The Other View
Issue No.10 Autumn 2002
An independent Northern Ireland?
A review of the independence option
By Paul A. Fitzsimmons
As an Irish-American Republican who attended QUB’s Faculty of Law in the mid-1980’s, I was pleased to receive an invitation from The Other View to address a topic which has been a subject of considerable study for me: the possibility of a fair and workable six-county independence, should conventional "peace process" approaches continue to fail as, of course, they’ve long done.
Obviously, the overall thought underlying possible independence is that – if logistically feasible – immediate "freedom" from London at the cost of permanent "freedom" from Dublin might be an acceptable exchange for Northern Catholics generally, as might be the exact converse for Northern Protestants generally.
Such acceptance is not inconceivable. An April 1997 Belfast Telegraph/QUB opinion poll showed that roughly half of each of Northern Ireland’s Protestant and Catholic communities would at least "tolerate" a settlement involving independence, and that poll was of course taken without any actual independence plan to evaluate.
A framework for independence would need to include the following elements: (i) a dual citizenship option for any in Northern Ireland – and any of their progeny – so desiring it; (ii) a basic form of government which would afford Northern Catholics a genuine opportunity for political participation (this can indeed be done); (iii) constitutionally established individual and civic rights; and (iv) long-term continuation of economic subventions. (For anyone interested in further details, the Belfast magazine Ulster Nation reviewed my small book on this topic back in 1995 (see http://www.ulsternation.org.uk/independence_for_n_ireland.htm). More recently, the online Belfast magazine The Blanket published several related articles by me, including: "The Whys and Hows of ‘Independence for Northern Ireland’" (http://lark.phoblacht.net/independence.html, 10 September 2001); "What do Republicans want?" (http://lark.phoblacht.net/republicanswant.html, 3 March 2002);"Dissident Republicans: Rebels Without A Plan (http://lark.phoblacht.net/without a plan.html, 17 April 2002); and "Reunion versus six-county independence"(http://lark.phoblacht.net/reunionvs.html, 23 June 2002).)
In a sense, though, constitutional "details" may be less critical to the concept of possible independence than would be the specifics of how an independence plan would be developed and how that plan would be tested at the polls. Independence, if it ever happened, would have to be the product of joint efforts by the British and Irish governments later approved by a supermajority (probably between 66 and 75 percent) of those voting in an independence plebiscite in Northern Ireland. The following implementation steps might well be followed:
1. The British and Irish governments would expressly ask Northern Irelanders to encourage their respective political representatives to take part in a transparent constitutional convention presided over by outside constitutional experts.
2. After a constitutional and financial package for independence has been approved by Britain, the Republic, and the EU, and after adequate time for public discussion, the British government would hold a simple-majority plebiscite in Northern Ireland on the following test-drive issue: "Do you want to see a shadow election held to establish who would hold office under this scheme if that scheme were later approved in a supermajority plebiscite?"
3. If the majority did not want to take that test-drive, negotiated independence would be well proven to be inadequate and rightly abandoned.
4. If the shadow election proposal did receive majority support, shadow officials would then be chosen, but those officials would have few powers. Assuming that the proposed constitutional government was in the form of a presidential system, the elected shadow president and shadow legislators would be empowered to select, in accordance with that system, an executive cabinet and members of the judiciary. The only other power they’d have would be to convene themselves in their shadow positions; at least in theory, they might convene to discuss whether to recommend voter approval of the ultimate supermajority plebiscite on the issue of Northern Ireland’s negotiated independence.
5. After some appropriate period of time following an approved shadow election, the supermajority plebiscite would be held. Rejection thereof would entail abandonment of an independence approach. Acceptance thereof would trigger a transition period, likely to be subject to a final "condition precedent" of independently approved decommissioning, whereupon the shadow members (executive, judicial, and legislative) of the government would be certified as official.
Perhaps the most important point regarding this development/testing approach is this: at the final "supermajority plebiscite" stage, each side would have the ability to veto any independence proposal. Therefore, approval of an independence proposal could happen under this approach only if both sides decided broadly to support that proposal. If both did so, Northern Ireland would obtain – unlike as a result the Good Friday Agreement scheme – an honest, straightforward, fair, workable, and stable government, and rsociety as a whole would markedly improve.
Should the GFA suffer an irremediable failure, the British and Irish governments will need to try to find another way forward. Surely one thing they might then try to do would be to use all the fudge, smoke, and mirrors at their disposal to launch into an effort ostensibly aimed at a "Sunningdale Mark III," perhaps hoping at least to buy another six or eight years of relative peace while local politicians ritualistically march up the Stormont hill and march down again. An alternative – something for them to do before trying to repeat yet again the failures of the past – would be to attempt a one-year-long formal examination of possible independence.
A surmountable impediment to the British and Irish governments adopting this new tack is the staunch, almost-universal reluctance of the "intelligentsia" in Ireland and Britain to take on the independence issue honestly. As but one example thereof, I wrote the following, in a June 2002 edition of The Blanket, regarding Republican writer Ciarán Irvine:
To his credit, Mr. Irvine puts thought and effort into trying to address the Northern Ireland question. He does so, however, by proposing reunion, which he sincerely wants but which Unionists have repeatedly rejected and which they disdain unto this day.
Mr. Irvine might instead say something along the following lines: "I want reunion, and you Unionists want continued union. A theoretical middle ground exists: six-county independence. Right now, I strongly think independence would not work, and I might in any event ultimately decide not to support it. However, the unarguable fact is that possible independence hasn’t yet been formally examined, and I’d be willing to help examine it now, in good faith, if you would do so as well."
Which of these two proposals does Mr. Irvine believe would have a greater impact on the Northern Ireland situation?
Mr. Irvine’s response to this squarely-put question was silence, perhaps because he did not want to admit aloud the obvious answer: while his advocating an independence inquiry might have only a small impact on the Northern Ireland situation, his hackneyed call for reunion will have, and has had, none whatsoever.
The Other View is published, I’ve been told, "by a group of former loyalist and republican prisoners as part of a project designed to stimulate constructive dialogue between loyalists-unionists and republican-nationalists." Naturally, I wonder whether members of that frontline group would publicly address a similar question hereby put to them.
