The run up to the Northern Ireland Assembly elections – scheduled for Thursday May 5 – has been characteristically fraught and something of a throwback, particularly from a unionist perspective.
Polling has suggested that Sinn Fein will emerge as the largest party and, assuming an Executive can be formed, that would mean Michelle O’Neill would become First Minister. The daughter of an IRA prisoner ascending to that role just a year after Northern Ireland’s centenary would be, optically as well as practically, a profoundly unsettling moment for unionism.
As it has in the past, the unionist reaction to such existential threat has been to turn in on itself. Compounded by anger over the Northern Ireland Protocol, the election campaign for the bulk of unionism has taken the form of anti-Protocol rallies across Northern Ireland.
Almost indistinguishable in tone and tenor from those which the late Reverend Ian Paisley revelled in – though lacking his oratorical qualities – these rallies are the definition of comfort-blanket unionism. Invariably led by an Orange band, those diehards who do attend are treated to the same old story of perfidy from Dublin, London and Brussels from the platform, which invariably includes the DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and Jim Allister, leader of Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV).
Allied to this very public display of defiance against outsiders, the DUP, TUV and their outriders in loyalism are engaged in a concerted campaign against those unionists not deemed to be ideologically pure enough. The Ulster Unionist Party, under the leadership of Doug Beattie, have not been sending representatives to these rallies for some time and have called for further dialogue around ameliorating the Protocol. This has led to the UUP and its leader being denounced, almost hysterically, for a lack of constitutional soundness.
This gratuitous catcalling led to the rather sorry spectacle of Donaldson and Allister having to take down a poster of Beattie – which included a noose tied around his neck – prior to one of the most recent rallies. That Beattie is a decorated soldier evidently wasn’t good enough for some.
While Donaldson and Allister did right by Beattie in taking the poster down, they should not have subsequently taken to the podium which, for reasons which are not entirely clear, also included a US pastor who has claimed ‘the same powers of darkness that have imposed sodomy, abortion, and tyranny upon Northern Ireland are the same powers pushing the Protocol’.
People can protest and attend what rallies they want, but is that really the extent of unionism’s ambition, to spasm angrily, sing the national anthem and then go home?
The fear and dread playbook is one which political unionism regularly defaults to. Monster protests, most memorably in response to the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985, are a habitual favourite. However – and this is something some unionists have failed to twig – since the early 1970s, no minister in London has ever been swayed from their course by a mass rendition of that old Paisley favourite, ‘O God Our Help in Ages Past’, and equally, fewer and fewer people are attending these rallies, given their obvious lack of impact.
Instead, unionism approaches this election with a lack of any real positivity or tangible roadmap, with the honourable exception of the UUP, though they could do more to define what their vision – described as a ‘Union of People’ – means in practice. It is to their credit though that their roster of candidates includes a more diverse cast than most would expect a unionist party to have, including a Catholic and several LGBT representatives.
Perhaps an electoral catastrophe in May for the DUP, TUV et al might administer the shock treatment those elements of political unionism need. A Sinn Fein First Minister should focus minds and make those who have stewarded the unionist cause into such choppy waters ask why people are voting Alliance, or simply not voting at all. But, as shown by the circumstances around the Protocol, that may require an amount of self-reflection beyond certain figures in the current unionist leadership. A lack of participation in the Executive seems more than likely.
If ever there was a campaign which deserved to lose, it was the one being pushed by the DUP and TUV. However, despite this, available polling data does suggest that the Union with Great Britain is still secure in Northern Ireland, for the moment. Yet, looking to the decades ahead, it would be a brave unionist to trust their future to those whose lack of vision, skill and introspection have led unionism to this critical point.
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