseach to actively plan for a Border poll and unification. By offering such a body while changing its name and remit, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are clearly trying to steal and neutralise one of Sinn Féin's flagship policies.
The eight actions the framework document lists to build consensus do not include a Border poll. They mostly repeat Irish government commitments in the Belfast Agreement and more recent deals to re-establish Stormont. There are the usual platitudes on peace, respect and developing the all-Ireland economy, although the only all-Ireland projects mentioned are the cross-border infrastructure investments in January’s New Decade, New Approach Stormont deal. The only one of these that might be considered inspirational is a high-speed rail line between Belfast, Dublin and Cork, which is merely to be “examined”.
One of the eight actions appears to dismiss the Belfast Agreement’s mechanism for knitting the island together. It says: “Expand the British-Irish Council and the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, to strengthen north-south and east-west links.”
The council and the conference are the east-west institutions of the Agreement. Its north-south institution, the North-South Ministerial Council, is not mentioned.
This could be because Sinn Féin’s Stormont team sits at the northern end of the table. On the other hand, prioritising east-west links fits with Mary Lou McDonald’s call in a BBC interview in February to plan a united Ireland with the British government over unionism’s head.
Perhaps Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil simply forgot to mention the North-South Ministerial Council because they are not taking any of this seriously.
Unionism is taking it seriously, however, at least compared to all similar proposals in the past.
Responding to the framework document, the DUP said it also wants to see a shared island and “cooperation for mutual benefit”.
Ulster Unionist Party leader Steve Aiken said he looked forward to building stronger north-south and east-west links but would not take part in "single direction" talks on a united Ireland. The implication of this novel phrase is that he will take part in talks with more options on the agenda.
As recently as last month, Aiken said “nobody from the Ulster Unionist Party is going to be involved in any conversation about a united Ireland – not now, not ever.”
Unionism’s problem with such discussions is that it has had no alternative direction to offer. It wants to preserve the status quo and has viewed change as only moving in the wrong direction. There can be talks on various degrees of Irish unity but there are no plausible conversations to be had on reuniting the British Isles. Irish people will not even say “British Isles”. The suggestion the Republic joins the Commonwealth indicates the desperation to find any balancing proposal.
Suddenly, however, unionists have complex new directions to consider. There are the outworkings of Brexit, where unionism is having to accept change as a problem it brought upon itself. Less painfully, there is growing debate on the internal structure of the UK.
Sir Keir Starmer, the new leader of the Labour Party, wants a constitutional convention on creating a federal UK, with all four parts holding equal sovereignty under a written constitution. This was the big idea in his leadership campaign and he has continued promoting it since his victory three weeks ago, especially in Scotland.
There are conversations to be had about the future of Ireland and the UK, which everyone can join
Although opinions differ at Westminster on whether Scottish independence is becoming more or less likely, there is a consensus that either case makes reform of the UK’s devolution settlement essential.
Ideas being considered by the Conservatives include turning the House of Lords into a chamber of the nations and regions and moving it out of London.
After two decades of false starts, meaningful autonomy is emerging in the English regions due to city deals and local government partnerships.
All the UK’s devolved regions are on the British-Irish Council.
So there are conversations to be had about the future of Ireland and the UK, which everyone can join and which could be the Holy Grail of any debate on a shared island: one without preordained conclusions, where some participants might actually change their minds.
The ambivalence of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, far from dooming this prospect, is the very thing that makes it possible.