Owen Polley: Votes for pro framework parties will be used to undermine UK

Just like the recent council elections in England, these polls are an unreliable gauge of the public’s opinions on broader political questions. That said, even by Northern Ireland’s standards, the parties have placed a lot of emphasis this year on matters that are normally the responsibility of Stormont or Westminster.

That’s partly because our politicians have been denied a platform at the Assembly, which is normally such a reliable source of hot air. It’s also clear that some of them are determined to use the results to claim that the public overwhelmingly wants power-sharing back or accepts the latest arrangements for the Irish Sea border.

In truth, most electors are perfectly capable of understanding which issues are relevant to which layers of government here. We’ve seen that many times, whenever two elections took place for separate legislatures on the same day and the results were strikingly different.

Not that these facts will stop the parties trying to attach much wider significance to the votes on Thursday. And that leaves people who value the Union with a lot to think about, ahead of this election.

To take the most glaring example, Sinn Fein wanted to talk about everything except council issues, at its manifesto launch last week.

The party appealed to voters to ‘re-endorse’ last year’s Stormont election result, when they go to the polls on Thursday. You’ll see Michelle O’Neill’s face appearing most prominently on billboards, posters and leaflets, rather than the Shinners’ council candidates. And a lot of attention was devoted to the SF northern leader’s decision to go to the King’s coronation in London.

There was less focus, of course, on her colleagues lauding eight ‘martyrs’, as republicans describe them, who died at the hands of the SAS, while trying to drive a digger loaded with explosives into the Loughall police station in 1987.

Sinn Fein’s goal is now to attract sympathetic ‘softer’ voters, by seeming to offer acts of ‘reconciliation’, while remaining devoted to its core objectives of sanitising IRA violence and destroying Northern Ireland.

It’s not the only party trying to appear moderate, while burying its divisive agenda under cuddly rhetoric.

The Alliance Party, in its literature, claimed to be focussed on “what really matters” rather than division. Yet, to take one striking example of the opposite, in its manifesto, the party promised to turn councils into “accredited Stonewall Diversity Champions.”

In classic Alliance style, this sounds nice and laudable. Except, as the News Letter reported after the manifesto was launched, organisations across the UK have been pulling out of this scheme, precisely because of its controversial nature.

The Stonewall charity, which was set up to advocate gay rights, now pushes a contentious version of ‘trans’ ideology, which holds that even young children have the right to change gender, and have their new identity recognised absolutely. Its founder, Simon Fanshawe, has accused the organisation of extremism and urged employers to quit the scheme.

The broadcaster, Stephen Nolan, investigated Stonewall in an award winning BBC podcast, raising concerns about its overweening influence on UK institutions and its role in making divisive doctrines unquestionable. The podcast’s producer, David Thompson, explained that public bodies were “essentially paying a lobby group to lobby them”, and noted that taxpayers’ (or indeed ratepayers’) money was funding these efforts.

At their manifesto launches, of course, the DUP and TUV emphasised their opposition to the Northern Ireland protocol. Alliance likes to imply that it is above such ‘ideological’ concerns, because its focus is instead on ‘real solutions to real issues’.

If you’ve been paying attention, though, you’ll have noticed that its approach to Brexit was at least as informed by its unquestioning commitment to the EU, as unionists’ goals were defined by their desire to be treated the same as the rest of the UK.

Alliance repeatedly gave cross-community cover to the nationalist-friendly claim that Northern Ireland must remain tied as closely as possible to Brussels, even if that meant diluting the Union and creating economic barriers within the British economy. These ideas were always completely the wrong way about, given our overwhelming reliance on trade with the rest of the UK, and they contributed to the appalling solution that was eventually imposed on Northern Ireland.

Of course, the councillors that we elect on Thursday will have little to no say in trade arrangements, negotiations over restoring Stormont, the Northern Ireland budget, or most of the myriad matters that were raised during the campaign. They will be asked, instead, to deliver council services, consider some planning issues and contribute in a limited way to local tourism and economic development.

Make no mistake, though. If candidates who support the protocol and the framework do well, or even parties that see opportunities in an Irish Sea border, their success will be used to marginalise and chastise unionists who believe Northern Ireland needs to be a full and integral part of the United Kingdom.