I HAD a conversation on Wednesday (June 15) with a member of the legal team from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, (NIHRC) which was good in some ways, more disappointing in others.
How it came about was slightly unexpected.
On Twitter a fellow Ulster-Scots bard happened to make an ironic post about the difficulty some had with the idea some people in Northern Ireland are British.
The identity dictating republican bots swarmed, with many ‘your not British’ replies and all the usual reasons. ‘GB is the clue’, ‘we’re all Irish to people living in England’, the usual none to tolerant stuff.
You see this all the time on Twitter but the incident put into focus something I have been wondering about for a quite a while.
Coming from the south, I think (know) that most Irish people do not consider unionists or British people in Ireland who affiliate as British, as actually British regardless of the periodic superficial patter to the contrary from many in positions of political power.
So when push comes to shove whose view takes priority in the view of Human Rights?
Does the person’s British view of themselves, protected by the GFA and other legislation, take precedence in public life, work, etc over the person who says they are not British?
Is there a point where the latter’s views are consigned to the dustbin as a person’s self affiliation takes priority, as is normally the case for other groups.
Or are they equally weighted.
I cc’d a question to this effect to the NIHRC on Twitter, the way one does, and 99% of times get no reply, but lo and behold, they got back.
A telephone appointment was arranged for yesterday to discuss my question.
My question, was hypothetical, and was and wasn’t answered.
The solicitor reinforced what I knew anyway, that the Human Rights Act doesn’t apply to differences between individuals, but concerns relations between individuals/communities and public bodies.
But she affirmed that people in NI had the RIGHT to be British (and Irish) through the GFA, and if an employer or public body subverted or refused that right, then a case could be made.
(We did not discuss what constituted British identity or the form a refusal of that might take.)
(I made it clear that my priority was not making a statement about how British I felt myself, but about understanding better how my Right to be of that nationality, enshrined in law and international treaties, would work practically.)
From that, I asked if organisers of events had a responsibility to protect people’s rights who feel British and not leave them open to being continually challenged by those who pick on them to insist they are not British.
She wasn’t too helpful there; there was nothing clear cut; suggesting the organisers of events couldn’t account for the behaviour of all who attend, though they had responsibilities.
She suggested that if people were harassing you, or you felt a hate crime was being committed, you could contact the police. This is not how this sort of thing usually happens, nor did this suggestion confront the issue I was trying to address.
I then used an LGBT example, if a person is gay, and another person says they are not, suggesting they have an illness, or need therapy etc – this is, quite rightly, viewed by society these days as unacceptable.
So applying that to British identity, is there a point when challenges become unacceptable in the same way?
She wasn’t dismissive of this, nor overly affirming. But I didn’t get the sense from her that this would be viewed as the same thing.
Which brings me to the new thing I learned about Human Rights.
That often it is public opinion that is the force that protects individuals in a group from prejudice and shapes a moral reaction to an issue, not the Human Rights Act, though the latter has a role.
Though the working of a democratic state, in one way, it another it was disappointing, with the right to be British guaranteed in the GFA, that the Human Rights Act seemed to be of little practical use to the difficulties faced by self affiliators and nothing concrete when it comes to the ‘you’re Irish whether you like it or not’ brigade.
It seems quite dubious, especially with the immense baggage that the nationalist community still carries in relation to ‘long centuries of oppression’ that the very majority that will create the United Ireland is the same one who may have the primary moulding say in the form a British person’s actually identity in Ireland will take.
That being so, it risks being diluted to symbolic language they will control, left practically unworkable in any other way by members of the ordinary community of British people who live in Northern Ireland and on the island.
Lobbying, collective action and ultimately the courts would be needed to secure improvements.
Opinions creatively 
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