A Warning From Northern Ireland. Is Anyone Listening?

Northern Ireland is a place not so much trapped by its history, but one that is living it every day. Here the question of which state it should belong to remains contested, its people divided on the very basics of the symbols and structures of most ordinary societies.

Through luck and circumstance, its principal unionist party has for two years held the balance of power in London. Yet, should it not after December 12—should Johnson, instead, emerge with a Conservative majority to impose his deal on Northern Ireland—unionism will be politically powerless.

What will unionists do then? The message from some in Belfast and Fermanagh, true or otherwise, was that political defeat in London would not be the end of the story, that protesters would take to the streets, that the Good Friday Agreement would be dead. Some older heads disagreed, arguing that unionism will eventually have to learn to live with the Johnson deal. Eventually, they would have little choice but to get on with their lives, betrayed or otherwise. The alternative would be to risk making the nationalist case for them: that Northern Ireland doesn’t work and would be better in a union with Ireland, not Britain. “We’re fucked,” as one of the older Shankill loyalists told me.

Read: Belfast shows the price of Brexit

The more toxic concern, though, is the emerging sense of powerlessness coupled with age-old existential fear and the belief that what is happening is unjust. Irish Republican warnings that any new land-border checks would be targeted were held up in Dublin and London as reasons to avoid such infrastructure. What of unionist concerns? “If you’re sending a signal that the threat of violence gets you somewhere, that’s a really bad signal,” one of the loyalists at the Shankill center said. What lessons should loyalists take from this? another asked.

There is already talk, repeated back to me in Belfast and rural Fermanagh, of blockading the ports into Northern Ireland to make the new economic border checks unworkable. Other scenarios set out included disrupting trade with the Republic of Ireland. The threats, according to two senior political operatives in Northern Ireland, one DUP and one unaligned, are not as hollow as they might seem. Both pointed to a part of the Brexit deal that states, “If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist … the United Kingdom may unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measures.” In effect, if there is sufficient turbulence, unionists could force London’s hand.

To the DUP’s Protestant critics, the very fact that suggestions of rioting and unrest are now so prevalent is a testament to unionism’s collective political failure. Such talk, they say, will prove hot air that should not be taken too seriously. Either way, in Northern Ireland, like the Belfast rain, feelings of betrayal, anger, and fear come and go, but never quite leave entirely. There’s a growing sense another downpour is coming.

Tom McTague is a London-based staff writer at The Atlantic, and co-author of Betting the House: The Inside Story of the 2017 Election.