Unionism needs to find a coherent strategy
FOLLOWING the publication of an opinion poll in early February, one commentator noted: "The prospect of Sinn Fein topping the polls has created a debate within unionism on how to counter that threat.
"A large majority of Protestant voters, 63 per cent, interviewed for our poll are in no doubt what should happen, an electoral pact between the two main unionist parties....How unionism reacts to the current political climate will determine if this latest attempt to find a lasting political settlement will succeed, or if, indeed, further generations will still be debating the Irish question."
Ulster Unionism was built on the mantra 'United we stand: Divided we fall' and every opinion poll since 1979 has indicated that a majority of those polled wanted unionist unity. But since they always wanted it on their own terms they continued to vote for different pro-Union parties!
The running sore of unionism – since the mid-1960s – has been division. While there was still a Parliament at Stormont and majority rule, it was easy for the Unionist Party to run a fairly tight ship. Election campaigns consisted of banging the drum and spooking the grassroots with the birthrate figures for Catholics.
But after proportional representation was introduced, unionism went into a sort of Heinz 57 freefall, with party after party emerging, each of them claiming to represent some wing of the once united family.
Some, like Vanguard, the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom Unionist Party, the United Ulster Unionist Party, the Ulster Democratic Party and the Northern Ireland Unionist Party came and went fairly quickly.
Only one, apart from the Ulster Unionist Party, has stayed the course – the Democratic Unionist Party. After a series of election triumphs between 2003 and 2007 it appeared that the DUP had managed to realign and rebuild unionism around itself. After the Assembly elections in March 2007, Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson were masters of all they surveyed. The DUP had 36 MLAs, nine MPs, one MEP and around 200 councillors; and the general view of the media was that the UUP would quietly fold and be absorbed into the DUP.
But today, unionism is as divided as ever. The UUP has re-emerged from the shadows. Jim Allister's TUV has sliced off a huge chunk of the DUP vote. The DUP has internal tensions and has much more disagreement about the devolution of policing and justice than it would ever admit.
Also, there's a section of unionism (between 100,000 and 175,000) which doesn't vote. In other words, there is utter confusion. For as long as that confusion remains unionist unity is impossible.
But there are a number of difficulties with the idea of unity:
It presupposes that unionists have a common outlook. They don't. Quite apart from the fact that there are huge differences of opinion on socio-economic matters, there are huge differences, too, on the level of cooperation between unionism and nationalism. It's hard to imagine that one unionist party could easily accommodate those differences.
It also presupposes that unity would maximise turnout and seats.
Evidence indicates that a significant section of unionist voters don't transfer from UUP to DUP and vice versa. If that is the case now, it would suggest that some voters would choose not to vote at all if the DUP and UUP either formally merged or agreed election pacts. Also, since a very significant section of the pro-Union electorate doesn't vote for any of the present unionist parties, why would they vote if those parties united?
Unity would bolster the two-bloc structure in Northern Ireland and boost rather than demolish the 'us-and-them' mentality, encourage sectarian headcounts and kill-off the 'shared future' project. The present Assembly and Executive is dysfunctional – so imagine what it would be like without any centre ground at all?
Unity would also finish off the relationship between unionism and the Conservative Party, for it is hard to imagine that David Cameron would be prepared to endorse any formal links or pacts which could embrace the Orange Order and maybe even the TUV.
So unionist unity may not represent a positive step forward and it would certainly jeopardise the peace process as we know it. But would that be such a bad thing? For all the talk of lives saved and new investment opportunities, the one unspoken truth is that unionism has not been growing since 1998. Indeed there is an argument to be made that unionism is being weakened and neutered.
What unionism now needs to do is work out a coherent strategy for promoting and protecting its own best interests. Building a cosmetic unity around a short-term desire to keep Sinn Fein out of the First Minister's job isn't the way forward. It makes unionism look thoroughly sectarian.
Unionism remains the majority opinion here. But it needs to get over the fear of Plan Bs or carrying the can for collapse of the existing process and begin to assert itself again as the voice of that majority. The 'Irish question' will continue to be asked for so long as there remain nationalist/republican parties in Northern Ireland: and that means, in effect, for ever. This, in turn, means that unionism will have to constantly up its political game and strategy.
But what is very clear is that the present Agreements (Belfast and St Andrews), about which the unionist and republican parties have different interpretations and contradictory expectations, will almost certainly fail to deliver either the form of government or prospect of stability that people voted for in the 1998 referendum. What we have now represents conflict stalemate rather than conflict resolution.
The primary challenge for unionism, therefore, is to develop a long-term strategy and then begin, for the first time in almost 40 years, to set the agenda rather than merely react. The unity we need is unity of purpose, vision, objective and planning. That doesn't require just one party; but it does require some very clear thinking and far fewer prima donnas. And candidates who aren't quite as nuanced and ambiguous in their concept of unionism would be no bad thing, either.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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