ANALYSIS: Cameron not first to be left red-faced by Ulster allies
EVEN before Conservatives began to experience severe pre-election jitters because of the narrowing of their opinion poll lead over Labour, Labour had started to wheel out the old accusation that the Tories have been "playing the Orange card" and threatening the peace process.
The impugning of the Tories' peace process credentials has gone up a gear in the last few days and even the former US president, George Bush, was enlisted in the NIO's campaign to ratchet up pressure on Sir Reg Empey to vote for the DUP/Sinn Fein deal on devolution of policing and justice.
The Guardian, always to be counted on to weigh in for Sinn Fein at critical moments, summed the campaign up in yesterday's front page headline: 'Bush to Tories: don't derail Ireland deal'. Its leader article attacked Cameron for encouraging the Marquess of Salisbury's "reactionary" attempt to bring Tories, the UUP and the DUP together at the Hatfield House talks.
But the DUP/UUP division on policing and justice and the clear embarrassment of Cameron over the UUP's maintenance of its opposition to the Hillsborough deal clearly puts both the UUP/Tory link-up and the possibility of unionist unity under a very intense and critical spotlight.
Yet when the UUP did have a direct link with the Conservatives down to the 1970s the relationship was not always an easy one and Cameron is not the first Tory leader to be embarrassed by his provincial allies.
And ever since devolution in Scotland and Wales, there have been tensions between the Labour government in London and its party allies in Cardiff and Edinburgh: the devolution process unleashed by Labour since 1997 inevitably means that hitherto London-centric parties must pay some attention to the distinct regional interests and the demands of their allies.
The Tory interest in Northern Ireland, like that of Labour, is in stability and the consolidation of peace against a growing dissident threat. This will not be effected by the devolution of policing and justice. However, the dissidents could certainly benefit from the destabilisation of the devolved structures by the next Assembly election.
At present, a not-unreasonable scenario for the electoral future of unionism is of a three-way division between a weakened DUP, a reinvigorated UUP and the TUV. This will be reflected in the Westminster elections where the DUP is likely to come back as the largest unionist party, but with less seats.
The Hatfield House meeting may need to be revisited by the Tories to prevent devolution imploding because of Sinn Fein's emergence as the largest party at the next Assembly elections. A unionist unity strategy will be criticised as the collapse of the idea of a secular new unionism into tribal politics.
However, unionism, like nationalism and republicanism, has always been a composite of left and right, the secular and the sectarian.
The surest recipe for an intensification of inter-communal conflict and sectarianism is the destabilisation of devolution through the fragmentation of unionism.
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Tuesday 14 February 2012
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