Unionists are surprisingly unperturbed by the prospect of voting rights for the Irish presidency being extended north of the border.
Even Gregory Campbell cannot muster any indignation.
“I think most people will largely ignore it,” he told the Belfast Telegraph, responding to news the Republic will hold a referendum next year on granting the franchise to all citizens outside the state.
“It is of no consequence to us,” the DUP MP added, without clarifying who he meant by ‘us’.
This looks like a striking failure of empathy and imagination, classing ballot papers for the Irish presidency alongside invitations to a royal garden party - something to be politely declined by those whose allegiance lies elsewhere.
A lack of unionist paranoia is to be welcomed, of course. There is nothing aggressive in the Republic’s intention - it is one of the few democracies not to grant any voting rights to citizens outside the state and this anomaly needs to be addressed. Only presidential contests are being considered and the Irish president is an essentially powerless figurehead.
But how can anyone in Northern Ireland, let alone a unionist politician, be oblivious to the symbolic significance of this development and the power of symbolism to drive real change?
Campbell said he could only see “a few die-hard nationalists” voting. Nonsense. Take-up would almost certainly be high from the outset, with a galvanising effect on nationalist confidence and sentiment - and that is without considering the impact of how people would vote. Would they assimilate into the politics of the Republic, choosing between its usual range of candidates, or would they form a distinct new bloc?
One of the issues raised in the Republic since 2013, when extending the franchise was first proposed, is that it might deliver a Sinn Féin president indefinitely. This prospect is overblown - like the promise to unionists of deciding every coalition in an all-Ireland Dail.
In practice, even if everyone who voted Sinn Féin and SDLP in the last Stormont election had backed Martin McGuinness in the 2011 presidential election, he would still have lost by an enormous margin - and that was with a totemic candidate in a crowded, competitive field.
Next year’s referendum will probably propose extending voting rights to a potential diaspora of 3.6 million people, including Northern Ireland residents, outnumbering the 3.2 million electors in the Republic. It is easy to imagine Sinn Féin touring Irish-America drumming up support. However, there would be a risk to nationalism in encouraging voters outside the Republic to coalesce behind a Sinn Féin candidate. It could turn a chance for all-Ireland politics into a nasty north-south contest, with southern resentment undermining the cause of unification. On the other hand, a Sinn Féin candidate could be elected and prove conciliatory.
Fortunately for that cause, Gerry Adams appears to have been put out to grass.
One effect of a northern Sinn Féin voting bloc might be unionists entering the fray to back a rival candidate.
Just appreciating they could do so might prove transformative.
We have come to define Irish citizenship in Northern Ireland as choosing to hold an Irish passport - a choice few unionists will make, Brexit notwithstanding. SDLP MLA Patsy McGlone told the Belfast Telegraph he looked forward to voting “as a nationalist who has an Irish passport and identifies as an Irish citizen.”
Yet almost everyone in Northern Ireland is and has always been a citizen of the Republic by birthright.
Much of the diaspora will hold Irish passports by necessity or can reasonably be asked to acquire them to establish eligibility to vote. But imposing this requirement in Northern Ireland could be challenged as irregular, discriminatory or a breach of the Good Friday Agreement. Some legal advice on voting in EU elections after Brexit implies the authorities in the Republic should simply use or replicate Northern Ireland’s entire electoral register.
The real failure of unionist imagination will be in not recognising all of this as a heaven-sent pressure valve for Brexit tensions, not just by giving nationalists an iconic new all-Ireland dimension - that much should be obvious - but by giving unionists a relatively non-contentious way to accept this and even choose to influence it, striking a fresh political balance across the island.
Imagine Northern Ireland becoming like Andorra, outside the EU but with tariff-free access to it, and with two joint heads of state from external jurisdictions.
If that seems incredible, it is a lot likelier than only “a few die-hard nationalists” voting.
newton@irishnews.com
