[bluebear]

full text of the 1972 Vanguard document - still very relevant today.

http://cain.ulst.ac..../vanguard72.htm

Ulster - A Nation
by Ulster Vanguard (1972)

Originally published by Ulster Vanguard, April 1972.


ULSTER - A NATION
____________


Consent of the Governed

Westminster's justification for destroying the Stormont system of
government was said to be the lack of minority consent to that
system. Westminster has exchanged that system for one that lacks
majority consent. It was imposed against the will of a democratically
elected parliament and government of Northern Ireland. Moreover, the
Temporary Provisions Act by which the change was effected was opposed
by all the Ulster members at Westminster save one, the Republican
Gerry Fitt. The criterion of consent, used to condemn Stormont,
condemns with still greater force the system that has supplanted it.
If consent of the governed is to be the moral justification of
government, then lack of majority consent confers on the supplanting
system less moral authority than the supplanted system had.

Ulster people may beg leave to doubt the sincerity of Westminster's
professed attachment to the principle of consent as its guide to
political action. That principle is implicit in the decision to hold
a plebicite on the border so that Ulster's status in the United
Kingdom will not be altered without Ulster's consent. But in this
case it is the majority and not the minority principle that is to be
upheld. Clearly, Westminster's operating principle is a principle of
inconsistency that applies a majority principle in the one case and a
minority principle in the other.

But another strange inconsistency emerges. In reaching a decision to
overthrow Stormont Westminster omitted to consult the wishes of the
Ulster people beforehand. Vanguard has subsequently demonstrated that
the action Westminster was bent on taking would not have been
supported in Ulster. The ease with which the principle of consent was
cast aside in order to defy the majority is a measure of the strength
of Westminster's attachment to principle. Westminster resorted to the
jack-boot, disguise it how they may. Jack-boot government deserves
only one response from free men—resistance. It is bogus democracy
when all the powers of the Governor of Northern Ireland, its
parliament and government are concentrated in the hands of one man.
No satrap had ever more powers than the Secretary of State, Mr.
Whitelaw. Ulster is now in bondage under a special powers act more
odious than any ever passed by Stormont.

One of the fundamentals of British liberty is that parliament should
meet frequently. Respect for that principle was enshrined in the 1920
Constitution in a provision that parliament at Stormont should meet
at least once a year. Under the new dispensation that parliament is
prorogued for a year with provision for a further installment of
prorogation. No wonder our outgoing P.M. warned Westminster that
Ulster was no coconut colony, as Westminster seemed disposed to
regard her. The conclusion is almost inescapable that Westminster
wants to goad Ulster into reaction that will precipitate a show-down
by heaping humiliations upon her that no self-respecting people would
tolerate. Westminster appears to be looking for an excuse to abandon
Ulster because she finds it more attractive to welsh on her
obligations towards Ulster than to discharge them.




Constitutional Guarantees

These have been given in statutory form and in solemn promises by
British statesmen. What are they worth? As far as the latter are
concerned, they are not worth a button. Their successors will
certainly repudiate them without a qualm when it suits. No Prime
Minister can bind his successors anyway, and where the breach of a
promise might otherwise look too blatant, it is easy for men as
flexible as British statesmen to discover that the circumstances have
changed since the promise was given. The current crop re-iterate
their guarantees ad nauseam to Ulster, no doubt advised that Ulster
has a fixation about these things. But the fixation is only an
indication of the credibility rating that the current crop of men
have in the eyes of Ulster people. It may surprise but it will
certainly not hurt them to discover that Ulster people have their
measure. They read in the British Press and Hansard what they think
of each other's standards of promise-keeping and truth-telling. Why
should we doubt their judgment in these matters? After all, they know
each other better than we know them.

But what about the statutory guarantees? The sovereignty of the
Westminster parliament entails that no parliament can bind its
successor and that any parliament may amend or repeal any act it
pleases and pass any new act it pleases as well. As Winston Churchill
put it on one occasion, when the Attlee government was welshing on an
all-party agreement reached at the Speaker's Conference of
1944: "Every parliament is entirely free to behave like a gentleman,
or like a cad. Every parliament is entirely free to behave honestly
or like a crook. Such are the sovereign right of this august
assembly."

It is well that Ulster people should be under no illusions about the
foundations on which their constitutional guarantees rest.
Ultimately, they rest on the changing mood of the people of Great
Britain as reflected by their political representatives at
Westminster.

In the end national self-interest, as interpreted by the politicians
in power, determines what national honour requires in regard to any
guarantee. If, like Chichester-Clark, Ulster people want copper-
bottomed guarantees of their constitutional position or their
internal security, they will get them in plenty. Unlike him, they
need not be so naive as to depend on them absolutely.




Westminster's Political Initiative

The initiative stands or falls, as Mr. Heath admits, on one thing—the
weaning of the minority community from supporting the I.R.A. so that
as a result the campaign of terror will be stopped in its tracks.
Westminster's penchant for appeasing those who have supported I.R.A.
murderers has been demonstrated over the past few years, with results
that the loyalist population knew would spell death and injury for
many of them. Indeed Westminster policy has led, as the loyalist
population knew it would, only to greater intransigence and a
stepping-up of demands. The demand for the overthrow of Stormont has
even been granted, despite the supposedly skilful boxing on the
retreat by the Stormont government. When it had served its turn and
had no more to give away, its usefulness as an instrument of
Westminster ended and it was ruthlessly discarded. Peace at any
price, so long as the loyalist population pays it. is the real end of
Westminster's policy. Despite all guarantees, Westminster would now
prefer that Ulster should tamely integrate herself into a United
Ireland. Harold Wilson has openly put a 15 year term on the
operation: and Jim Callaghan has advised Ulster to move in the same
direction, indicating that it would be an historical mistake for
Great Britain to do anything in the short term to give Ulster any
hope of keeping her place in the United Kingdom in the long term.

But what about the Conservative party. traditionally the friend of
Ulster? Ulster's P.M. was merely being polite when he publicly said
that he had lost confidence in Mr. Heath's administration. What he
really meant was that he had been taken for a ride at the end of
which he was declaring them dishonest, untrustworthy and treacherous.
Clearly the Conservatives are on the same wavelength as the Labour
and Liberal parties. The Economist of *15th January reflected the
mood of Westminster, sensed and approved by the whole British Press,
when it reported that "most ministers have made little secret of
their belief that the most satisfactory solution would be for the
Protestants in a United Ireland." Given that solution, British troops
could be withdrawn from Ireland. Any popular clamour to "bring the
boys home" could thus he avoided as an embarrassing election issue.
The entire British Press is in varying degrees hostile to the
loyalist cause in Ulster and it is not surprising that the people of
Great Britain have been persuaded that Ulster is a social, economic,
military and political liability.

It is against this general background that the prospects of success
of the great political initiative in quelling the I.R.A. has to be
judged. Against this background are the I.R.A. likely to be disposed
to hold back? Surely all the elements in the situation encourage them
to persist in a campaign which has brought them success against an
unwilling opponent and flabby British government. Will a minority
that supports the object, if not the methods of the I.R.A. be weaned
away on such a scale that the I.R.A. will fold its tents and silently
steal away? Only a foolish optimist would believe it. But the proof
of the pudding will be in the eating and the initial signs are
distinctly not propitious. Certainly on the assessment here presented
the initiative was never justified—that is, supposing it could be
taken at its face value. If the initiative is seen as preparing the
way for eventual British withdrawal from Ireland to complete the
earlier phase of 50 years ago, it fits into the whole pattern of
British policy, otherwise too incomprehensible in its futility over
the past few years in Ulster.

If the British government are planning a dignified exit from Ulster
by a capitulation masquerading as statesmanship, they misunderstand
the nature of Irish nationalism. To gratify nationalist sentiment and
anti-British hatred it is necessary that the enemy—that is, the
British—should be defeated in war and seen to be defeated by an
Ireland triumphant. The British must be driven across the sea by
force of arms. The I.R.A. want victory in no other way to satisfy the
national hatred on which the nationally-minded Irish are nurtured in
every aspect of their culture from the cradle to the grave. To quote
a schoolmaster: "The Irish youth who quits school without realising
his duties as a rebel is, or should be, a discredit to his
schoolmaster as well as to his country."

The British profess to believe that the army is in Ulster to keep the
peace between two communities, pretending that they have no quarrel
with either. The truth is that the British presence and the British
Army are the ultimate object of attack. It is a strange war in which
one side refuses to recognise that it is a party to the struggle,
clinging to the pretence of a limited peace-keeping role. It is a
strange war in which the other side, the I.R.A., pursues the
objective of an Irish government that conveniently disowns their
methods only, while allowing them a free rein in its territory as is
consistent with the pretence of both governments. It is a strange war
in which the I.R.A. is a lawful organisation with full political
rights in one part of the United Kingdom but not in the other and is
allowed to canvass support and collect funds in one part in order to
levy war on the other. It is a strange war in which the United
Kingdom government accomplishes the overthrow of a democratically
elected government and parliament as an inducement to the I.R.A. or
its supporters to desist from successful violence. It is a strange
war in which resisting Ulster is placated by repetition of
constitutional guarantees that assure the I.R.A. that Westminster is
ready to break up the United Kingdom if only Ulster would agree by
plebiscite. (Mr. Heath avoids the word, referendum, for political
reasons of his own.)

Westminster's heroic defence of Ulster by shouldering the whole
responsibility for internal security and dismantling Ulster's
capacity for resistance to friend or foe has inspired no confidence
in their honesty of purpose or their resolve to do other than to
betray the trust they undertook to discharge. Out of Ulster's blood
and tears they have unwittingly forged a nation that cannot entrust
to them its security or national destiny. No doubt they have done
their best according to their lights. But there comes a point at
which sacrifice of Ulster lives, not to mention the lives of their
own troops, for an exploded security policy makes them accessories to
murder. That point has been passed. To have robbed Ulster of her own
means of protection and then to have failed in the moral duty to
supply it themselves in honour of their explicit undertaking was a
crime against the Ulster people.

Any political initiative now that would facilitate any repetition of
the present debacle must be unacceptable to Ulster. Having endured
the taunts of the British press during our agony, are we now to be
further protected by those who despise the loyalist cause and
loyalist people? They have called us backwoodsmen, barbarians and
they have meant it. They have done all in their power to break our
morale and spirit and to encourage republican rebels. To advance our
retarded political development they have fanned the flames of a
rebellion that we must suppress or die in the attempt.

Lord Hailsham calls us to our duty of loyalty to the Queen's
ministers. Even in tribal Ireland the bond of loyalty was not a
unilateral relationship. "Spend me but defend me" imposed on the
tribal chief responsibilities arising out of that relationship.
Ulster's loyalty is primarily to her Queen, and not to ministers or
governments that fail in their duty to give loyal subjects the
blessing of the Queen's Peace. It is no disloyalty to the Queen to
refuse to accord to them a transferred loyalty they have not
deserved. There are respectable British precedents for successful
mutiny against ministers who have served the people as badly as the
loyal Ulster people have been served by Her Majesty's Government in
recent years.




Three Choices

The situation created by the Westminster initiative demands some
response from Ulster. What courses of action are open to the people?
Three possible courses have been suggested, and no doubt others will
also be put forward.

The one favoured by the overthrown Unionist government is to co-
operate with Ulster's overlord, the new Secretary of State, but to
boycott the advisory Commission he is to appoint. The justification
for this line is said to be that as loyal subjects, Unionists have a
duty to co-operate with a Minister of the Crown that does not apply
to the Commission. It is hard to see how co-operation with the
Minister does not also imply co-operation with all the apparatus of
government through which that Minister is by Act of the Queen in
Parliament required to carry on the Queen's government in Northern
Ireland.

The unionist leadership, whose purpose is to win back Stormont, are
prepared to be just a little naughty, but not too naughty to incur
the serious wrath of their former Westminster bosses. This they call
acting in a responsible manner so that after a year Westminster will
be disposed to hand them back Stormont, unchanged.

This fond hope is quite unrealistic. Westminster did not embark on so
drastic a change with any intention of restoring the status quo. Let
us hope we are wrong and that Mr. Faulkner really can read the mind
of Mr. Heath this time, despite his last display of his fallibility
in this art. To do battle with Westminster Mr. Faulkner convinced the
Standing Committee of the Ulster Unionist Council of the "far greater
strength" he now has—the strength of veto. Unfortunately its strength
has already been tested and it was not sufficient to stop the
Westminster initiative. How much less likely can it reverse it? The
fact would seem to be that Westminster has taken the measure of these
determined men and their verbal veto without teeth. Mr. Faulkner's
thunderbolts must seem to them an exceedingly moderate reaction from
one committed to uphold and defend what he did not uphold and defend
when in power—namely the constitution and Parliament of Northern
Ireland.




Direct Rule and Full Integration

This school of thought is realistic in recognising that the old
Stormont has gone and they are opposed to any watered down version
fathered by the political initiative. Ulster's place, they feel, will
be more secure as an integral part of the United Kingdom without a
subordinate legislature. The present Northern Ireland departments of
government would then be merged within the Whitehall system.

So far they suggest no programme of action to secure their objective.
Any form of pressure they are prepared to apply must necessarily be
as ineffective as that to be employed by the Ulster Unionists. A
resort to any form of street politics would scarcely win the hearts
and minds of those with whom they seek to integrate. Yet if they rely
solely on gentle persuasion, they are unlikely to convert a
Westminster already opposed strongly to the idea. Both Labour and
Liberal parties are opposed to it, for they are looking to a United
Ireland as the solution of the Irish problem. It is hardly necessary
to elaborate this point since the party spokesmen of both parties
have already made their position crystal clear.

As for the Conservative party, it is not likely they would depart
from their policy of maintaining an all-party consensus on Ulster. No
party at Westminster would willingly go it alone on Ireland. Memories
of past political shipwrecks on this subject drive all British
statesmen towards consensus as a form of political insurance policy.

In addition, and apart from the inclinations of transient political
figures, the Home Office and Foreign Office `establishments' are well
known to favour an all-Ireland as the ultimate solution of Britain's
Irish problems. All responsible organs of British opinion agree that
direct rule is a course of last resort. Hence it would be hopeless
for Ulster to try to foist on Great Britain a solution for which
there is so little enthusiasm at all levels of influential opinion.
The status of unwanted guest is not a dignified one and an unwilling
host is always ready to speed such a guest on his way. Such lodgings
are no permanent abiding place for Ulster. Integration with direct
Westminster rule as a possible course breaks down on feasibility
alone in the face of adverse opinion in Great Britain, apart from the
wisdom of such a course on its own merits.

Union with Great Britain was never an end in itself for Unionists. It
was always a means to preserving Ulster's British tradition and the
identity of her loyalist people. The historic proof of this
conception of the Union as a means to a deeper end was demonstrated
when a British government put it to the test. The loyalists of 1912
were prepared to defy and did defy the Westminster government and
parliament and set up a provisional government of their own when that
seemed the best way to promote their end.

Full integration under a system of direct Westminster rule must
therefore still pass the same test as to its efficacy for serving the
same end to-day. It is notorious fact that attitudes towards Ulster
in Great Britain have undergone a change since the last war. The mood
varies from one of indifference to outright hostility. These
attitudes may be based on ignorance or misinformation, but their
existence as a fact must be faced. What sort of enduring marriage is
possible between parties, one of whom is so lukewarm as the British
now are. Where there is so little community of spirit such a marriage
were best not contracted. The future offers no hopeful signs that the
parties could draw together in wedlock. The direction and pace of
social development differ greatly in Great Britain and in Ulster.
Both in terms of `permissiveness' and in attitudes to religion,
urbanised society in Great Britain is far out of step with Ulster.

And here perhaps lies the heart of the matter. Two different
communities in Great Britain and Ulster at different stages of
development by virtue of different historical experience possess
different scales of reference by which to measure, weigh and judge.
The cardinal error is for the one to judge events in the other by its
own different value-system. British parochialism in this respect has
produced disaster for Ulster—and indeed for the United Kingdom in a
way—over the last few years. British weakness for transplanting their
own value-categories explains what Ulster people mean when they say
the British are incapable of understanding Ulster problems. In this
sense the British are the Ulster problem. To add insult to injury,
their misunderstanding leads to arrogant attitudes in the British
Press which outrage Ulster opinion. A larger measure of humility on
all sides would be beneficial.

Recent experience suggests that a Westminster administration of
Ulster affairs would be representative of the social mores of the
larger island and insensitive towards the rather old fashioned
Ulster, which progressives rather despise. In a Westminster
parliament Ulster would be swamped and her voice carry little weight.
In all these circumstances Direct Rule would be likely to set up more
strains within the new relationship than it could endure. In any case
British society is already showing signs of instability itself as it
is overtaken by the crisis of social and moral values that has come
upon advanced western societies. Legislative and administrative
integration with Great Britain will expose Ulster to disintegrating
stresses more directly than need otherwise be the case.

The deaf impersonality of distant administrative and bureaucratic
control from London would lack the quality that only Ulster's home-
made system could provide. The difference was apparent between the
Stormont and Whitehall departments with which Ulster people have had
to deal. There is an intimacy of contact in dealing with the one that
is absent from the other, not because the officials are different but
because the machines they serve are different.

In a system of fully integrated direct rule the vital interests of
Ulster would inevitably take second place. Ulster would always be an
expendable commodity should the need arise to sacrifice a mere
province in what Westminster politicians conceived to be the national
interest. Since all political parties in Great Britain believe that
it is in the interest of these islands to solve the Irish question at
Ulster's expense and since they profess to be converted to the
justice of Eire's claims on Ulster, it would surely be folly to
entrust Ulster and her destiny into their hands completely. No copper-
bottomed guarantees from them could off-set the risks Ulster would
inevitably run from the very realities inherent in the situation
itself.

A re-integration with Great Britain on the terms suggested would be
an historic blunder, as Jim Callaghan said, but not in the way he
meant. It would be a throw-back to the Act of Union of 1800 stated to
be "for ever." It did not lead to national unity. It concentrated the
pressure for disintegration at the weakest point—the Westminster
politicians, who after a century of "reforms" capitulated. In doing
so they would have sold Ulster had they been accorded that form of
loyalty Lord Hailsham seems to expect of Ulster loyalists today. The
Apprentice Boys' of the Siege accorded to another Crown
representative then the loyalty he deserved. Even today, whether the
enemy is within or without our walls, Ulster's response must still be
No Surrender. Not only shall we not surrender to oblige London
Lundies, we shall follow the brave precedent that the Apprentice Boys
have given us and take our defence into our own hands and out of
theirs.




Vanguard's Choice

The loyalist cause in Ulster is the preservation of a British
tradition and heritage within which and only within which can the
loyalist community live, breathe and have its being. What is at stake
today, as always throughout generations of continuous challenge, is
the maintenance of that distinct way of life and culture upon which
the very existence of a whole people depend.

The greatest threat to the loyalist cause is not the assault of Irish
nationalism in the form of I.R.A. physical violence. Had the Ulster
people been mobilised by proper leadership they would have defeated
it. Nor is the threat to the loyalist cause as open as the Liberal
party's home rule policy for Ireland, pursued from Gladstone to
Asquith. That threat was faced by Ulster loyalists supported by
Conservative allies in Great Britain. Even so, to ward it off the
loyalist people of Ulster took steps to prepare for a U.D.T. The
threat today is more deadly because more insidious. The leftward
shift in Westminster polities has produced a Conservative party,
tired, even bored with Irish politics from which they wish to
extricate themselves. Hence they have been converted to a belief in a
United Ireland as the best long term solution of the old Irish
problem. I.R.A. violence has assisted the conversion to a policy of
desertion of loyalist Ulster.

To give a colour of justification, Stormont has had to be shown up in
the propagandist image as an oppressive regime against which the long-
suffering minority had to resort to street politics. By concessions
to rebels at the expense of Stormont the loyalist position is
weakened and discredited. By these means Ulster is to be brought
gradually, peaceably, but inevitably into a United Ireland. The
overthrow of Stormont is the first overt but unmistakable move. It is
an offer to the I.R.A. to end violence in return for more favours to
come. Only differences in timing and method divide the various
factions in Ireland and Great Britain whose purpose is to achieve
Ulster's incorporation in an Irish Republic, Gaelic, Catholic, and
anti-British. To progressives in Great Britain kith-and-kin arguments
are now irrelevant and old forms of loyalty are outmoded. A community
that has invented rubber bullets and the anti-blood-sports league is
yet capable of contemplating the death by slow suffocation of a whole
loyalist community in Ulster, such as overtook their brethren in Eire
in the space of half a century.

On Vanguard's reading of the signs the whole set of relationships
between London, Dublin and Belfast has changed, and changed utterly.
There is now complete identity of view between the Westminster and
Eire governments on their policy towards Ulster. A Belfast government
opposed to that policy has been put out of the way. Its successor,
Mr. Whitelaw, representing Westminster's views, sits in its place
against the wish of the Ulster people. In Vanguard's eyes he is a
gauleiter backed by nothing but brute force legalised.

In this situation the loyalist cause must be taken into the hands of
the loyalist people themselves. Direct rule by Westminster means the
pursuit of Westminster policy, which leads directly to Dublin and the
abandonment of the loyalist cause. Direct rule by Westminster does
not satisfy the conditions for preserving a Union they no longer
value. Yet disenchantment with Union gives Westminster no right to
settle the destination of Ulster. If they wish to divorce Ulster in
the long run, that confers on them no right to choose Ulster's future
partner.

By Westminster's unilateral action the constitution of the United
Kingdom has been changed and it has to be re-negotiated. In any re-
arrangement the minimum condition for safeguarding the loyalist cause
is plain. The power to damage it, in what Westminster conceives to be
British interest, must be removed from Westminster's hands. This
entails that Ulster must have control over her own internal security
and be able to deploy whatever forces she considers necessary to meet
any challenge coming from any source in Ireland. It also entails that
Ulster must have her own Parliament with such enlarged powers as are
consistent with these minimum conditions for her security.

But how can this objective be achieved against Westminster
opposition? In the first place loyalists must take steps to
demonstrate that Westminster's present regime has no popular support
in Ulster. If the non-consenting majority rally behind Vanguard, ways
will be devised to bring Westminster to a realisation that its
present position is untenable. Loyalist unity now, as always, is the
necessary condition for success. If Ulster cannot match Westminster
in material strength, yet she can match Westminster in determination
and in moral strength. Vanguard's purpose is to mobilise all those
moral forces of our breed, which have been hardened over generations
of struggle. A nation whose troops do not know for what they are
fighting in Ulster are no moral match for an Ulster that does know
that it is fighting for its survival.

Vanguard intends that in any negotiation Westminster shall listen to
the true loyalist voice that it has not yet heard. The existence of
Vanguard with the massive support it has evoked in a few short weeks
is proof that the loyalist community is disillusioned with voices
that have purported to speak on its behalf and with men not fired
with the loyalist faith that inspires their cause. Vanguard can be no
other than a resistance movement in present circumstances—resistance
to an undemocratic and un-British regime that can be shown to be
unworkable against the opposition of an outraged majority.

Vanguard's objective is to re-negotiate Ulster's relationship with
Westminster, Vanguard has no wish to take Ulster out of the United
Kingdom and it is within a United Kingdom that Vanguard will strive
for an accommodation that is consistent with the safety and the
dignity of an old and historic community, claiming two elementary
rights—the right to survive and the right to be free. Vanguard
refuses to believe that in the last resort Westminster, rather than
grant such an accommodation, will be prepared to abandon the concept
of a United Kingdom on this issue. The advantages to both parts are
mutual, although it is more fashionable to stress only those enjoyed
by Ulster. The disadvantages to both from a breaking of the Union are
also mutual.

With such an accommodation as Vanguard seeks within the United
Kingdom no vital Westminster interest is at stake. Indeed for Ulster
to shoulder her own internal defence might be a welcome relief to an
army hard pressed to fulfil her international commitments as it is.
But for Ulster a vital interest is at stake. Whatever the
disadvantages for Ulster outside the Union, Westminster must consider
the disadvantages that would or could ensue for her. These she would
have to balance against the disadvantages for her in a re-negotiated
Union. Vanguard believes that the disadvantages outside the Union for
Westminster far outweigh any disadvantages to her within it. The
simple reality is that if Westminster by her own act divests the
relationship with Ulster of all ties of sentiment, the product of a
long history, and reduces it to a balance of material interests, then
Ulster will, willy-nilly. be forced to do likewise.

There are faint hearts who have been led to believe that without
Westminster hand-outs Ulster would be non-viable. This belief has not
been reached on any considered study, for none has been undertaken.
It is one thing to say that cash hand-outs would cease, but it is a
very different thing to assert that a whole people is not capable of
earning its living. It is one thing to say that a standard of living
would fall; it is quite another to say there would be no standard of
living at all. From a belief in complete non-viability it is
apparently thought that Ulster has no choice but to do as Westminster
tells her. Vanguard rejects such defeatism. The encouragement that
Vanguard has had from Ulster people throughout the world shows a
different spirit. And Vanguard has also had encouragement from
persons of high academic standing that Ulster is not non-viable. By
comparison with Eire Ulster is quite capable of economic survival.
The question remains whether by isolating Ulster Great Britain
herself would be economically stronger or weaker.

On a larger view of the British Isles as a whole Vanguard believes
that the three parts, Great Britain, Eire and Ulster have a common
interest in co-operating to promote the prosperity of each as well as
of all. But such co-operation can only be fully forthcoming if each
respects the position and vital interest of the other. Westminster's
recent treatment of Ulster is inconsistent with Ulster's interest or
dignity and Vanguard will lead the Ulster people to have it reversed
and to change the rules so that it will not happen again. Eire's
claim to Ulster's territory and people is also incompatible with
Ulster's interest and dignity. Westminster's failure to refute Eire's
claim and to secure its withdrawal has been a source of disharmony in
Ireland between North and South. But not only cross-border
disharmony; it has also operated to perpetuate disharmony within
Ulster, where the minority community has naturally been encouraged to
withhold full recognition and full co-operation from the lawful
government. Considering this handicap under which the Stormont
government has laboured its achievement was quite remarkable. That
experiment in devolved government was until 1968 regarded by every
observer as successful and was the envy of other regions in Great
Britain and even farther afield. It was only because a malevolent
attack on Ulster was not suppressed but was allowed to prosper that
by virtue of propagandist slanders it was suddenly discovered that
the Stormont system was inherently bad and that it had to be put
down. In any new arrangement the Ulster people will see to it that
that weakness in suppressing an inspired insurrection shall not be
repeated.

Given Vanguard's conditions for safeguarding Ulster, Vanguard
considers that the whole British Isles could stand at the threshold
of a new beginning in neighbourly co-operation. A Federal
constitution for the British Isles? Certainly Ulster stands to gain,
as do all regions of the British Isles, from a new form of
competition within them—a competition in co-operation. Vanguard has
no closed mind as to the institutional framework within which such a
consummation, so greatly to be desired, can be accomplished. This is
Vanguard's constructive alternative to the course on which
Westminster has apparently set herself.

Vanguard's message to the Ulster people is to rally behind what is no
mere negative, obstructionist or inward-looking movement. A self-
respecting Ulster has much to give to the people of Ulster, but also
to Great Britain, the British Isles and the world. Let Ulster, the
smallest region, take her place in the Vanguard and proclaim her
wider vision. Let Ulster, the land of Ireland's foremost heroes,
speak to the whole of Ireland again with the authority of a
Cuchulainn, fortissimus heros Scottorum, and like Finn MacCool of old
build a new Causeway to join all the people of these islands in a new
community of spirit and endeavour.