Editorial: Jim Allister MP has been a vital dissenting voice within unionism

On Saturday the TUV conference delegates had a good laugh at DUP claims that Jim Allister was a political failure (click here to read the report).

​As we report on page five, a video was shown of two prominent DUP politicians mocking Mr Allister last year, months before he replaced their party colleague Ian Paisley Junior as MP for North Antrim.

Politicians often criticise or even mock other politicians from rival parties. It is an inevitable aspect of the democratic system. But the TUV was justified in playing to their party conference in Cookstown those clips of Paul Givan and Gordon Lyons, before Mr Allister came on stage to cheers, having become a surprise MP in last year’s general election. This was not merely justified as a matter of “we proved you wrong” but because the onslaught against Mr Allister, which happened on the day the DUP returned to Stormont in February last year, was so badly judged that we hope unionism will not see its like again.

This was not because the criticism was fierce. At times, eg election debates, fierce interaction between opposing parties is fair. But because on that day, when a signal was sent out to globally that an IRA political view of the world holds sway here (when, in fact, 70% of voters still oppose SF) it was shocking to see unionists turn on Mr Allister.

On the day of last year’s election we pointed out that while a three-way unionist split is obviously unsustainable, unionism was lucky to have the three good unionist party leaders. In a way, having choice might have been one reason the combined unionist vote returned to outpolling nationalists.​

There are strong arguments for an against Mr Allister’s view that Stormont’s system of mandatory coalition will fail unionism, but he has been a vital dissenting voice within unionist politics and he has spotted many developments that others miss.