Letter: DUP supporters must learn that unity will come by building on policies that defend Union
A letter from Kirk McDowell:
After reading Jim McClelland’s assessment of the state of unionist politics (Now is not the time to be putting unionist seats in jeopardy, October 18), it would seem apparent that many DUP supporters have learnt the wrong lessons from this year’s general election results.
Whilst the DUP may have remained the largest single unionist party, their share of the overall vote dropped a staggering 8.2 per cent from the previous election. Furthermore, their share of the combined unionist vote dropped to just over 50 per cent.
This would hardly seem convincing evidence that the unionist people are applauding the DUP’s handling of the Irish Sea border, as Mr McClelland asserts.
Regardless, the DUP’s overall share of the Westminster vote is far from an accurate parameter to determine the unionist electorate’s opinion on how the party has overseen the constitutional crisis created by the NI Protocol.
The DUP fully exercised the traditional advantage that Westminster’s first past the post electoral system gives to incumbents of the largest unionist party.
They also cynically exacerbated the grassroot unionist fear of losing seats to Alliance. This strategy allowed the party to dismiss TUV candidates as merely ‘the vote splitters’.
As a result, many DUP votes, not least in Gavin Robinson’s own constituency, are either borrowed TUV votes, or disillusioned loyalists who were just desperate to prevent a whitewash of unionist MPs in Belfast.
It should be noted that Mr Robinson could not have depended on such votes had he made public his intention to never collapse the Northern Ireland Executive again before the election.
The best test of unionist opinion at the last election would be to focus on those constituencies were pro-Union voters felt free to split the vote. Crucially, in these constituencies the DUP faced a fierce backlash.
The TUV overturned a DUP majority of over 12,000 in North Antrim whilst also making significant gains in East Antrim and East Londonderry. The DUP also lost South Antrim to the popular UUP candidate Robin Swann.
In summary, where unionist voters had a credible alternative to the DUP without putting a unionist seat at risk, they took it.
The lesson which DUP supporters need to take from the last election is that unionist unity will not come by demanding people blindly follow their highly discredited leadership.
It will come by building on polices that defend the Union. This includes the broken DUP manifesto promise, that the continuation of the Northern Ireland Executive is entirely dependent on the Irish Sea border being removed.
Kirk McDowell, Belfast BT5