Often, it appears the best that Northern Ireland unionists can hope for is that things will not get any worse. None of the unionist political parties they support, however grudgingly, offer any sense that they understand today’s challenges, or show how they can be best dealt with inside the United Kingdom.
Recent attempts by Prof Peter Shirlow and former DUP adviser Lee Reynolds to put forward a positive case for Northern Ireland staying in the United Kingdom, and using statistics to back up the argument, are welcome.
However, statistics do not amount to a much-needed coherent strategy for change within political unionism, especially if it is concerned just with articulating a positive outlook on what is happening in Northern Ireland.
There has been little emphasis in anything that has been put forward by the Safeguarding the Union group involving Shirlow and Reynolds that deals with the future, or addresses the concerns that shape the attitudes of many across Northern Ireland.
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A strategy might be, as Tony Blair put it, “something which relegates the short term to its proper place and assists the long-term fulfilment of the overall plan”. Set against that measure, what is the overall plan guiding unionists today?
Currently, the unionist message is obsessively internalised and lacks any sense of scale or ambition. Positive stories of success from the fields of literature, art, sport or business are useful, but those stories must be wove into a political narrative.
Traditional unionist thinking is counterproductive precisely because it lacks the persuasive appeal that is necessary to expand political support and to reach new constituencies. And it fails to understand that holding hardline positions turns people away, not brings them near.
Dry statistics about economic growth, public investment, education and identity shifts have their uses, but such information needs to be used to show how everyone living in Northern Ireland can live in a society where tolerance, movement and possibility are the norms, not the exceptions.
The political theorist Joseph Nye, who has written extensively about the relevance of soft power, argues that the influence of such power rests upon a nation’s “culture, its values and its policies when they are seen as legitimate by others”.
The notion of softness is crucial, not a luxury. Rigid and ungenerous positions inhibit soft power. If political unionism is to reach and convince those with different ideas about the future then it must embrace the “fuzziness” that so many people have when they define their own identity.
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In the real world, people are not just this – or that. Often, they are both, and more, much more. This complexity indicates how identity in relation to place and belonging can be overlapping and even contradictory.
Political unionism’s stress on certainty even manages to ignore the porous and interdependent identities that are part of the modern United Kingdom. It cannot, and should not be seen as static or settled, or unable to promote inclusion and diversity.
The question of what it means to be British, or Irish, raises questions about the similarities and differences that exist. Efforts to declare one better than the other based on separation merely plays into polarisation that prevents constructive engagement between both.
Only recently, we have come to notice that there are nearly 6 million people in Britain who have at least one Irish grandparent, which highlights the ties that bind all of us on these islands in ways that Northern Ireland’s unionist parties prefer to ignore.
Yet this web of connections and identities could be used by political unionism to better sell the benefits of the union. Britishness is welcoming, diverse and more than one identity. It is adaptive and changing. Yes, there are strains caused by immigration. But, by and large, Britishness remains diffuse and fair to others. Why has this not translated into a similar message within Northern Ireland for the various communities and groups who live there but do not see themselves as unionist?
The recitation of facts and statistics alone will not do this. Stories and values motivate more. Relying on figures alone is short-sighted, at best. Moreover, those who benefit from economic growth will already know this while those living in poverty will feel even more excluded.
Instead, unionists in Northern Ireland must offer a future based on respect, opportunity, possibility and movement. Differences should be encouraged, not shunned. It is important to understand, as Edmund Burke did, that you cannot logic your way in to a better society.
Emotion must be harnessed to a common goal that encourages consensus, not divisions. Political unionism in Northern Ireland should start with self-searching questions not just about how it sees itself but how others see it too.
How does political unionism want to transform Northern Ireland? What sort of relationship does it want with Dublin and the rest of the UK? It must begin to see possibilities, not problems. It must encourage diversity, not sectarianism.
It is surely now time for political unionism to widen its horizons and to show more imagination to cope with the Northern Ireland of today, not just the flawed one of the past or, worse, the Northern Ireland they imagine, but one that never was.
Graham Spencer is Emeritus Professor in Social and Political Conflict at the University of Portsmouth
