Left must say more about how to unify Ireland

In Solidarity 771, we noted that the voice of the labour movement was largely absent in the current flurry of "united Ireland" discussion.

The socialist left has not been particularly active on this issue. Part of this is understandable. Just because Sinn Féin is agitating around its Planning for Constitutional Change Bill, introduced in June to “legislate for the planning and preparation for constitutional change and Irish reunification”, doesn’t mean the left should simply jump to it.

That said, an answer to the national question is part of a rounded socialist programme.

Under "Policies" on the website of the People Before Profit electoral party, there is little to go on. However, party theorist Kieran Allen did set out a more programmatic commentary on the current debate, in an article in March 2026 on "What sort of united Ireland?”

Allen comments on the debate in bourgeois circles, deals with some objections to a united Ireland from right-wing economists and states that there "are good reasons for this discussion on Irish unity, even on a capitalist basis."

That said, Allen argues that it "may make rational sense from a capitalist point of view, but partition created a monster that cannot be so easily dismantled under the present arrangements."

He points to the ultimate say of the British Secretary of State in calling a border poll (a point also made in the Dail debate on Sinn Fein’s Bill by Séamus Healy TD, a former member of the Trotskyist League for a Workers' Republic in the late 1960s and early 1970s.)

Importantly, Allen also notes that "official Unionism destroyed radical voices within the Protestant population, and this must be undermined." This will be difficult without linking a united Ireland to improvements for workers: only "the prospect of a better Ireland for working people could induce protestant workers to support Irish Unity."

"A united Ireland must therefore be conceived in radical and socialist terms to tackle the ‘carnival of reaction’ that both the green and Orange traditions have forged."

This involves being clear-eyed about the challenges of the creating an all-Irish National Health Service and a secular education system, as well as ending relative poverty.

"Only a radical social government can really address these issues," argues Allen, "by breaking from an economic model that privileges US multinationals."

This is all true.

Allen's polemical thrust, however, is saved for those "advocates of a united Ireland [who] attempt to sidestep these issues by claiming that compromises must be made on identity. They suggest that Ireland should either rejoin the Commonwealth or show respect for the Orange tradition. But this assumes that material realities should be ignored and that attention should be focused on flags and national anthems."

Instead, Allen counterposes this to "a constituent assembly to rewrite a new constitution for the whole island. In such an assembly, we will argue for the right to housing and free health treatment. We will push an anti-war article to prevent any involvement with NATO or an EU army."

"A border poll," he states, "can lead to a mass politicisation where the radical dynamic behind a call for a United Ireland comes to the fore. In a situation where working people feel they can begin to take control, issues of flags and anthems can be sorted by a risen people."

If anything, however, Allen is the one sidestepping issues of identity. However "artificial" these may seem, or however much you may claim they were a product of Partition and not also of communal divisions stretching back centuries, issues of sectarian identity continue to structure politics in the North.

Allen states that it is “claimed that a united Ireland would bring about a loss of a "British identity". "Yet one survey showed that the strongest identification people had was Northern Irish (52%), as against 48% Irish and 46% British.”

As these percentages suggest, it is possible to state more than one identity in the census. In Census 2021, 814,600 people (42.8%) living in the North identified solely or along with other national identities (including Northern Irish) as "British". In the most recent election, in May 2024, even though the DUP lost three seats, the overall share of the Unionist vote was 45.4%, not including Alliance which was another 15%.

This remains a hefty minority to convince in an island-wide context.

Why does a recognition of this fact “assume that material realities should be ignored and that attention should be focused on flags and national anthems”? Is not possible to combine a democratic programme on issues of national identity with a focus on material realities?

Is identity itself not a “material reality” once held by many people. As Marx put it in his Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, ideas become a material force as soon as they have gripped the masses!

What would a constituent assembly say about identity issues, other than that they will be dissolved by the enthusiasm of a "risen people"?

Is it not possible to advocate some concessions to Protestant workers holding a British identity - such as the right to hold a British passport in a united Ireland or a measure of local devolution within a sovereign Irish state - without wishing to "rejoin the Commonwealth or show respect for the Orange tradition"?

As with Allen's 2021 book, more detail is needed on how the socialist left can make a case for unity capable of breaking Protestant workers from Unionism.