Time to Focus on the Union

Warp Speed Woke Needs to Exit, Stage Left

It’s always been my view that unionism, in the context of the United Kingdom (i.e. supporting and advocating for the Union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) isn’t exactly an ideology. The union is a constitutional construct - just like the concept of an island-state of Ireland, or a 48-county England. In fact ‘the union’ is a myth. It’s simply a lexical contrivance.  The UK denotes a constitutional structure that is unlikely to go away any time soon. And there’s a clear and logical reason why it exists from a historical, cultural and constitutional perspective.  

But, despite that, there are those who really, actively, dislike it. Hence so-called Irish ‘nationalists’ can’t even use the lexical contrivance “Northern Ireland” - preferring to refer to the six counties of the North East of Ireland as “the North” - which sounds distinctly odd to me, if only because of its vagueness. “The North of what?” I mutter to myself often when I hear it used - or note, inwardly, that Donegal is just as Northerly, but is part of the Republic.  Or Iceland, more Northerly still, is part of Norway…so how far North does “The North” go exactly?  

Traditionally, “Unionists” across the UK, but especially in Northern Ireland and Scotland - places with the noisiest Nats - have created a counterpoint to Nat propaganda that’s just as much about language. There’s a tit-for-tat of linguistic point-scoring. So Unionists in Northern Ireland refer to “the mainland” while Nationalists and Republicans prefer “across the water” or “the UK” when they mean Britain (or, more precisely, England).  

Much of Northern Ireland’s comedy has been built around the contortions and nuance of our respective propagandising, titting and tatting.  

At the heart of this was something very familiar and inherently silly - especially after the paramilitarism and shooting/bombing came to an end. It was silly because Northern Ireland was essentially kept running because of English taxpayer largesse. So the linguistic point-scoring made no point.

The annual shortfall between tax-take and spending typically runs at around £10 billion a year in Northern Ireland alone - the smallest of the devolved nations. Everything is funded by the British exchequer. And the cost of funding the ongoing shortfalls is ultimately borne by the Treasury. These days just about every UK region runs a deficit. And the debt mountain has soared to around 100% of UK GDP - especially after the cash/debt splurge that was lockdown, furlough, tracking/tracing, PPE and the creation of the National Covid Service.  Each of the devolved regions had to do their own mini-me ‘safe and effective’ campaigns, digital IDs and the like, so the respective costs all had bells on.  Ireland was equally basket-cased when it came to Covid response, and Scotland dabbled with Zero Covid and de-germing checks on the non-existent border with England.  

Indeed, the last three years entirely recalibrated the entire Nat/Unionist narrative and lexicon. Why? Because the Covid response playbook wasn’t defined by Edinburgh or Stormont or even Westminster. It came with loads of add-ons. Collectively we could refer to this as warp-speed woke.  Instead of the lexicon emerging from the sectarian ghettos, it was pretty much defined by the globalists - and especially the G7 leaders.  

G7 and WEF Discuss Woke Warp Speed

All of the Nationalist parties and liberal/lefty parties embraced warp-speed-woke with huge enthusiasm. Which was very odd because it also happened to be the establishment’s preferred line too. Suddenly Sinn Fein - after a few wobbles - was parroting ‘flatten the curve’ and ‘get your booster’ with as much enthusiasm as Nadhim Zahawi. All at once global leaders were dumb-struck when asked to define a woman and the Scots Nats started campaigning for genital mutilation of children and statutory gender fluidity. Questioning Net Zero was deemed as bad as holocaust denial. Suggesting that the vaxes might be dodgy was judged anti-semitic.  Almost in lockstep, Boris and Trump locked us down - and the actions were applauded by the new woke class. Chinese authoritarianism was embraced by Scots Nats, Irish Nats and Northern Ireland’s uber-woke Alliance Party - as well as human rights lawyers and lefty oppositions with as much enthusiasm as the neo-Communist UK Conservatives.  And when Biden was elected he showed policy enthusiasm only for war mongering, provoking Russia, censoring free speech, blowing up oil pipelines, BLM and alphabet people.  

But, as we all know, politics is a long game. And so too are constitutional allegiances. Sooner or later it was inevitable that we’d return to fundamentals after three years of operation warp speed globalist woke. Hence, yesterday, I was invited to attend a lecture in Belfast by a new pro-Union foundation formed to articulate the case for the United Kingdom staying together - and led by Northern Ireland’s former First Minister, Arlene Foster.  

This body - called Together UK Foundation (not to be confused with the Together Campaign) - was launched last Summer and held its first of a series of UK-wide events last night (in Belfast).  The guest speaker was Professor Cedric Bell.  

Most of Professor Bell’s talk was the stuff of common sense. He talked about the merits of the UK, the bigness of the united nation, the UK’s role as a global player, and the even the nonsense around the demographic impetus for Irish unification. But he made another point right at the start of his talk which was more revealing. He stressed that the United Kingdom should not be confused with the values being peddled by any one particular governing party of the day. The identification with a nation is wrapped up with what that nation (or nation of nations) stands for.  And, I have to say, neither the current Conservative government, nor the Labour opposition, are properly articulating the nation's values or the reasons why people identify with it.  

In my case I’m British because the United Kingdom is, fundamentally, decent, worldly, sophisticated, libertarian, and a place that cherishes free speech.  It’s also a democratic nation that mostly works well in giving the people a voice. However, the last three years of undemocratic, free-speech suppressing government obsessed with corporatist woke peddled by supra-national institutions (like WHO and WEF) - and ESG scientism - has not reflected the will of the people nor provided the people with adequate information to uncover the truth. These actions have undermined the values of our modern, and free, democracy.  

Therefore, the fact that pro-Union proselytisers are coming back, getting people together, and discussing the merits of our nation of nations will almost certainly mean that our national discourse will focus again on what underpins our shared values: the role of the family, the rule of law, the protection of human rights and free speech, and our dependence on thousands of local, interconnected businesses across the UK single market. 

Being pro-Union is about reflecting the values that make us uniquely British. And it’s time for the era of Warp Speed Woke to end.  The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland depends on it.