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The
several submissions I’ve penned thus far this
year for The Blanket — addressing, directly
or tangentially, the topic of negotiated independence
for Northern Ireland — have averaged a bit under
2,000 words in length.
Fearing
now that those triflingly brief pieces may have been
far too short to satisfy readers interested in the
possibility of fair and workable six-county independence
— and realizing that I could begin to try to
remedy that deficiency merely by dusting off some
earlier correspondence — I decided to submit
additionally to The Blanket the following letter,
which examines academia’s usually, though not
universally, skeptical analyses of Northern Ireland’s
possible independence (all emphases herein are from
the original).
****
August
11, 1999
BY
E-MAIL AND AIRMAIL
Prof. Brendan O'Leary
Political Science Department
London School of Economics
Re:
Northern Ireland
Dear
Brendan:
As
I took to heart your request that I read some of your
works, but as Internet availability of them was poor,
I instead recently went to the Library of Congress
and got copies of The Future of Northern Ireland
(1990), Explaining Northern Ireland (1995),
and The Politics of Antagonism (1996) by you
and Professor McGarry. Your Sharing Authority was
not to be found there, and it wasn’t clear whether
your 1999 work on policing had yet hit the Library’s
shelves.
You
suggested that, after reading these works, “you
can decide whether I have made arguments that will
change your mind.” You added: “Incidentally,
Mill’s On Representative Government is
a better book than On Liberty - do I need to
say that it is an opinion?”
Recognizing
your latter comment indeed to be an opinion, I nonetheless
think it warrants a brief discussion, incidental though
that discussion, too, may be.
In
my youth, I read Mill’s On Representative
Government (1861) (see my work at 141), and I
remember it as being an exceptionally fine study.
However, while one might opine that Hamlet
is better than The Tempest, thusly comparing
these two of Mill’s writings seems a bit like
saying “this 1999 two-passenger luxury automobile
is better than that 1998 sixty-passenger bus”:
while levels of craftsmanship may be superior in the
former, if one happens to have four dozen schoolchildren
to transport across town, the latter will manifestly
be “better.” Similarly, while Representative
Government may, perhaps, reveal some greater maturity
in Mill’s writing, his On Liberty (1860)
well addressed various subjects not analyzed in that
other work. Most particularly in that respect, the
following thoughts from On Liberty come to
mind from his Chapter Two:
Let
us now pass to the second division of the argument,
and dismissing the supposition that any of the received
opinions may be false, let us assume them to be
true, and examine into the worth of the manner in
which they are likely to be held, when their truth
is not freely and openly canvassed. However unwillingly
a person who has a strong opinion may admit the
possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought
to be moved by the consideration that however true
it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly
discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not
a living truth.
....
...
[An opponent of a position] must be able to hear
[arguments in favor of that position] from persons
who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest,
and do their very utmost for them. He must know
them in their most plausible and persuasive form;
he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which
the true view of the subject has to encounter and
dispose of; else he will never really possess himself
of the portion of truth which meets and removes
that difficulty. ... So essential is this discipline
to a real understanding of moral and human subjects,
that if opponents of all important truths do not
exist, it is indispensable to imagine them, and
supply them with the strongest arguments which the
most skilful devil's advocate can conjure up.
In
this regard, I thought it particularly interesting
that Mill observed in this same Chapter Two: “If
even the Newtonian philosophy were not permitted to
be questioned, mankind could not feel as complete
assurance of its truth as they now do.” Of course,
some decades after that passage was written, Newtonian
philosophies were demonstrated, by Einsteinian analyses,
to be markedly inadequate. “Complete” lodestars
of truth seem difficult to come by, in whatever field.
While
your above-cited writings are hugely impressive in
many respects—particularly in your analyses of
the historical causes and nature of the overall problem—your
specific discussions therein on possible independence
for Northern Ireland nonetheless err, in my view,
on several key points.
Appreciating,
as I do from a multitude of personal experiences,
that it is almost invariably off-putting to receive
criticism on my own work, I can only offer here what
might, unfortunately, be cold comfort regarding this
important issue in which we share a substantial interest:
the discussion below aims to be as specific as possible
so that you, and any other informed reader, might
be able to see whether my dissenting views are well-
or ill-founded. As much as it pains me when I circulate
a draft legal brief for review by my colleagues—only
to see formerly pristine page margins return to me
stained with virtual pools of red ink—nonetheless
my final work is better as a result of that process;
I hope you’d feel similarly.
I’d
add expressly here one other key point that I’ve
earlier made less direct reference to: you are among
the all-too-few I’ve contacted on this topic
who has had both the guts and the courtesy to take
on this issue with intellectual vigor. Your having
done so does yourself great credit in my view, for
whatever that might be worth.
Turning
to your above-referenced works, I would first reiterate
something you’ve seen in my published work and
in my correspondence: I make and have made no predictions
of ultimate success at the polls for independence,
in any given form. What is the case, though, is that
the people of Northern Ireland will never be able
to accept any such approach formally—nor, indeed,
will they ever be able to reject any such approach
formally—if none is ever formally put to them.
It
is in this light particularly that I would respectfully
urge that you “ought to be moved by the consideration
that however true [your negative appraisal of possible
independence] may be, if it is not fully, frequently,
and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead
dogma, not a living truth.” You stated in a recent
e-mail to me that “[i]f there are renewed comprehensive
inter-party and inter-governmental negotiations outside
the framework of the 1998 Agreement[,] I would not
want to stop people considering independence.”
However, I think that—unless you feel the case
for independence to be nothing more than trivial,
which I suspect is not your view—you would do
a large service by now affirmatively helping
to put your views thereon, and mine, to a public test
... a test that might, of course, prove you to be
entirely correct regarding the unworkability and/or
undesirability of Northern Ireland’s independence:
If
independence were widely debated and analysed as
a genuine option by political leaders, lawyers,
economists, the media, and the general public, many
more would certainly favour it, though maybe not
a majority of today’s electorate.
Margaret
Moore and James Crimmins, “The Case for Negotiated
Independence” (“Moore and Crimmins”),
in The Future of Northern Ireland (1990) (“Future”)
at 246. The critical fact remains that negotiated
independence has never received any formal analysis.
(I stand firmly by my earlier assertion that neither
your writings thereon—which I have now read—nor
my own constitute “formal” analyses thereon;
they are instead merely analyses by interested spectators
who may or may not be correct in their respective
opinions.)
Against
this background, I’d first discuss substantively
your own conclusions on the Moore and Crimmins paper
on “imposed independence.” Deferring discussion
on that paper per se until later herein, and
putting to one side the “imposed” aspect
thereof to which you make reference, it appears your
comments thereon [in bold type, below,] may
apply even to a “non-imposed” independence
such as I have mooted:
[T]he
success of [an independence] proposal is dependent
on perceptions of its permanence. It is probable
that many nationalists, especially republicans,
would regard such a settlement as the first step
towards a united Ireland and would still seek to
bring about that goal by gun and/or ballot. If they
did, Protestant paramilitaries would probably retaliate.
Even low levels of violence in an independent Northern
Ireland would create distrust between the two communities,
presenting serious problems for a power-sharing
government, even if one could be formed. Nationalist
violence, for example, might produce demands for
government retaliation which SDLP members of the
executive would find difficult to accept. There
would be no default position. For Protestants, the
default position would be the imposition of majority
control whereas for Catholics it would be an appeal
to the Republic to complete the unfinished business
of 1916-25. Therefore an independent Northern Ireland
could become ungovernable and rapidly descend into
civil war, with partition the most likely consequence.
[Future at 294.]
As
I wrote in a recent e-mail to you: “Independence
would be as permanent as the new constitutional
structure made it vis-à-vis the required
votes for constitutional change (and, of course,
there would need to be a corresponding interest
in unification in the South). This fact would be
clear to all who chose to vote in a plebiscite.”
Therein
I also wrote: “[Your argument] assumes that
Republicans in the main (particularly, of course,
the PIRA) would not decide officially to accede
to a fair and workable independence vis-à-vis
their ‘armed struggle’; if they did not
do so, however, no negotiated independence would
be capable of being effected” because any such
proposal would then be voted down by apprehensive
Unionists.
Furthermore,
your analysis assumes a “power-sharing government”
which my analysis essentially rejects. As you will
have seen, and rather like the NUPRG, I think a
presidential system of government would be a far
better system for a newly independent Northern Ireland
than would be yet another variant of parliamentary
democracy. The former would have in-built, due to
its inherent diffusion of power, a tendency towards
de facto powersharing, without the messy and divisive
need to categorize oneself, either as a voter or
as a politician. As you also will have seen, I yet
think a system of “legislative arbitration,”
as described in my work (at 148-51), would be an
effective means for preventing or countering, in
the first decades, tendencies towards sectarian
majoritarianism.
Thus—and
while, once again, I do not predict voter acceptance
of any independence scheme—if a scheme along
the lines of what I have suggested were accepted,
its implementation would most likely not yield the
problems you posit above.
Because
of these[ security] dangers, neither Britain nor
the Irish Republic are [sic] likely to approve such
an arrangement. Other EC countries, fearful of the
consequences for separatist groups within their
own borders, would counsel caution. Even moderate
members of the Republic’s governing élite
have asserted that an independent Northern Ireland
would be unworkable, and when James Callaghan put
forward the option in the British House of Commons
in 1981, no one embraced it. [Future
at 294.]
Taking
your last sentence first, my response will likely
not surprise you: perhaps members of “the Republic’s
governing élite” were simply wrong in
their pre-1990 estimation that “an independent
Northern Ireland would be unworkable” and perhaps
Mr. Callaghan’s 1981 analysis was simply years
ahead of its time. Perhaps—having now seen
and felt two additional decades of failure
on this Northern Ireland question since the time
of Mr. Callaghan’s suggestion—politicians
in Britain and Ireland might be more inclined to
give this issue substantive consideration were “independence
[not] usually dismissed[,] without much consideration[,]
as unrealistic” due to “prevailing and
often unquestioned orthodox[ies]” thereon.
Moore and Crimmins at 243.
Your
first sentence above is largely addressed in my
preceding text: if it appeared that independence
would gain express—if, perhaps, unenthusiastic—Republican
support, then security concerns might be considerably
lessened.
Your
middle sentence on EU concerns is very well taken:
it seems most likely that the EU would need to take
this opportunity to decide how a secession from
one of its member countries would be treated. Earlier
this year, I suggested to my Labour contacts that
the following test might be approved: if two-thirds
or more of the voters in the “parent”
portion of a state and two-thirds or more in the
seceding portion thereof each approved a planned
secession, then the seceding portion should be admitted—on
some basis—as an EU member.[1] (As detailed
in my book at 166-70, this new admission might in
Ireland’s case have to involve the Republic’s
essentially “sharing” some EU powers with
the new Northern state.) I concur unreservedly that,
if these EU issues were not worked out adequately,
the whole independence venture would likely fail.
(Also
in your The Future of Northern Ireland are
others’ discussions of possible independence,
but these discussions are comparatively minor. Anthony
Coughlin, in arguing for “A Unitary Irish State,”
writes little more than a polemic against any other
“possible alternative policies.” Id.
at 64. Regarding possible independence, that paper
cavalierly assumes resultant “repartition”;
“mass population movements”; opposition
by the Republic, Northern Nationalists, the U.S.,
and the “rest of the international community”
including EU members; “an Orange junta”
government; and economic unviablity. Id.
Liam Kennedy’s four-sentence discussion of
“the notion of an independent Ulster”
(within his discussion of “Repartition,”
id. at 138) and the Boyle-Hadden single sentence
thereon (in the course of their attempt towards
“Restoring the Momentum of the[ir] Anglo-Irish
Agreement,” id. at 192) are rather more
dispassionate than Mr. Coughlin’s piece but
not more insightful. (Regarding that Boyle-Hadden
view, see my work at 176 n.27, discussing
their similar pronouncement in their 1985 Ireland:
A Positive Proposal.))
Your
Explaining Northern Ireland (1995) (“Explaining”)
addresses only briefly possible independence. After
appropriately criticizing the well-intentioned but
manifoldly inadequate work thereon by Dervla Murphy,
you assert that there are “good grounds for believing
that an independent Northern Ireland would be disastrous,
leading to a Bosnian scenario complete with ethnic
cleansing and partition” (at 347); in an endnote
thereto, you reference as support therefor but three
other works which you and your collaborators authored.
(I’d add that you could have “cf.”-cited
Messrs. Hume and O’Malley on how a unilateral
declaration of independence would likely engender
a similar scenario (see my work at 133 n.6
and 189 n.35.))
Regarding
the potential Bosnia-like scene you painted, I may
have already mentioned to you that Professor Rose
made related comments in a May 1999 letter to me;
here’s how I responded to him:
Although
you are, of course, quite correct in observing that
the IRA has not taken up guns to obtain an independent
Northern Ireland, you go on to write: “While
Protestants might accept an independent Northern
Ireland, the Republican movement would settle for
‘Brits out’ plus a 32-county Ireland
— whose unity would be far from complete.”
(Emphasis in original.) Were such the case, it would
seem to present an a fortiori case for the
failure of the Good Friday Agreement, as Republicans
would thereunder obtain neither “Brits
out” nor a 32-county Ireland. However, and
as reflected at pages 197-204, I have long felt
that, if truly “fair and workable,” the
new context of Northern independence would present
a situation wherein the Republican movement would
not be able to sustain its “armed struggle,”
basically for two reasons. First, whom would Republicans
bomb and to what end?[2] Second, and perhaps more
to the point, if indeed a plebiscite were ever developed
such that a polling date was imminent, the public
would vociferously ask whether that scheme would
suffice; unless the “P. O’Neill”
response was unequivocally affirmative, indicating
too that decommissioning would timeously follow,
it seems rather likely that Republicans could and
would thereby indirectly “veto” independence
by scaring away Unionists who might otherwise be
inclined to vote in favor; yet, in this light and
as suggested in the introduction to my enclosed
letter of the twenty-third to Dr. FitzGerald (with
whom I corresponded substantively during the second
half of 1997), I would urge[ the basketball philosophy]:
“Never up, never in.”
Closely
related to these thoughts are yours (Explaining
at 379) on the “crucial” need for cross-border
institutions:
The
most urgent priority here is to establish all-Ireland
cross-border co-operation and British-Irish co-operation,
especially in policy functions affected by the European
Union. It is the former which will be the most problematic.
It is crucial for the nationalist minority that
there be some institutional link between Northern
Ireland and the Republic. Indeed it is considered
a litmus test of any successful settlement by many
Irish nationalists and will therefore be critical
to the passage of amendments to Articles 2 and 3
in a referendum in the Republic. It is unlikely
that any settlement could endure without cross-border
institutions of some kind — if it could get
off the ground at all. There are a number of formats
such an all-Ireland institution could take, and
it would be best if these are not seen as guaranteeing
any creeping political unification of Ireland.
This
analysis makes a fair amount of sense if one assumes
that negotiated independence is impossible; if that
assumption is in error, though, the overall analysis
may itself be in error. Again referencing your thoughts
on a Bosnia-like result, please bear in mind the accurate
Moore and Crimmins statement: “The removal of
the British presence resulting from independence would
achieve the Provisional IRA’s goal of ‘Brits
out’ and would remove a fundamental part of its
raison d’être.” Future
at 251. It might be that fair and workable negotiated
independence would be victory enough both to end the
battle and to obviate the need for forcing cross-border
bodies upon unwilling Northern Protestants.[3]
Regarding
possible independence as discussed in The Politics
of Antagonism (1996) (“Politics”),
your earlier-stated assumption on the “probable”
inadequacy of independence from the Republican perspective
(Future at 294) becomes unqualified: “[S]ince
some republicans would see independence as a half-way
house to Irish unity, the IRA would continue its campaign
for a united Ireland after the Great British had gone.”
Politics at 285. As reflected in my above-quoted
comments to Professor Rose, this assumption may be
just plain wrong; moreover, the PIRA could be put
to a definitive test on this point by working up a
proposal and seeing whether that group had the courage
to speak on it forthrightly and, if so, by hearing
their view on it: i.e., whether such independence
would or would not suffice to end its battle. Having
scrutinized public pronouncements by Republicans over
the past several years particularly, I think one would
be hard-pressed to conclude that a fair and workable
independence would be out of the question in their
overall view; indeed, the apparently favorable Republican
disposition generally towards the Good Friday Agreement
scheme suggests rather strongly that that movement
has some flexibility in acceding to constitutional
schemes short of unification.
Your
Politics of Antagonism discussion on independence
presents additional items with which I would also
take issue.
First,
you cite (at 284-85) a then-eight-year-old, now eleven-year-old
study by Robin Wilson of Fortnight in support
of the notion that
independence
is strongly opposed by the vast majority of the
electorate within Northern Ireland. It was the first
preference of 7 per cent of Protestants and 4 per
cent of Catholics in a poll reported in April 1988,
and acceptable to only a further 11 per cent of
Protestants and 4 per cent of Catholics (Wilson,
1988).
Mr.
Wilson, as I have learned firsthand, is so dead-set
against the notion of independence that he—in
direct contrast to you—won’t even engage
in an intellectually honest discussion thereon (as
documented particularly through his and my participation
in Dr. deBono’s 1997 Internet conference on Northern
Ireland, portions of which I have included in earlier
e-mail transmissions to you; those conference submissions
may yet be available in full on the Internet), this
notwithstanding the fact that he heads a political
think-tank calling itself, for some reason, “Democratic
Dialogue.” Therefore, I would greet with skepticism
most of what Mr. Wilson might assert on this point.
However,
assuming arguendo that those data were valid
in 1988, it is not difficult to see why such a poll
on independence would have received such low approval,
based upon your own analysis of the assumptions that
those poll participants would indeed naturally have
tended to make:
Most
unionists reject independence because it would mean
they would no longer be British, and leave them
bereft of the material benefits of the British connection,
whereas nationalists reject it both because they
would not be part of the Irish Republic and because
they would be a minority within the new state.
(At
285 (footnote omitted).) What, though, would Unionists’
reactions have been had they been told, accurately,
that any such independence would mean (a) that they
and their progeny could remain full British citizens
and (b) that British subsidies of the region would
continue for some long period of time? How would Nationalists
have reacted had they been told, accurately, that
any such independence would mean (a) that they and
their progeny could remain full Republic of Ireland
citizens and (b) that the new regional government
would transparently offer them a genuine opportunity
for full political participation? Moreover, it is
rather difficult to accept that people stopped on
a Belfast street corner by a pollster would have an
adequate chance to grasp and digest novel concepts
such as these. However, were these concepts actually
integrated into a proposal formally put to that electorate,
we could all then see what their considered responses
would be.
Yet,
even without an opportunity for such better-informed
consideration of these possibilities, the most current
data I am aware of on this point indicate that Northern
Ireland has warmed a bit to the idea of possible independence.
In an April 1997 QUB/Belfast Telegraph poll—which
I referenced in an earlier e-mail message—50
percent of Ulster Protestants and 48 percent of Ulster
Catholics stated that they would at least “tolerate”
independence. Assuming this poll to be accurate, it
seems virtually impossible that those numbers would
decline if that populace saw developed a proposal
which indeed adequately addressed important “logistical”
considerations, including those discussed above. Were
such a proposal well formulated, ultimate approval
in the polling booths might reach a two-thirds or
three-fourths level, however fantastic that assertion
may appear at first glance.
At
the end of your Politics of Antagonism discussion
of independence, you refer to that option as “unthinkable”
for British and Irish policymakers (at 285), as you
had done at the beginning of this decade (Future
at 303 n.22). My dictionary offers two definitions
of “unthinkable”: “1: not capable
of being grasped by the mind 2: being contrary
to what is reasonable, desirable, or probable: being
out of the question.” Of course, I surmise you
intended the latter meaning in your assessments, but—and
without trying to be facetious—perhaps the former
definition is closer to the mark: maybe those policymakers
just don’t get it. (Rather poorly, I have
attempted for some time to address that concern by
trying to cultivate contacts among British Isles political
groups and by variously transmitting my all-too-verbose
thoughts thereon; I recognize well that I may indeed
fail in this effort—because my ideas are either
inadequate or wrong or badly presented, or, perhaps,
for other reasons—but I take some meager solace
in the view that I will not have failed for want of
trying.)
Please
permit me to return now to Moore and Crimmins. Unsurprisingly,
as they did a fine job advocating a position that
I have myself been advocating, I agree with much of
what they wrote in the work you edited. Already quoted
above are various excerpts therefrom with which I
agree; though tempted to reference many other of their
passages, I’ll quote just three more here:
The
risk of continuing or increased violence in an independent
Northern Ireland has also to be balanced against
the dangers involved in accepting the only other
options available. There will almost certainly be
a full-scale civil war if any attempt is made to
force one million Protestants into a united Ireland.
On the other hand, the death-toll will continue
to mount if the British[ political presence] remain[s]
in Northern Ireland. [At 253 (endnote omitted).]
The
danger of losing the[ British] subvention is often
used by academics and politicians to discredit serious
discussion of any option that does not include continued
membership in the UK. However, we would argue that
it is highly unlikely that Britain would grant independence
to Northern Ireland without agreeing to continue the
subsidies. ... Other sources, such as the USA and
EC, would probably be willing to share the burden
of aid as the price of a durable peace in an area
of some strategic importance. [At 255.]
At
the moment[ i.e., in 1990,] neither the British
nor Irish Governments seem inclined to take the
resolute steps required to establish a stable independent
Northern Ireland. But such steps are not as inconceivable
as the critics of independence suggest, and th[ose
steps] may be discussed more seriously as the futility
of the alternatives becomes increasingly apparent.
[At 257-58 (emphasis added).]
Furthermore,
I’d agree to a certain extent with the following:
The
most desirable way to proceed towards an independent
Northern Ireland would be for the communal leaders
in the province to take the first step. They could
hold negotiations to establish if a consensus existed.
If such a consensus emerged and looked stable, there
would be tremendous pressure on the London and Dublin
governments to welcome and assist the establishment
of an independent state.
It
must be conceded, however, that under the present
circumstances there is no realistic possibility
of such a spontaneous agreement emerging. [At 245.]
Although,
because “there is no realistic possibility
of such a spontaneous agreement emerging,”
the point is most probably moot, I nonetheless would
disagree with any notion that some sort of pre-plebiscite
local consensus would need to be established as
a prerequisite to further analysis. (Cf.
my work at 162.)
Where
I rather strenuously disagree, though, with Moore
and Crimmins is regarding their assertion that, to
produce a stable and prosperous Northern Ireland,
London and Dublin “would have to proceed in the
following way”:
First,
the British government would have to agree to withdraw
from Northern Ireland at a fixed date in the future,
allowing a sufficient transition period for it to
develop support for the concept in Northern Ireland.
... The British government would have to inform
the [constitutional] conference that it would withdraw
at the end of the transitional period, whether or
not an agreement was reached, leaving the northern
Irish to fend for themselves. Secondly, the British
government would have to proclaim its willingness
to continue its present policy of subsidizing the
economy of Northern Ireland for a period of fifteen
to twenty years. ... Thirdly, the Republic of Ireland
would have to withdraw its constitutional claim
to Northern Ireland and agree to sponsor, or at
least refrain from vetoing, the new state’s
application for membership of the European Community
(EC). ... Finally, the two governments would have
to facilitate internal accommodation by making their
sponsorship of the new state conditional upon the
Protestant majority agreeing to the establishment
of a constitution acceptable to the Catholic minority.
[At. 246-47.]
I
think this “imposed independence” approach
would entail at least two substantial problems.
First,
and especially in light of “stability” concerns
elsewhere discussed, it would not be credible that
Britain and the Republic would walk away from Northern
Ireland, without a constitution in place there, and
simply let the locals “fend for themselves.”
Relatedly, what would happen if the Protestant and
Catholic communities could not come to terms on the
shape of a new constitution? Would that event cause
Britain to reassess its “withdrawal” statement?
(It is rather easy to imagine Britain thereupon urging
with all solemnity: “This seventh deadline
for agreeing on a new constitution is absolutely,
finally, really, no-kiddingly the ‘last-chance
saloon’ for agreement ... unless, of course,
that deadline passes without agreement and we then
determine, through our fine political judgment, that
more time is needed.”)
Second,
and in line with basic human nature, this “forcing”
process regarding independence could cause Northern
Irelanders to recoil reflexively from an overall approach
that they might voluntarily choose if given the opportunity.
At very least in the context of a proposal for Northern
Ireland’s independence, I think the Ulster populace
needs—and deserves—to be treated like an
intelligent group of people facing a difficult and
critical decision regarding their future. If a genuinely
good, just, and workable plan for independence were
honestly presented them, it does not seem to me ridiculous
to suppose that they would scrupulously consider whether
to make the substantial sacrifices necessary to implement
it. However, today as fifteen years ago, I would argue
that the ultimate choice would and should be their
own.
****
As
I wrap up what is easily the longest letter I have
written outside of the course of my formal legal practice,
please permit me a couple of concluding thoughts.
In
earlier correspondence with you, I argued that—when
the Good Friday Agreement is finally put out of its
misery—negotiated independence should be affirmatively
considered before an option like possible joint sovereignty
is further considered; in support for that position,
I suggested that the former could be fully and finally
vetted and voted upon within the course of about a
year whereas the latter “might only engender
and entail another decade or two or more of mild misery
for most and not-so-mild misery for others.”
From,
inter alia, having read “Pain-killers,
Panaceas and Solvents: Explanations and Prescriptions”
in Explaining Northern Ireland, I get the distinct
impression that your suggestions on joint authority
would involve the British and Irish governments issuing
their respective fiats to effect that result. Cf.
id. at 380 (“It is possible that it might
be judged that [cross-border] institutions could not
achieve majority support in a Northern Ireland referendum.
... [One] possibility would be to establish British-Irish
bodies mandated by the sovereign governments which
would not be in [a] constitutional package submitted
to the electorate in Northern Ireland.”).
As
a result, I would raise an additional argument here
for attempting independence before joint authority:
it must make great and good sense to try an approach
that would be founded, if at all, upon the agreement
of Northern Irelanders before trying an approach that,
for better or worse, would be imposed upon them by
London and/or Dublin.
Finally,
I offer an update on your one of your texts. You began
your above-referenced 1995 “Pain-killers”
chapter, from your Explaining Northern Ireland,
with a 1971 quote from the esteemed Professor Rose:
“In the foreseeable future, no solution is immediately
practical.”
Six
weeks ago, over a cool drink on the shank of a hot
Washington, D.C. afternoon, Professor Rose unsolicitedly
opined to me that independence might have a one-in-three
chance of success. I hasten to add that I doubt he
meant that statement literally: odds-making in this
context is certainly beyond my ken, and I scarcely
believe he thereby intended to “make book”
on that possibility. I do think, though, that his
comment reflected his belief, like the beliefs of
Moore and Crimmins, that whatever perhaps inestimable
“chance” this approach might in fact have,
possible negotiated independence is neither a slight
nor an implausible consideration—a thought with
which I hope you would agree—and, perhaps, one
that is typically underrated.
I
thank you again sincerely, both for your earlier courtesies
and for your large and patient attention herein.
Best
regards,
/s/
Paul
A. Fitzsimmons
PAF:ms
cc:
(by
e-mail and airmail)
Dr. James Crimmins
College Administrator
Huron College
The University of Western Ontario
(by e-mail and airmail)
Margaret R. Moore, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Waterloo
(by e-mail and airmail)
Prof. John F. McGarry
Department of Political Science
University of Waterloo
(by airmail)
Prof. Richard Rose
Director of CSPP
University of Strathclyde
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1]One
contact suggested to me that this approach would constitute
an infringement of British sovereignty, which is plainly
in error. As I told him in reply, at issue would be
EU membership, not any country’s sovereignty.
Any portion of any EU country would remain free to
split from its parent, according to whatever terms
each part might agree upon; thus, sovereignty would
remain entirely a matter of “local” concern.
However, it would and should remain for the EU members
themselves to decide upon what standards a newly independent
seceding region would become eligible for EU membership;
control of membership in this respect is no more an
infringement of sovereignty than would be the EU’s
deciding whether Canada or New Zealand or India might
become EU members.
[2]Cf.
the Moore and Crimmins comment (at 252-53) on possible
post-independence violence by Protestant paramilitary
groups and by Northern paramilitaries as a whole:
It
could be argued that a British unilateral severance
of the Union[ aiming for the establishment of an
independent Northern state] would provoke a loyalist
armed rebellion, such as occurred in 1912 with the
organization of the UVF. But a rebellion against
whom or what? ...
....
Independence, unlike any other option, would present
both sets of paramilitaries with a quid pro quo,
with both being able to claim a sort of victory.
[3]On
these rather interrelated topics—and supporting
your assessment of the importance of this cross-border
institutions issue (at least in the absence of negotiated
independence)—I think that the tenuousness of
those institutions in the Good Friday Agreement scheme
is a main reason, and perhaps the largest reason,
for the PIRA’s refusal to begin decommissioning;
in another context, I wrote the following in June:
[T]hough
little discussed, the inherent structure of the
GFA’s “Strand Two” portion on North/South
governmental bodies may have presented a no less
difficult “decommissioning” issue for
Republicans, as those cross-border bodies appeared
to constitute the bare minimum political “exchange”
for obtaining a negotiated end to this “war.”
Had militant Republicans signaled their full acceptance
of the Good Friday scheme[ by beginning their decommissioning
process], Unionists might thereafter have been quite
tempted to gut—to the considerable extent that
they would have been lawfully able—the scheme’s
planned North/South structures, as those structures
are typically undesired or even detested within
Unionism. (In this setting, any theoretical ability
to petition London and/or Dublin to override later
“cross-border” decisions of duly-appointed
Unionist officials could offer Republicans but scant
reassurance.) It therefore seemed quite unlikely
that militant Republicans would have agreed, without
qualification, to a new government lacking any track
record but within which that one “green”
concession might later have been essentially eviscerated.
Thus, the key GFA dispute, while often simply described
as concerning “decommissioning,” was more
accurately rooted in the following question: would
the bulk of Northern Ireland’s militant Republican
movement permanently, unqualifiedly, and immediately
accept the constitutional scheme devised in the
Good Friday Agreement? For Unionists, the answer
to that question had to have been expressly “yes”
for a powersharing executive to include Sinn Féin,
but Republicans’ at least implicit answer thereto
was, and is apparently still, “no.” For
that reason alone—and because the June 1998
election results left the UUP little maneuvering
room—it was reasonably apparent since the third
quarter of last year that there would be no negotiated
resolution to this impasse (absent a “capitulation”
by one side or the other, which of course did not
occur).
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