Owen Polley: ​Reasons for unionists to be cheerful for the year ahead

Many of those issues will no doubt be prominent again in 2025.

As we contemplate the new year, though, it’s worth remembering that there were reasons to be cheerful about the future of this part of the United Kingdom, over the past 12 months.

To take one prominent example, the campaign for a border poll was noisy, incessant and over-publicised, but it remained a triumph of hype over substance. In fact, things have settled down in that regard, after the turmoil of the years that followed Brexit. The threat of a referendum breaking up the UK is, if anything, receding.

You wouldn’t know it from the BBC and some other media, but the case for Northern Ireland’s destruction has barely made any ground, over a number of decades. Nationalist parties’ overall support has stayed still, while opinion polls consistently show that people are content with their place in the Union.

To add to that hopeful picture north of the border, the election in the Irish Republic confirmed that voters there have little interest in being part of an all-Ireland state. They might support the idea in theory, at an undetermined time in the future, but they are not prepared to make sacrifices to bring it about and it is well down their list of priorities.

Sinn Fein made an early border poll a prominent part of its campaign, but the party was rejected soundly at the ballot box. In addition, polls continued to show that southerners would not pay extra taxes, or change symbols of their state, to bring about a 32-county republic.

At the end of the year, Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Fein and Colum Eastwood of the SDLP appealed again to the new government in Dublin to plan for ‘unity’, as they would describe it. For them, a day ending in ‘y’ is fresh evidence of the need for a ‘new Ireland’.

In fact, those interventions reflected barely disguised panic that the issue is dropping off the agenda in the Republic. Sinn Fein’s strategy of forming part of the Dublin government, and using that position to press for a referendum, has collapsed.

For a few years, Northern Ireland’s status was a relatively big talking point for southern politicians worried by the Shinners’ success. Now it is a fringe subject again.

On a similar theme, although unionism faced some unpromising circumstances before our own general election in July, the result eventually provided some hopeful signs. Unionist candidates actually performed comparatively well.

The DUP admittedly lost seats, thanks to its floundering policies on the sea border and the aftermath of the Jeffrey Donaldson case. However, the same number of pro-Union MPs was eventually returned to parliament and unionists’ lead over nationalists in overall vote share was restored. The unionist group at Westminster now contains fresh, non-DUP perspectives that were not heard during the last parliament.

There were also signs over the past year that Alliance’s popularity may have peaked. Northern Ireland often lags behind trends in other jurisdictions, but we are not immune from them either. There is plenty of evidence that voters across the world have had enough of ‘woke’ politics and are turning against politicians who espouse, for example, nonsensical theories about gender or a censorious approach to freedom of speech.

At the general election, Sorcha Eastwood won in unique circumstances in Lagan Valley. That disguised the fact that it was otherwise a demoralising night for Alliance. For a number of years, that party, and its popularity with young people, has been one of the biggest problems for unionism. 2024 showed that its continued rise was by no means inevitable.

It’s natural to focus on Stormont’s failures, and they certainly hold Northern Ireland back. The latest executive failed to address its budgetary problems properly in 2024, or implement much needed reforms to public services.

At the same time, other aspects of our society continue to be successful, despite politics.

The manufacturing sector of our economy is hamstrung by the Windsor Framework, but service industries, which fall outside the remit of that agreement, have been doing well.

Many of our schools are still excellent, even if it sometimes seems like politicians are determined to wreck them. And people from Northern Ireland continue to excel in various walks of life, right across the United Kingdom.

There are lots of reasons to be optimistic, although none to be complacent, as we look forward to 2025.

To bring things back to politics, I’ve always argued that a unionist party can best distinguish itself at Stormont by being honest with voters about the trade offs that responsible government involves.

While the executive continues to act like we are entitled to ever more money from London, and that that is the answer to our problems, it would be easier to make serious arguments from outside devolved government. The SDLP is still an incoherent mess, but its leader at Stormont, Matthew O’Toole, at least made a fist last year of pointing out Stormont’s absurdities from the opposition benches.

That’s perhaps something for unionist parties to reflect on, as they look forward to the new year.