We have moved on – and Foster must wake up to change and drag DUP out of its negative time warp
SOON it will be that time for end-of-year reviews and new year resolutions. It’s an opportunity to take stock and reflect on things anew. It’s most unlikely to happen, but Arlene Foster and the DUP might – just might – consider a change of tack when addressing those of us who live in the Republic of Ireland.
Of course they can stick with their principles and core beliefs. We absolutely accept that Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK is the very essence of their being. It’s just that in recent days, the tone and texture of their dealings with the south comes across as unnecessarily negative.
The language is all too often designed to cause insult rather than win an argument. It’s as if the party has not realised – or simply will not accept – that life on this side of the Border has been transformed in the space of a few decades. For example, we are no longer a predominantly rural society. People are much better educated. The diktat of the Catholic Church no longer holds sway in crucial areas of public and private life. Allowing for our various economic woes, overall living standards have much improved. That much-maligned institution, the EU, has in general prompted a wider worldview, challenging people to confront some of their most deeply held beliefs.
As a consequence attitudes to the idea of a ‘united Ireland’ are not as simplistic as in days of yore. There is wide acceptance that even for those who hold such an aspiration, the matter is complex, nuanced, and certainly not given to glib short-term solutions. And Sinn Féin apart, it is certainly not an immediate burning issue for the other political parties, or for the majority of the population on the southern side of the Border.
Yet prominent DUP politicians often speak and act as if time has stood still. An array of recent Brexit-inspired verbal spats should be a reminder to more perceptive members of the party, they can seem trapped in a time warp.
This was even more apparent when some of its leading personalities came under close scrutiny by cross-channel media, post the confidence-and-supply deal with the May government. The party was suddenly transported into the front line of the Westminster bubble at a pivotal time in British and European affairs. It was under the spotlight like never before. Some of the press and television coverage on the mainland was less than flattering.
Certain commentators suggested DUP attitudes on a range of social issues made for a kind of fossilised collective, redolent of an age gone by.
Views expressed on homosexuality, and same-sex marriage put the party seriously out of kilter with accepted norms across the water. Indeed, there is an irony it now espouses a social conservatism reflective of the Republic say 20 years ago. For example, it is determined to hold the line on the highly contentious issue of abortion. Such a standpoint is in stark contrast to the momentum south of the Border to repeal the Eighth Amendment.
It’s no wonder we no longer hear much from Unionist politicians on the influence of the Catholic Church on Ireland. The reality is that southern Irish society has ‘moved on’ in that sense. Those days when a bishop could make a pronouncement on some matter or other – certain in the knowledge his ruling would be obeyed – are no more. In that sense the old clarion cry that ‘Home Rule is Rome Rule’ no longer rings true.
A growing reality for the DUP, and its opposing hardliners in Sinn Féin, is that shibboleths and catch cries from the past, in the long run, will only get them so far.
Meanwhile, from an Ulster Unionist perspective, England in particular is now a multi-racial, and in the opinion of some observers, “post-religious society”. In that sense it is seriously out of step with Northern Ireland. This presents a major communications challenge for unionism.
Of course, the reality on the ground is that despite changes on so many levels, Stormont and all it stands for is still divided by the politics of the extreme. Middle-ground parties such as the Ulster Unionists, the SDLP, and the Alliance party have been pushed to the sidelines by the power of the sectarian divide. But still there must be hope for some new dawn – in the silent below-the-radar evolution of attitudes and beliefs – on the island of Ireland and in mainland Britain. Nothing ever really stays the same. Meanwhile, other complex changes of a varying kind are afoot in the North. The number of Catholics as a percentage of the total population is on the rise. But it would seem the number who wish to remain within the UK is also on the up. Simple head counts, on one side or the other, no longer tell the full story. They cloak the complexities of how matters may evolve in the future.
THE intense media focus at home and abroad on recent Brexit exchanges would suggest it is in the DUP’s interests to soften its image. It is both a strength and a weakness for the party to have its power base confined to such a small geographical area. It has to be ever watchful of its support base. It has also to track Sinn Féin and its irredentist drive for a united Ireland, not to mention what it sees as machinations in Leinster House. It will take rare courage and insight for Arlene Foster and her inner circle to broaden DUP appeal, and bolster better understanding of its views. We have all come a long way from this month back in 1967. Then Ian Paisley senior threw snowballs at Jack Lynch’s car, just because he and his opposite number in Stormont, Terence O’Neill, decided to have a chat and a cup of tea.
A Leo Varadkar-styled strategic communications unit, encompassing a more sophisticated approach to public relations, would encourage party chiefs to focus on the positive rather than the negative. It could signal a new dynamic when interacting with a southern government. A softening of image would make it culturally more acceptable to Labour, who could be in power after the next election.
Not too long ago Enda Kenny asked Arlene Foster to contribute to a think-in on Brexit. She declined. Given the way events have conspired it may well have been a mistake on her part not to have promoted better communications with Dublin on a European-wide issue. The old slogan ‘Ulster Says No’ may have been all very well in the past. But for 2018 there will be times when ‘Ulster Says Yes’ might be a much more crafty line to follow.
The intense media focus at home and abroad on recent Brexit exchanges would suggest that it is in the DUP’s interests to soften its image