Against Cross-Community Outreach: Why Irish Nationalists Should Not Ally with Loyalists
Word count: ~1,520 words
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Summary: Festus Mulcahy argues that Irish nationalism should not court an alliance with loyalists. To do so would risk alienating Irish republicans.
Introduction
When Richard Nixon flew to China in 1972 he did so with the calculus that his strong anti-communist credentials gave him the right to do so. A man who had launched his career with the takedown of Alger Hiss had the credibility to sit down with Mao Zedong and sell it to the American public. It's a familiar dynamic. The “partnership” of Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley is another example where a history of radical enmity gave two people a license to work together.
There is a lesson here for today's disparate Irish nationalists and populists. Credibility on an issue matters. The lay of the land matters. The context and the history matters. Richard Nixon would not have gone to China had there existed a perception that he was a communist stooge. Indeed it would have been political suicide to do so.
Undoubtedly there exists a perception (however unfair) that sections of the movement against mass-immigration in Ireland are loyalist and Zionist stooges. This perception can be countered or it can be confirmed. But that it exists is a reality that must be acknowledged. It is a matter of housing-keeping for nationalist leaders to come out and oppose these narratives. And in all fairness they have come out and opposed them. It is not always pleasant but it is necessary. Silence on the matter is not an option because, as we see, there will always be people who take it upon themselves to exploit the silence. The British Security State and the Irish Security State (such as it is) are active in their promotion of this perception. It follows then that it must be “actively” discouraged.
It should be admitted that attempts to reach out to unionists and even loyalists are not new. The Official IRA are said to have sat down with loyalists during the Troubles for instance. Go back further and Rory O'Moore, before he became one of the leaders of the 1641 rebellion, had tried to encourage a “political and parliamentary alliance” between Puritans in Ulster and Irish Catholics on the grounds of common grievances against the party of the Castle. A remonstrance adopted by “a mixed committee” of Catholics and Puritans was sent to King Charles and the House of Commons complaining of general evils committed by the Lord Lieutenant against Catholic and Puritan alike. It went about as well as you'd expect.
“The Long Parliament sided with the Puritans, and members were deeply moved by the doleful complaints of the Ulster planters. Unhappily, their complaints were leveled as much at the mercy shown to Catholics as at the peculiar burdens under which the Puritans themselves were suffering; and men like Pym and Hampden were ready in the name of liberty to rivet heavier chains and fetters upon the main portion of the Irish population.” — J.F. Taylor
It is therefore dishonest to paint acts of outreach as unique or unprecedented. But the cold fact is that nationalists, populists, anti-globalists, etc. represent disparate and divided factions. They do not have a great history of community outreach between themselves (and this indeed is a more pressing problem). There are clear reasons why the nascent nationalist movement in Ireland is uniquely unqualified to engage in solo-run cross-community stunts.
New Eras Bring New Challenges
The resistance movement against replacement immigration into Ireland is a relatively new one. Technically it has its roots in organisations like the Immigration Control Platform which was founded in 1998. This was also the year of the Good Friday Agreement which some have credited as providing the loophole that began the early wave of non-EU immigration into Ireland.
However, in practice the movement is made up of people who have been politicised in the last 10 to 15 years and who share no real overarching worldview. “Anti-globalism” is a catch-all phrase for everything that is excluded from the mainstream. There is far wider divergence of opinion within the so-called “dissident” sphere than there is within the mainstream. “Anti-globlalism” is not a synonym for nationalism and to use it as such only causes confusion. Rather there is a faction within the broader “anti-globalist” mileau who are nationalists and wish to unite the movement under a nationalist banner. Even they do not agree on everything.
These nationalists face innumerable problems. Apart from three hostile parliamentary regimes (London, Dublin and Brussels) they are opposed by legacy republican organisations which view them as inauthentic and lacking credibility. Understandably then there has been an attempt to assert that authenticity and build up much needed credibility. This has been most effective in north and inner city Dublin. The traditional republican voting base also happens to be the constituency most openly opposed to replacement immigration and this has been the most important area for winning over support.
An accusation leveled against the movement is that it fixates on Sinn Féin. There is some truth to this though it is natural in politics for parties in close competition to trade animosity. There is probably more time spent criticising rival populist parties than anything else. Unquestionably Sinn Féin and the wider republican ecosystem have failed to pivot hard on immigration. Most importantly they have failed to recognise replacement immigration as an evil in and of itself. At most they acknowledge the role of capitalists in exploiting immigration but resist the contention that rapid demographic change is an existential threat to national identity. This has created a credibility gap for them amid segments of their base who, as mentioned above, desire such a pivot. Their lack of dynamism on this issue has played into the hands of the government parties who merely have to throw crumbs to their base in order to outflank the opposition on immigration and by so doing maintain their monopoly on power.
Nationalists who oppose mass-immigration have had some opportunity to assert their moral and ideological credibility. Much hard work has been done to install a handful of nationalist and populist councillors. The capacity to mobilise large numbers of people has improved. Professionalism is more evident. Organisation and aesthetics have improved to some extent (residual MAGA coding not withstanding). Progress is visible. In that context, nothing could be more counter-productive than signaling support for Irish nationalism's traditional antagonists.
Breaking Out of “Containment” Conditions
Samuel Johnson pointed out that patriotism could often be the last refuge of a scoundrel and it is true. When the scoundrels in government have no more legs to stand on, they suddenly become flag waving jingoists and admonish grass-roots nationalism as a British import. The republicans who administer rule in the six counties on behalf of the British Crown, paint anyone who opposes mass-immigration into Ireland as a Loyalist or a Zionist stooge. These accusations are far more toxic than those of “fascist” or “racist.” The playbook for “containment” in Irish politics is to associate “new” nationalism with British prole culture, with low status Trumpism, with Loyalist bonfires and with Israeli flags. They persistently downplay its organic aspects and its just concerns. They portray it indeed not as a movement of sincere conviction but as a scoundrel's last refuge, hence the ubiquity of the terms “grifter” and “paytriot”. The onus on nationalists is to show that patriotism is not their “last refuge” but their “first instinct.”
The good news is that Irish nationalists have a short convenient list of things that absolutely must be avoided. The bad news is that ideological nationalists are hostage to a much broader, more chaotic movement that is constantly branching off in a thousand different directions. Can a disciplined nationalism tame an unwieldy populism? Time will tell.
The lessons are clear. Even if nationalists were in a stronger position to broach cross-community initiatives, the current environment of media smears and intelligence ops would not make it an inviting prospect or a straightforward one. It must be acknowledged too that such initiatives often betray a willingness to write off all legacy republicans as hostiles. This is a great mistake. Indeed many of the “short cuts” one sees in dissident politics are really confessions of despair. In this case despair of one's own countrymen.
If nationalists actually succeed in melding the anti-globalist coalition into a coherent and disciplined movement, one which is worthy of its county's tradition, then they will in the process have earned the cooperation or grudging respect of elements within legacy republicanism. That is a necessary condition for anything broader. By then organic sentiment against mass-immigration will have reached into the six counties (both communities) and transformed the landscape of nationalism in the north. At such a time people may sit down and discuss the pros and cons of reaching out to sympathetic unionists in the spirit of 1798. If one holds out hope for such things. But without a solid credible power base behind you, reaching out is not cooperating, it is surrendering.