Unionist and Loyalist opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol was one of the political fuses which sparked serious rioting during and after the Easter celebrations and saw more than 80 police officers injured.
While a section of working class Loyalism believes in the delusion it can petrol bomb the Protocol out of existence, the vast majority of pro-Union support in Northern Ireland is relying on the legal challenge to the Protocol.
Although Boris Johnston has expressed his concern at the street violence, is he really more worried about the outcome of next month’s parliamentary elections in Scotland where polls predict an outright victory for the Nicola Sturgeon-led Scottish National Party.
If such a scenario becomes a political reality in Edinburgh’s Holyrood parliament, then Scottish nationalism’s battle cry for a second independence referendum will surely gather considerable momentum.
Setting aside the debate that an SNP victory will add equal momentum to Irish nationalism’s plea for a border poll on Irish Unity, there can be no doubting that an independent Scotland would rejoin the European Union.
After all Scotland and Northern Ireland, as regions of the UK, both voted ‘remain’ in the 2016 EU membership referendum.
The main plank of Unionist and Loyalist opposition to the Protocol is that it threatens Northern Ireland’s constitutional position within the UK by creating the border along the Irish Sea.
But what happens if the Protocol works economically and Northern Ireland prospers financially from that Irish Sea border in the long term?
Could Scottish nationalists also demand a Scottish Protocol with an economic border along the 73-mile Hardrian’s Wall between northern England and southern Scotland as a stepping stone to gaining full independence and a return to EU membership?
Put bluntly, if PM Johnston is to stem the rising tide of Scottish nationalism, he needs the Northern Ireland Protocol to fail economically so that he can inform Brussels - ‘this ain’t working!’
As Loyalists vent their anger at the Protocol, Scottish nationalists must be equally politically furious that they did not manage to be given a similar Protocol for Scotland as part of the UK withdrawal agreement.
A so-called Scottish Protocol would have been the perfect launching pad for the economic benefits of full-blown independence from Westminster.
Perhaps the key question which the pro-Union community in Northern Ireland should be asking is - what does Boris Johnston fear most; Irish Unity or Scottish independence?
Similarly, does Boris Johnston and his supporters in the anti-EU European Research Group (ERG) of Conservative MPs really want the Protocol to flounder economically so that it can be conveniently axed at a later date under the political banner of ‘I told you so’ - no matter what the financial consequences for Northern Ireland?
Some sections of the pro-Union community in Northern Ireland have suggested that Unionist MLAs should walk out of Stormont and collapse the Assembly in protest at the Protocol.
However, such folk who threaten devolution have had their political knuckles severely rapped when Northern Ireland Secretary of State Brandon Lewis successfully got Westminster to grant him powers to order the Department of Health to offer abortion services which are available in other parts of the UK, thereby bypassing the Stormont Executive.
Devolution has not endured the same rocky political path in Scotland as it has in Northern Ireland, so was the Lewis move really a warning shot across the bows of the SNP from the PM - if I can do this in Northern Ireland, I can bypass Holyrood, too?
Scotland and Northern Ireland have strong cultural and historical bonds - and that’s not simply a reference to the Old Firm support for Rangers and Celtic in the Scottish soccer Premiership.
What happens in Scotland in its 6th May parliamentary elections will resonate in Northern Ireland.
Ironically, Boris Johnston may be forced to ditch the Northern Ireland Protocol, not because of a Unionist legal challenge or Loyalist rioting, but because it may give unwanted impetus to a potentially massive resurgent SNP.
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Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online at http://radio.garden/listen/sunshine-104-9fm/tBZsuX1o |
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