Thread by @Macerty

It’s ironic that those Ulster Unionists who are bleating on about their ‘Britishness’ now being betrayed when they were the ones, led by the DUP they voted for in big numbers who backed Brexit to the hilt.

They were misled by the DUP all along and sold the belief that by voting leave they would ensure their union was future proofed by ringfencing the partition of Ireland through a hard land border. That was the plan anyway.

Of course they didn’t factor in the untrustworthiness of the British government as they thought it was all sown up the minute the DUP signed the toxic confidence-and-supply deal with Theresa May.

Now the DUP have been shafted by May’s successor Johnson, unionist leaders are now trying to present their own failure to see the writing on the wall as a threat to the union, their ‘Britishness’ and the biggest mistake by unionism since partition in 1922.

This narrative is a bit rich since they continued to support Johnson’s Brexit irrespective of the fact he was prepared to break international law and breach the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

Now they are crying spilt milk and sour grapes over his last minute concession to scrap the IMB and allow N.Ireland to remain under EU regulations under US pressure from the incoming President-Elect Joe Biden.

In effect, the DUP and unionism in general have just woken up to the fact that they are only two bit players in a much bigger international game than either their perception of what Britishness means or their leaders have any control over.

In hindsight they failed to take measure of the influence of the Irish government and its US Irish-American community to protect the status quo as enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement.

Even Johnson must be careful not to provoke the ire of the US or he could lose any hope of a U.K.-US deal. As for Ulster Unionism, they would have been better to have sought greater accommodation with nationalists rather than creating more division and false expectations.

If unionism is to survive it must stop vetoing progress towards a shared future that is not just on its terms alone but is truly inclusive of all shareholders in the peace process.

Unionism must stop banging the drum of sectarian division by claiming anymore right to be British than nationalists to be Irish and instead focus on presenting robust reasons why it is in the interests of unionists and nationalists to remain within the union.

Until it does exactly that it will remain an insular minded political outlook dependent on religious differences to survive and never compete against what is a much more modern and outward looking nationalism that is more diverse and pluralist in its idea of ‘Irishness’.

Hi @threadreaderapp please #unwrap