Ben Lowry: Unionists are not looking for lundies yet even unionists are claiming that we are!

​Philip Smith wrote that the arguments in favour of the Union were strong but were not being effectively made (‘Unionists should heed Napoleon's advice, and wear a velvet glove over an iron fist,’ January 25, see link below).

The Ulster Unionist representative in North Down and Ards has established Uniting UK, to make “a civic unionist, non-party political case for the Union”.

Philip is the sort of thoughtful voice that is needed in elected office. “Our analysis is that political unionism is too focused on short-term tactics to make a strategic pro-Union case,” he said.

He also said: “Unionism has traditionally been insular and struggled to effectively engage nationally and internationally.”

I agree that short-termism is a problem, such as seeking money in negotiations or trivial symbolic gains when nationalists seek irreversible ones of substance.

Insularity is a problem too. If power brokers in London and Washington DC do not respect unionists they are less likely to heed our concerns about things such as an Irish Sea border.

But Philip said something that was, I believe, so wrong it needs to be challenged. He said unionists are looking for lundies. Lundy was the Protestant traitor in the 1688 Siege of Derry. Again and again unionists are said to be seeking lundies, often by nationalist critics such as the SDLP leader Colum Eastwood MP.

But there is a long list of unionists who level he same charge at their own community. Arlene Foster in 2021 as DUP leader said that unionists at times “look for lundies, and ... people who they can blame".

Jim Nicholson, the ex UUP MEP, in this newspaper the same year urged unionists not to seek lundies.

Philip Smith did not quite make that accusation himself this week, but he did approvingly quote Peter Robinson, who in 2014 advised the DUP against such an outlook, and to instead seek converts.

The idea that unionists are looking for lundies is entrenched. When, on a BBC Red Lines broadcast last year, I disputed the idea that unionists were seeking for lundies, the political reporter Gareth Gordon challenged me and said that there were always unionists who were doing just that. I judged it best not to get into a back-and-forth on the point just then.

But given that it is a claim that keeps coming up, it needs addressed. Something akin to ‘searching for lundies’ did indeed happen in the past. Rev Ian Paisley fiercely denounced compromise. But it is nonsense to suggest it is big factor in unionism now. In fact unionists are remarkably laid back about concessions, and you can find at least a handful of unionists arguing for concession on almost every core issue except a border poll (and even then there is flirtation with the idea that it might be best to get a plebiscite over with).

There have been at least some unionists arguing for an Irish language act, arguing for the de Souza citizenship case (which would have harmed sovereignty), for the NI Protocol (or, if not that, for unionists to recognise its benefits), for a defeatist approach to legacy. Unionists praised Julian Smith as secretary of state in spite of the damage he did to the UK, such as tearing up the three strands (to no unionist protest).

Jamie Bryson is a hardline loyalist, but rather than denouncing lundies he typically adopts another tactic such as praising unionists for standing firm, perhaps as a way of hoping they will not. He welcomed Edwin Poots becoming DUP leader, when Mr Poots is one of the most compromise-prone politicians of that party.

Jim Allister points out the almost endless low-level concessions to nationalism at times matter-of-factly, at times with exasperation but while he can mock compromise he is not looking for lundies.

For years I have said that unionists are conceding things they need not. Other unionist voices from Owen Polley to the councillor Carl McClean say the same. None of us think this is due to lundyism. We think that it is due to factors such as a unionist loss of confidence or making concessions to get into positions of influence. Sometimes it is rooted in unionists having absorbed the idea that they are to blame and so must always concede, or having subconciously accepted the republican line that politics here is a ‘process’.

Philip Smith urged unionists to put an iron hand in a velvet glove, ie be firm but charming. I agree. The problem is, unionism is under assault from every angle but has often been far from firm.

Ben Lowry (@BenLowry2) is News Letter editor

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