A body blow to the DUP
I tailed off last week's column with the observation, re the then pending Dromore by-election, that "the UUP, having had a slightly shaky start to the campaign, has pulled itself together over the past couple of weeks and, for the first time in a very long time, has proved itself capable of putting enthusiastic campaigning teams on the ground."
A DUP MLA, who had been down to Dromore, assured me that the size of the UUP's campaign team was a trifling matter, which would have no relevance to the outcome; namely, that the UUP would lose the seat. But, as Sherlock Holmes noted, the observation of trifles can often lead to a correct deduction.
I have yet to hear back from that MLA, although he may well be relaxing with party colleagues in Lisbon trying to work out where it all went wrong. Admittedly, TUV performed better than I had anticipated, yet I would still urge caution when it comes to interpreting their success.
I suspect they picked up a lot of votes from DUP supporters who were simply firing a shot over their bows before giving them a second preference.
The real TUV vote – somewhere in the region of 11 per cent – is probably those who voted TUV and then transferred to the UUP.
That's still an uncomfortably large number from the DUP's perspective.
The other problem with the TUV is that I'm not entirely sure where they stand.
Jim Allister didn't resign from the DUP on the basis that he was opposed to St Andrews, the Assembly, or even power-sharing in principle with Sinn Fein. He resigned because the DUP was moving too fast and too far away from the terms of its Assembly manifesto.
He has no clear strategy for delivering the goods and no means of bending Sinn Fein to his will. In other words, and back to the mantra I directed at the DUP over the years, where is the viable and available alternative to what we have now?
Chuckle Brothers
Nevertheless, it was still a body-blow to the DUP. The Chuckle Brothers imagery has hurt them much more than they could have expected.
The sight of Ian Paisley entertaining a Taioseach in his North Antrim constituency has unsettled those who still have fond memories of him snowballing a former Taioseach.
The speed with which they concluded a deal with Sinn Fein last May, and went on to carve up office between themselves, has shocked the longstanding grassroots.
And no one in the DUP hierarchy should now underestimate the damage being done to the party by Ian Jnr.
In a column a few weeks ago I urged his dismissal and warned that his position was utterly untenable.
I am reliably informed that his name was mentioned "on too many doorsteps" during the election.
The real test of the DUP's ability to face reality and accept responsibility for their mistakes will be determined by their willingness to demote and sideline Jnr in the next few days.
It was Jnr, after all, who persuaded his father to give his imprimatur to everything that has happened since the St Andrews negotiations.
Spin
I know that they will try and put a positive spin on events; yet having forced a by-election in Jeffrey Donaldson's own backyard – confident of finishing off the TUV and seeing off the UUP – they ended up with an unexpected and unprepared for defeat.
They had put a lot of effort into the election, swamping the area with hordes of the party's biggest guns and smallest bores. Even if TUV hadn't fielded a candidate, my hunch would be that the DUP vote would have fallen considerably anyway.
And I couldn't resist a chuckle of my own as I listened to their response to their defeat.
"We are not selling the benefits of devolution well enough to our people."
"Maybe we need to listen more to what our voters are telling us."
"It was a campaign of disinformation from a unionist party which has nothing better to offer the electorate."
"Remember, it was only a by-election with a typically low turnout."
My, my, having nicked most of the UUP's policies over the past few years, along with 99 per cent of their original Agreement, the DUP is now reduced to hijacking their excuses for election failure in the past.
The UUP did remarkably well. There are only two ways of judging success in an election: winning the seat, or doing much better than expected. The UUP did both.
They also saw off a challenge from Alliance, which had decided to put up a candidate (for the first time in a decade) to see if it could repeat its success at the Assembly election and take UUP votes.
The UUP had had a terrible start to the campaign. They had an unknown and untested candidate.
The media, having written the party off from the beginning, was mostly negative or, at best, indifferent.
Yes, Carol Black may have won on TUV transfers; but those transfers only made a difference because she had managed to secure almost 25 per cent of the first preferences.
And she secured those first preferences because of the efforts of the large and enthusiastic campaigning teams I mentioned last week.
While true that the UUP vote was down slightly on the 2005 local council results, it was massively up on the Assembly vote last March: the first very clear sign, for a very long time, that the UUP may have turned the corner.
From Sir Reg Empey's point of view the result couldn't have come at a better time.
A few days after the party executive signed off on the final aspects of the Review process it has been conducting since last spring, and a few days before the implementation phase is rolled out across the party.
He couldn't have asked for a better launching pad. For the first time in years members are patting themselves on the back, prepared to believe that new electoral opportunities lie ahead.
More important, though, they now believe that the DUP juggernaut can be slowed down.
Casualties
The main casualties of all of this will be Dr Paisley and Jnr. I suspect that the son may be pushed very quickly, followed by his dad sometime in the autumn, if not earlier. T
he DUP no longer needs the Paisley name to deliver votes and the issue of succession has moved from mere whispers to open revolt.
What happens after that is anyone's guess, but one thing is certain: the stepping down of Dr Paisley will have the biggest impact on unionism since the prorogation of Stormont in March 1972.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Belfast
Wednesday 30 May 2012
Today
Light showers
Temperature: 12 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 11 C to 17 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: West
