'A British reclamation of Ireland down the line? Unthinkable?'

Opinion: what would be the British government's attitude to Sinn Féin's electoral dominance on the Island of Ireland should it materialise?

By Cathal McCall, Queen's University Belfast

Sinn Féin is now the largest party in Northern Ireland with a democratic claim to the position of First Minister. Opinion polls suggest Sinn Féin will also be the unassailable victor in the next Irish general election. A Sinn Féin Taoiseach is in the offing for the first time in the history of the State.

What would be the British government's attitude to Sinn Féin's electoral dominance on the island of Ireland should it materialise? There are two possible trajectories. One is that the British government would respect the democratic decisions taken, North and South, and pledge to advance British-Irish intergovernmental cooperation with the Irish republican interlopers. Another is that it would claim that these democratic decisions are suspect and proceed to deride the republican victors as terrorists and bandits who are not fit for government.

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From RTÉ Radio 1's This Week, Sinn Fein President, Mary Lou McDonald on the party's success in the Northern Ireland election and the increased possibility of a border poll

Though the latter trajectory may seem fantastical, it is not beyond the realms of probability. The outcome could be that the British government would move to reclaim an island that some Tories believe belongs to Britain. After all, it was Britain’s 100 ago and it still holds a part of it, so why not all of it?

Surely an absurd notion? After all, Westminster has a justifiable reputation as the cradle of democracy in Europe during the 20th century and a defender of modern state sovereignty, though less so the 21st century form of it exercised within the European Union.

In 1920, the British government acquiesced to the secession of 'Southern Ireland’ when faced with a democratic mandate, though it maintained a foothold on the island through partition and the creation of Northern Ireland. At the end of the Second World War the British prime minister Winston Churchill excoriated Taoiseach Éamon de Valera for maintaining Ireland’s wartime neutrality.

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From Exteriority, Winston Churchill's criticism of Eamon de Valera and Irish neutrality in 1945

In practice, neutrality meant the refusal to give essential British convoys of ships from the United States safe haven in Irish ports. However, Churchill didn’t act and praised himself for not doing so: "with a restraint and poise with which history will find few parallels His Majesty’s government never laid a violent hand upon them…".

Churchill is Boris Johnson's lodestar. Should Johnson cling on as British prime minister, would he follow Churchill’s example to the perceived provocation of an all-Ireland victorious Sinn Féin? Would he grumble and gripe, but ultimately want to leave the Irish to their own devices? The answer is probably 'yes’.

But in all likelihood Johnson will not last until the next Irish and UK General Elections both to be held no later than early 2025. His replacement - perhaps Michael Gove, Liz Truss, Dominic Raab, Jacob Rees-Mogg or Priti Patel - may have other ideas that do not necessarily take Irish history into account.

From RTÉ Radio 1's This Week, Financial Times' political editor George Parker assesses Boris Johnson's chances of staying in Number 10 after the UK's recent local elections

Should a Tory with British imperial delusions take charge, the odds shorten on a British reclamation of Ireland in response to Sinn Féin sweeping the electoral boards. Such a Tory Prime Minister, less than wedded to democratic principles, may well eye the size and purpose of the Irish Defence Forces and conclude that reclamation would be a doddle. No Provos roaming around the drumlins of South Armagh and Louth or lying in wait in the bogs of Tyrone and Monaghan to worry about either. No heroic Ukrainian-style resistance likely. And all done in the name of ‘peace and security’.

There may be pause for thought at an adverse US reaction, but Donald Trump may well be back in the White House by then, so no heat from there. An Irish Government-in-exile, holed up in New York, may be permitted to take its case to the United Nations. A condemnatory draft resolution might be produced only to be shot down in flames by China, Russia, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

We live in tumultuous political times

Would NATO care about the fate of non-member, neutral Ireland? NATO tends not to care about non-members and neutrals, especially when the neutral in question has just been subsumed within the Organisation’s key member, the United Kingdom.

The European Union would certainly care about one of its small member states being snaffled up by the Big Leaver. The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement of 2021 would be dust, but that would only be grist to the mill of Tory Europhobes in Westminster.

As an added bonus, those Europhobes would no longer have to be bothered with the tiresome Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol ‘negotiations’ trundling on for years and years and years. They may even have the audacity to claim that a British government removed the border on the island of Ireland, something successive Irish governments huffed and puffed about, but could never do.

We live in tumultuous political times. A large member state saw fit to leave the European Union in the face of the best advice from experts galore. Far right parties are knocking on the doors of governments across Europe. Trump threatens a resurrection. And Vladimir Putin is orchestrating a vicious war on Ukraine to reclaim what he believes rightfully belongs to Mother Russia.

A British reclamation of Ireland down the line? Unthinkable? But stranger things have happened.

Prof Cathal McCall is Professor of European Politics and Borders at Queen's University Belfast. His latest book is Border Ireland: From Partition to Brexit (Routledge, 2021)

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ

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