If a poll was to be carried out among the Protestant population
in Northern Ireland and people were to be asked what issue
concerns them most and what they would most like to see, it
is a safe guess that the answer would be one word - Unity.
Battered by 30 years of republican violence, demonised by
the 'liberal' media, forsaken by mainland Britain which has
displayed little loyalty or understanding of the courageous
loyal people of Ulster who have been in the front line of
IRA murder and terrorism, the Unionist people have been able
to withstand all this without breaking.
But there is almost total disillusionment and despair on
the part of the vast majority of Ulster Protestants over the
failure of the Unionist political parties to get their act
together and make common cause in the face of the perils and
dangers which confront this Province.
In the days of the Home Rule crisis of 1912-14 the Unionist
leader and icon Edward Carson warned the loyal people of this
Province that the only thing which could defeat them and eventually
lead to Ulster being incorporated into a Roman Catholic-dominated
State detached from the United Kingdom would be disunity on
the part of the majority population.
"United we stand, divided we fall" has been one
of Ulster's key slogans for generations, once as well known
as "Derry, Aughrim, Enniskillen and the Boyne".
It was something that Ulster loyalists learned from they were
young enough to understand.
Carson's warning was no mere slogan. He fully understood
the situation which faced the Ulster population, especially
the one-and-a-half million of the new state of Northern Ireland.
In those days there was a majority of two-to-one for the
Protestants in this country. Today, it is more like 57-43
per cent, but even in the days when Protestants were two-thirds
of the population Carson was conscious that serious disunity
on the part of Protestants and Unionists would put Northern
Ireland in great peril.
In short, he was getting across the message that Northern
Ireland did not need more than one Unionist party. Within
that party there could be democratic debate and room for dissention.
Unionism was a broad church, and indeed at one time there
was a strong Unionist-Labour movement within the Ulster Unionist
Party.
Today, the once mighty monolith of Unionism has fractured
and there are some six Unionist parties, of which the Ulster
Unionist and Democratic Unionist parties are by far the largest.
Unionists are engaged in a bitter and debilitating battle
for the hearts and minds of their people, and instead of creating
a positive feeling on the part of rank-and-file unionists,
it is having the opposite effect.
People are walking away from politics in droves, they are
thoroughly fed up and digusted at the sight of unionist politicians
tearing one another to shreds in front of television cameras
and on the radio.
The people are not fools. They know that their cherished
British identity and citizenship is under the greatest threat
in the past 80 years since this little country was formed.
Every day they see their Britishness being diluted. They
have watched the finest police force in the world being destroyed
and dismantled. They have watched the symbols of British rule
being removed from buildings, and the proud 'Royal' prefix
being removed from organisations.
They have listened to radio programmes and watched television
programmes which denigrate and hold up to contempt the great
Ulster institutions and organisations, including the Orange
Institution. They have also had to watch men and women "inextricably
linked" to terrorist organisations become part of the
ruling Assembly.
They have also had to watch the release of hundreds of prisioners,
many of them convicted murderers, who had completed only a
fraction of their sentence, and contemplate an amnesty for
other killers on the run.
All this should have been sufficient to convince Unionists
that their best way of preserving what is left of British
identity in Northern Ireland is to unite and stand firm behind
one common objective. But what do they find?
More bitter words than ever between Unionists of different
parties and a further tearing asunder of the overall Unionist
position.
It is not too late for Unionists to get their act together
and to defeat this evil conspiracy which seeks to destroy
their position and this Province and put it under the heel
of Dublin.
But there is not a moment to be lost if this is to be achieved,
and somehow Unionists must put their own selfish interests
and that of their own political brand and party to the background
and seek common cause against the enemies of Ulster.
The Orange Order is the one organisation which binds Protestants
and Unionists together in the common brotherhood, and, as
throughout its history, it will be prepared to play its part
in achieving the cherished goal of unity.
But it requires everyone who loves this Province and its
British identity to stand up and be counted and play their
part in persuading Unionists that they must end this awful
civil war within Unionism and concentrate on the common goal
of keeping Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom and
defeating republicanism.
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