UK is failing to give minority languages the rights they deserve

It was no great surprise, given that the SNP’s West Dunbartonshire MP Martin Docherty-Hughes – who has a strong interest in Irish issues – raised the matter a couple of weeks ago during a debate on the diaspora, only to be brushed off by a junior UK minister. Her assurances lacked both conviction and a timetable, and was obviously a precursor to a public confirmation that the whole thing was to be shelved again.

Language is an important issue in many places but it has a special resonance in Northern Ireland. The introduction of language legislation was a commitment the British government made as part of the St Andrews Agreement in 2006, which allowed for the restoration of devolution in 2007. It was also a key part of the “New Decade, New Approach” process which restored power-sharing in 2020 and featured in the discussions following the resignation of Arlene Foster (below) as first minister last year.

The legislation as now envisaged – and which apparently exists in final draft form – is spelled out in detail in the 2020 agreement with a clear commitment to “cultural pluralism and respect for diversity, including Northern Ireland’s ethnic, national, linguistic and faith communities”, to quote the document itself.

That is not much to ask in a modern society, one would have thought, and it is to be secured by the creation of an Office of Identity and Cultural Expression, underpinned by legislation. It would be implemented by two commissioners – one for Irish and one for Ulster Scots.

Despite all that detail being in place, language legislation that at long last conferred parity of esteem and status for Irish and Irish speakers has continued to be firmly and stridently rejected, by the DUP in particular. Accordingly, it seems that the UK Government is afraid to introduce it now, lest it provokes further trouble in a situation already made unstable by the Brexit Protocol.

The UK Government, of course, remains completely blind to the fact that much of the simmering and dangerous discontent among extreme NI Unionists arise from previous promises dishonoured, primarily those of Boris Johnson when he insisted that there would be no barriers to trade and no border checks, against both the evidence and the deal he himself negotiated.

The fig leaf now used by Brandon Lewis (above) to justify breaking his word is an alleged lack of agreement about what to call the commissioners, though given that one part of the deal doesn’t want them at all, that is scarcely surprising.

Languages can sometimes be a flashpoint for division and even conflict, deeply bound up as they are with identity.

The alleged persecution of the Russian language and its speakers is quoted by some Russians as a justification for the current invasion of Ukraine, just as the same canard was used 30 years ago to threaten the emerging Baltic states.

Language can of course also be misused as a political symbol, but the surest and safest way to defuse both its threat and its exploitation is to respond to demand, not attempt to weaken and even outlaw the way people choose to express themselves.

I am surprised to quote Murdo Fraser (below) with approval on anything, but he put it well in the Stage 1 debate on my own Scottish Gaelic Language Bill in 2003 when he argued: “Governments cannot make people speak Gaelic or create a demand where none exists. However, governments can and should respond to demand that exists and create an environment in which those who wish to learn, speak and conduct their affairs in Gaelic have the opportunity to do so.”

That is a truism about any and every language, as is the fact that at some stage and in some places, political effort and backing will be required to ensure equality or to save a threatened language, as has been seen in places as different as the Faroe Islands and Hawaii.

The dedicated work of language activists who are not prepared to be silenced is often the impetus for such action – a situation that was true for Gaelic in the 70s and 80s and is now increasingly true for Scots, with a very able younger group of Scots speakers making a powerful case for that language. Opposed, of course, by the usual “shouting at Gaelic road signs” brigade who feel threatened when they think the natives are talking about them in a tongue they don’t have.

My sense of deja vu in all this comes from my experience with my Members’ Bill on Gaelic which I introduced to Holyrood in 2002. By late March 2003, with the end of the session looming, I was still trying to get it through the parliament. The then Labour/Liberal executive had promised such legislation in the first term but had done nothing about it.

Eventually, backed by the formidable Gaelic voice of the Liberal MSP John Farquhar Munro, I tried to force the issue.

But Labour deliberately killed the bill at the very last minute by not only refusing to bring forward a Financial Resolution, but also by swamping it with hundreds of possible amendments.

Despite protests, they succeeded, and the bill fell on the date of dissolution, which that year was March 31. The following day, the then first minister Jack McConnell went to Stornoway and promised a Gaelic Language Bill if re-elected, and moreover delivered within six months.

It wasn’t, but that exploitative and partisan cynicism still appals me.

Yet it has also made me a lifelong advocate of allowing people to say what they want in the way they want and protecting that right in law.

That isn’t a revolutionary position, just a matter of basic human rights.