The most significant realignment in Northern Ireland Unionism for 40 years may unfold in the aftermath of the general election as members of the Ulster Unionist Party come to terms with the fact that the “great blue hope” – their pact with the Tories – has been a dismal failure and lies in tatters.
May 6 saw the Protestant electorate heap humiliation on the heads of the three leaders of the fragmented Unionist family. Peter Robinson, First Minister and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, was dumped out of his East Belfast seat. UUP leader Reg Empey failed to seize back the party’s number one target seat. Hardliner Jim Allister was trounced by Ian Paisley junior and his Traditional Unionist Voice descended into electoral meltdown across the north of Ireland.
One senior UUP activist admitted: “The party is now on its knees. We need to get back to basics. The pact with the Tories has been an unmitigated disaster.”
Empey would seem to be finished as an influential Ulster Unionist. He needed to capture at least three of the north’s 18 seats to prove his political marriage with the Tories was a vote winner. However, for the first time since the Ulster Unionist Council – the UUP’s governing body – was formed in 1905, the party has come out of a Westminster general election having failed to win a single seat. This humiliation was compounded by the fact that Sylvia Hermon, who quit the UUP in protest at the link-up with the Tories to stand as an independent, retained her seat with an increased majority.
Empey’s successor is likely to be either the centre-right Danny Kennedy, who is currently the party’s deputy leader, or the more liberal Basil McCrea. Both are high-profile members of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
By contrast with the UUP and TUV, the defeat of the DUP’s leader did not signal electoral disaster for the party elsewhere. It held on to eight of its nine seats, albeit with slightly reduced majorities.
With TUV leader Allister failing to prevent the continuation of a 40-year Paisley dynasty in North Antrim, it is now clear the vast majority of grassroots Unionists want Stormont to work and the Tories to clear off.
Robinson pledged to continue as First Minister, but his long-term political future must be in serious doubt. The favourite to succeed him as DUP leader is Fermanagh-based executive minister Arlene Foster. The other strong contender is North Belfast MP and fellow Stormont minister Nigel Dodds. Paisley junior has an outside chance and at the very least will be in the inner circle of future DUP decision-making
As far as some of them are concerned, the priority for Unionists ought to be to achieve political unity by establishing a single pro-Union party which might then be able to mobilise the apathetic Protestant vote, now estimated to be well over the 100,000 mark.
Unionist disunity saw South Belfast remain in SDLP hands. Apathy among Unionists meant Sinn Fein’s Stormont farming minister Michelle Gildernew held Fermanagh & South Tyrone by just four votes after a series of recounts.
With the UUP failing to win any Westminster seats, some of its members are becoming more vocal in advocating a merger with the DUP to produce the Democratic United Unionist Party. But first the UUP will have to purge itself of the Toryism which blighted it in recent months.
The pro-David Cameron clique in the UUP tried to re-brand the party as a pluralist, secular and liberal one, arguing this would catapult UUP representatives into a Cameron government.
But this pluralist plot ignored the Ulster Bible belt and the legions of church-going Protestants. Many Christian Unionists either stayed at home on polling day or voted for the DUP. If current divisions and voter apathy are not addressed as a matter of urgency, Unionism will lose more ground to the centre or to the nationalists.
Tactical voting saw the SDLP and Sinn Fein retain their combined total of eight seats. If something similar happens at the 2011 Assembly elections, Sinn Fein could emerge as the largest party and lay justifiable claim to the post of First Minister.
If Unionists are serious about stopping that, at the very least they may have to field agreed candidates. Paisley junior’s comprehensive victory was proof that the days of multiple Unionist party tickets are over. Ironically, that fragmentation began when Paisley senior won the North Antrim seat from the Ulster Unionists in 1970. Unofficial talks are already taking place on greater co-operation between Unionist factions.
The situation in the House of Commons will cast a spotlight on the moderate Catholic SDLP under its new leader Margaret Ritchie. The SDLP has always taken its seats in the Commons, unlike Sinn Fein.
But republicans might do well to remember Eamon de Valera, one of their icons and a former Irish president. He took the oath of allegiance in 1927, branding it “an empty formula”.
Since 1981, Sinn Fein has taken seats in the Dail, Stormont and Europe.
What sort of deal could republicans secure for a future united Ireland if the five Sinn Fein MPs adopted de Valera’s attitude to swearing allegiance to the Queen?
