In his article in today’s Newsletter Ben Lowry states “Unionism
is now the only significant movement in Northern Ireland that ever seems to
defend the status quo.” I suspect from Ben’s perspective this is a good thing. A
few weeks ago I wrote an article in which I stated
“Those who
clamber onto the backs of lorries are fond of using a phrase “what we have we
hold” it has been a feature of Unionist politics my entire life. It was
unchallengeable, but now perhaps is the time to challenge it, for the sake of
the union and for Unionism. What if what we have, what if what we hold, is not
enough.”
To be clear being robust defenders
of the status quo is not a winning political strategy.
Over the past few weeks I heard a
number of interviews with young people caught up in the violence arising from
protests against the Protocol, for some they believed that the Protocol was
making them second-class citizens in their own country. What saddens me is that
those same young people did not understand that they are second-class citizens already, like their parents and grandparents before them. The Protocol is an
unconscionable act of social, economic and constitutional vandalism by people
in power who neither know nor care about its impact but it is not the cause of
the generational poverty which undermines the lives of the young people in the
streets throwing bricks. Neither are their conditions determined by whether
they are unionist and nationalist or whether they are Protestant or Catholic. Institutionalised
poverty and deprivation exist and for that reason what we have can never be the status quo that some Unionist politicians
and commentators aspire to.
Areas of multiple deprivation
have been a feature of government policy and questionable investment for generations. Across
a broad range of civic society, community and voluntary sector, churches,
schools and sections of government funds have flowed to organisations to
address the impact of poverty in education, health, community development,
employment, arts and many other sectors. One cannot underestimate the massive
impact that those individuals delivering such programs have had on improving
the quality of life of people in those areas. But such work comes with many
frustrations, there is little long-term funding, projects are funded on a
piecemeal basis, pilot projects, even the most successful, disappear because
there is no route to sustainability and time after time organisations are
expected to reinvent the wheel when all is needed is a retread.
The reality is much of that work
is focused on papering over the cracks and we have some of the best decorators
available. But the cracks will re-appear and they do so because the foundations
are either too weak or non-existent within too many communities, that is the
status quo that we cannot sustain. Imagine if we had the courage to take all of
that knowledge and experience within people working in those areas and applied
it to building a new foundation, if we invested in changing society from the
ground up rather than simply saying we must defend the status quo.
In Ben’s article he goes on to
say “If there was not a Unionist education Minister, for example, academic
selection would be gone.” It’s almost as if Unionism is dependent on academic
selection, on the school you go to or the badge you wear. It’s not. For those
who live in areas of multiple deprivation they are told that academic selection
is the route to be a better future, it is the educational equivalent of the Hunger
Games. Many schools, individual teachers and community organisations do all in
their power to give those children who wish to attempt selection process every
opportunity to succeed but overcoming the impact of disadvantage is a massive
undertaking. Levelling up every child’s life opportunity means not accepting
the status quo but charting a new path.
I don’t believe that for all its
efforts nationalism will bring about a United Ireland but I do think that by
default unionism will push society in that direction. We cannot
defend a unionism which cannot deliver for working class unionists never mind
anyone else. The world around us is changing and in evolutionary terms the saying
is “adapt or die” it’s a valid metaphor for political movements as well. For
political unionism the challenges remain that for many such evolution is an
anathema, controlling the flow of funds
to areas of deprivation gives a level of power and control over the populace and
importantly too few have the vision, ambition or commitment to truly change the
society we live in.