If DUP gets this wrong, it could be death knell for the Union
NexT month marks the centenary of the creation of the Northern Irish state: a moment that, for unionists, would normally be a cause for celebration. Yet they will greet this historic milestone with little enthusiasm.
Theirs is a movement in deepening turmoil, wracked by divisions, battered by social change, threatened by the inexorable demographics of a growing nationalist population and increasingly divorced from mainstream opinion in mainland Britain.
Rarely has their cherished link with the United Kingdom looked so vulnerable.
Into this toxic swirl, Arlene Foster’s sudden departure as Northern Ireland’s First Minister – and the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party – is a gift to those who hanker for a united Ireland and the dissolution of the UK.
her ignominious exit – ousted by her own side over her perceived softness on issues including gay rights and co-operation with Sinn Fein – has dramatically intensified the unionists’ sense of crisis, and may prove the moment where the cries for Irish unity rise to a crescendo.
Never a hardliner in the mould of Ian Paisley, the rabble-rousing founder of the DUP and its leader for 37 years, Foster was a tough-minded pragmatist who preferred negotiation to confrontation. In contrast, much of her party is still gripped by the classic unionist siege mentality: precisely the wrong attitude for these times.
The tide of history is moving in one direction. Support for a united Ireland is at record levels: one opinion poll last year by Lord Ashcroft showed a slim majority of Northern Irish voters in favour of reunification, while another poll in February put Sinn Fein five points ahead of the DUP. The Republicans are on course to be the largest party in the Stormont Assembly after next year’s elections. Now the DUP faces the first leadership contest in its history.
This should be a golden opportunity for the party to build a broader platform that might secure the future of unionism by winning new supporters in the centre ground.
But it looks like the DUP will move in exactly the opposite direction, retreating into its reactionary comfort zone and clinging to the self-destructive pieties of Paisley’s ‘No Surrender’ outlook.
That blinkered option is a guaranteed way to lose further support from the moderates and would play perfectly into the hands of Sinn Fein.
The foolish embrace of extremism is depressingly highlighted in the fact that the favourite to lead them is Ulster agriculture minister edwin Poots, whose father Charlie was close to Ian Paisley. W ITH huge grassroots support in the DUP, Poots is almost the stereotype of the Protestant bigot, fiercely opposed to gay equality and the scientific fact of evolution. he instead voices his bizarre beliefs in the crackpot dogma of creationism, which holds – in defiance of all evidence – that the earth is just 6,000 years old.
Other contenders are hardly more impressive. One is likely to be Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, a former aide to enoch Powell. Despite his long membership of the Commons as MP for Lagan Valley, Donaldson has never exuded any real stature or authority.
Another could be Gavin Robinson, another MP, barrister and former Lord Mayor of Belfast, who has won plaudits for smooth style. Though his moderation – compared to Poots – could lose him the support of diehard activists.
Less likely would be a leadership bid from Ian Paisley Junior, the founder’s son, because he has been badly tainted by his own expenses scandal, which led to his suspension from the Commons in 2018.
With these uninspiring candidates, little wonder that the death knell could soon be sounding for the Union. Only vision, generosity and boldness can save it: but there is a precious lack of those qualities in the blinkered, self-destructive DUP.