Within moments of the release of a report from the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) yesterday, which claimed that the cost of a United Ireland might be an annual €20bn a year to the Irish Government for 20 years, and might involve substantial tax increases and spending cuts, the race to discredit the report was on.
This is natural and understandable, and proper journalistic instinct should leave anyone open-minded about the criticisms of the report that are being made, and are likely to be made, in the coming weeks. However, proper journalistic instinct should also make us remember something else: That if the report had reached the opposite conclusion and declared a United Ireland an unqualified economic boon to the whole island, then many of those currently seeking to discredit it would have changed their roles entirely, and would instead be praising it as a work of economic scholarship worthy of a Nobel Prize, even if in either case they’d hardly had time to read it.
This is because, ultimately, a United Ireland is not an economic project. Economics are better thought of, instead, as the unknown cost that its advocates are entirely willing to pay for a concrete objective. If a United Ireland could be proven to almost guarantee national bankruptcy, many if not all of its advocates would still support it. If, by contrast, it was proven to be guaranteed to increase every person’s income by an annual €20k, most of unionism would still oppose it. This might seem irrational to the nationalist side, but offer Irish nationalism €20k a year per head to restore the 32-county Union with the UK, and see what answer you get. Some things are not about money.
That said, it is precisely because the rationale for a United Ireland is not primarily economic that the economic considerations – and the potential for trouble on foot of getting those economic considerations wrong – should be thoroughly considered. One thing that always strikes me is the under-discussed risk of a United Ireland proving itself a horrendous disappointment to the very people who want it most – Northern Nationalists.
The case for unity, even if it is at its heart just an emotional yearning, has nevertheless always been predicated on the notion that, in the words of David Trimble, Northern Ireland has been “a cold house for nationalists”. The automatic assumption then is that a United Ireland would be transformative for those citizens of the new republic, unleashing opportunities in life that have been denied to them (in the nationalist telling) for more than a century. How true is this? How true would it be, in practice?
If, in fact, the opposite were to be true, and a United Ireland were to result in an immediate drop in living standards for Northern Nationalists, how destabilising an effect would that have on a Republic already, presumably, struggling to accommodate a resentful and defeated Unionist population of more than a million? Where would the priorities of the new Dublin Government lie, when it came to investment in the north: Would it be in granting nationalists their hopes and dreams, or might it just be that the Government felt it more sensible, from a security and cohesion standpoint, to invest disproportionately in unionist communities? It is not hard to imagine post-unity outrage in nationalist communities as investment flowed into Larne and North Antrim, while disadvantaged communities in Republican Derry suddenly found that public spending levels in their communities were either largely unchanged or, in fact, cut. There are few things more shattering or destabilising in life than the discovery that the faraway fields were not, in fact, as green as you hoped – especially when you’ve sacrificed so much to get to them.
None of this, of course, would be Britain’s problem. There are those who argue, out of utter and apparent conviction, that the very British Government that they want to see out of Northern Ireland would somehow be obligated to remain as a financial benefactor of Northern Ireland once it had withdrawn. This is not a view that has widespread support in London, at least amongst the present UK Government. Whether it might be viewed differently by the UK Labour Party is another question.
Whomever is in Government in London at the time of a hypothetical vote for a United Ireland, they will both have the same over-riding consideration: That the negotiations about a British withdrawal from ulster would form the basis for any future discussion about a British withdrawal from Scotland. In the 2014 referendum on Scottish Independence, the UK position on paying pensions, for example, was that a disproportionate responsibility would ultimately fall on the Scottish administration, post independence, and that UK support would be greatly limited. The full documents outlining that position can be read here, if you’re a wonk.
The assumption, which many nationalists make, is simply that London will continue to pump money into Northern Ireland to pay the pensions of those who have paid UK tax. The strongest case would be in the case of former state employees, whose pensions are owed by their employer (the Crown). In the case of standard old-age pensions, though, the case is much less clear. Those amount to a welfare entitlement like any other: The equivalent of asking the UK Government to keep paying child benefit post-independence.
Should London take a harsh approach, in order to send a signal to the Scots, it is difficult to see what the Irish Government could do in any practical terms. Thus we have the most bizarre spectacle in all of Irish nationalism: Hardline nationalists who’ve spent a lifetime wanting the Brits out who now find that they must simultaneously argue that the Crown is an honourable and generous institution that will aid their cause. It is an implausible argument, from an implausible source.
The IIEA report, to be clear, assumes that said nationalists are wrong, and that Dublin will have to bear a substantial portion of the cost of aligning the north and south economy. If you disagree with that proposition, then the IIEA report can certainly be criticised. But you’re in the odd position of being an Irish nationalist, staking the house on British benevolence.
There is no shame, of course, in wanting a united Ireland regardless of the cost, and there is a very strong argument that, in the long term, unity is the correct option regardless of short to medium term costs. That long-term argument is probably the strongest card in the nationalist deck. Because it is, though, the playing down of the short-term difficulties by the advocates of a United Ireland should be taken with a very substantial grain of salt.