Unionists think they have a reason for celebration. Having presided over the collapse of the economy in the Republic of Ireland, Fianna Fail is now proposing to organise in the north – which could split the nationalist vote.
With Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein, dissident republicans and the SDLP all laying into each other, a pan-Unionist front might just bring about a return to good old-fashioned majority rule, as many Protestant voters see it.
The SDLP is already losing its leader, with Mark Durkan opting to stand down and leave the Northern Ireland Assembly, although he intends to hang on to his Westminster seat.
However, the cause of Unionist unity faces just as many pitfalls as the one for Irish nationalism and unity. Unionists, it seems, just love attacking one another and hopes for a single Unionist party are likely to remain no more than that. Unionists relish the blame game that tends to follow elections.
What Unionists need to concentrate on in the immediate future is how to reach an agreement over two House of Commons seats: South Belfast, which is currently held by Alasdair McDonnell for the SDLP, and Fermanagh & South Tyrone, at presented represented by Sinn Fein’s Michelle Gildernew. The plan should be for Michael McGimpsey, Northern Ireland’s health minister, to try to capture South Belfast for the Ulster Unionist Party, while Arlene Foster contests Fermanagh & South Tyrone for the Democratic Unionists.
However, the intervention of Traditional Unionist Voice, led by former DUP MEP Jim Allister, could upset any such arrangement. The TUV would have to agree not to stand in any constituency where a split Unionist vote might allow a nationalist come through the middle and win.
It would probably benefit all the Unionist parties to agree on a coalition of candidates for the Northern Ireland Assembly and council elections – only running the number of candidates Unionism, collectively, thought could win seats. This could be a throwback to the 1970s, when jointly-agreed candidates representing three Unionist parties won 11 of Northern Ireland’s 12 seats in the Commons. An arrangement on similar lines now might mean Protestant rule at Stormont becoming a reality in the short term, not merely remaining an aspiration for the long term. In such circumstances, it would only be a matter of time before the dream of radical Unionist right-wingers – a single Unionist party organised throughout the island of Ireland – was realised.
Meanwhile, First Minister Peter Robinson’s utterances about Stormont reforms should be regarded with scepticism. They have more to do with bolstering his increasingly shaky leadership of the DUP than keeping the Northern Ireland Assembly going. It’s clear that the DUP’s shotgun marriage to Sinn Fein is on the rocks and heading for the divorce courts.
However, it seems that a number of senior DUP people have indicated their preference to stay in Stormont rather than opt to try for handsomely remunerated seats at Westminster. Could that have anything to do with the losses some commentators expect the DUP to suffer at next year’s general election?
In 2005, the DUP gave the David Trimble-led UUP a hammering at the polls. But with the UUP’s new link-up with the Conservatives – UUP Leader Reg Empey was given a warm reception at last week’s Tory Party conference – those fortunes could be reversed. Unionists are among those who think David Cameron is almost certain to become Prime Minister in 2010. It would certainly be good news for anyone nostalgic for David Trimble, who is now a peer, if he was invited to play a significant role in a Cameron government. Northern Ireland Secretary, perhaps?
A bigger shock could be if Trimble’s wife, Daphne, decides to take on the DUP’s Jeffrey Donaldson in his supposedly safe Lagan Valley constituency.
Elsewhere, the anti-power sharing TUV could cause problems for Robinson in at least four DUP-held Commons seats across County Antrim.
One DUP man already is already in trouble is Ian Paisley junior, who was at the centre of the row over Northern Ireland police officers training their counterparts in Libya. Anyone harbouring hopes of a Paisley dynasty may have to prepare themselves for a disappointment.
The once iron discipline of the DUP has fallen apart. The party over which Ian Paisley senior used to rule is now beset by the same sort of internal – and electorally disastrous – feuds that bedevilled the UUP after the Good Friday Agreement. Paisley junior’s latest rap across the knuckles from his own leadership is regarded as a move by Robinson to stop a fundamentalist revival in the DUP. That may be why there are whispers that Paisley senior could be about to stage a comeback of sorts in his beloved Free Presbyterian Church.
Another rumour is that the secret and sinister cabal of Freemasons who drove Jeffrey Donaldson out of the UUP and into the arms of the DUP are plotting to bring him back.
So here’s a fine flight of fancy for Northern Ireland Unionism: Jeffrey Donaldson as First Minister; Lady Daphne Trimble as the next leader of the UUP with her husband watching her back in Westminster and North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds replacing Robinson as leader of the DUP.
