Fintan O’Toole: There is a pretence the British union is to be saved at all costs

Last month, Boris Johnson, anticipating an imminent general election, sprayed a golden shower of money all over the various departments of the British state. I have an unhealthy interest in one novel arm of that state: the new ministry for the union. In July, Johnson, not content with rising to the office of prime minister, gave himself a title none of his predecessors had ever held, or indeed heard of: minister for the union. I got to wondering what kind of budget this grand new institution might have. Since Johnson insists that “the union comes first” in all his thoughts, I imagined it must be very large. Here is the exciting news from the spending package: “£10 million of additional funding to strengthen the links between the four nations of the union as the UK leaves the EU, supporting the work of the prime minister as minister for the union. Of this, £5 million will be allocated to the Territorial Offices.”

I have to confess that I had no idea what the Territorial Offices might be – something to do with Gibraltar or the British Virgin Islands? But no, Territorial Offices is the actual official term for the Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Office of the Secretary of State for Wales and the Northern Ireland Office. The term seems wonderfully resonant: Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast being "out in the territories". But what really interests me is that Johnson's own budget as minister for the union, to be spent on strengthening the ties that bind together England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, is £5 million. By contrast, £8.3 billion has been committed to planning for a no-deal Brexit. So £10 million to save the union, £8.3 billion to tear it apart. The order of priorities is rather evident.

An obvious question arises here: is the union in danger or is it not? Clearly, Johnson thinks it is: you don't need a minister for the union if the union is just going about its prescribed business of existing. And just as clearly, he thinks it is not: if the very existence of your state is being threatened, £10 million is an entirely meaningless response. The truth of course is that Johnson, like Theresa May before him, is trying to paper over a very wide crack. Everyone who can read the polls knows that Leave voters, Tory voters and even the members of the Conservative and Unionist Party don't give a curse if the break-up of the union is the price to be paid for Brexit. But no one in government can acknowledge that truth – instead there must be a pretence that the "precious, precious Union", as the Gollum-like May called it, is to be saved at all costs. Hence the nonsense.

Unveiled

For £5 million, I could tell Johnson how to shore up the union: stay in the EU single market and customs union. But I don’t think that is what the minister for the union has in mind. I also wonder how his budget squares with Theresa May’s big idea for strengthening the union after Brexit. She unveiled it at last year’s Tory Party conference: a grand Festival of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 2020. It will be “a moment of national celebration and help attract new inward business and investment”.

Fintan O’Toole: We must let Boris Johnson declare his genius

---

Fintan O’Toole: Greta Thunberg is a prophet, preacher, rulebreaker, avenging angel

---

Fintan O’Toole: Ireland’s Apple appeal is a disastrous miscalculation

---

Fintan O’Toole: For the first time since 1171, Ireland is more powerful than Britain

---

May promised to spend £120 million on it. Though some of it will apparently be spent on French champagne. The idea, so far as I can trace it, sprang from the genius of Jacob Rees-Mogg, who told the Express in January 2018: “A Festival of Brexit would be excellent. There should be a huge celebration and in the spirit of friendship of our European neighbours, upon leaving we should drink lots of champagne to say that though we may be leaving the European Union, we don’t dislike Europe.” This seems a pretty good plan, and the same thinking could surely be applied to strengthening the ties between the four UK nations. If guzzling champagne (will there be a bottle for everyone who attends the festival?) will show the French that there are no hard feelings after Brexit, how could “we” show that “we don’t dislike the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish”? Serve haggis, leeks and soda farls?

Brexit endgame

But the serious point in all of this is that the Brexit endgame may well be played out precisely on this soggy terrain of contradictions and hypocrisy. The idea of the union undoubtedly still has a strong place in the psychology of Conservatism, and the DUP has been able to play on that sentimental attachment in its opposition to a Northern Ireland-only backstop. But its reality is that Conservatism is being replaced by a militant assault on the institutions of the UK state. Unionism is wrapped up in that strange fabric, the British constitution. Where does it stand when the fabric is being ripped up by Johnson and his cabal? If they show such contempt for parliament and the law, how likely is it that they will really “die in the last ditch” to preserve a union that their own political base no longer cares about? I see your £10 million and I raise you a sceptical eyebrow.