End of Unity 2016, beginning of Unionist consolidation?
Alex Kane argued in last week’s column for the Newsletter that since the wheels have fallen off Sinn Fein’s 2016 prediction of Irish Unification. He asks: What is Sinn Fein without the IRA? What is Sinn Fein without the catalogue of grievances to be addressed? What is Sinn Fein without a growing mandate from the Southern electorate? Indeed, how republican is a party which governs part of Her Majesty’s territory? He then argues there is no time or place for Unionists to engage with Republican outreach. Instead, they need to expend their energies in outreaching to non-voting unionists.
By Alex Kane
When Sinn Fein/IRA embraced the Armalite/ballot paper strategy in 1981, it was their first little footsy with democracy, the first little indication that they recognised that semtex and snipers alone were not going to deliver a Brit-free united Ireland. And, over the next twenty-five years, while Sinn Fein increased its vote in election after election, the IRA played around with back-channel communications with successive governments, ceasefires, a drawn out process of decommissioning and finally, in 2005, total decommissioning.
It all seemed to be going so well, too, with Sinn Fein (having gained a useful toe-hold in the Dail in 2002) eclipsing the SDLP at Assembly, Westminster, European and local council levels in Northern Ireland. They have hammered down a deal with the DUP and carved-up almost 70% of government between themselves. The icing on the cake, and the sure sign that the unity project was close to completion, was to have been a doubling of their seats in the Dail and a place in the next Irish government. This victory would then have been followed by the launching of their Charter for Unionist Engagement and the battle to win over that 10-15% of unionists who were considered soft enough to consider the merits of unification. This whole strategy could be summed up as the softly-softly-catchee-monkey approach.
Well, despite the fact that a wheel has fallen off their electoral bandwagon, Sinn Fein, as they always do on these occasions, ignored the reality and continued with the rhetoric. The Charter was launched in Stormont’s Long Gallery a few weeks ago, with Martin McGuinness declaring that he wants “to build a new Ireland that is based on a new relationship between Orange and Green…” Fine sounding words, but the reality is that democracy just isn’t going to work for Sinn Fein. They are now trapped and hobbled in an internal settlement, with unification further away than it has ever been.
It may have taken them almost a century to realise that violence wouldn’t deliver their goals, but I suspect that it won’t be all that long until they realise that demographics won’t deliver it, either. There is nothing they have to offer small-u unionists. More important, though, there isn’t much they can offer that significant minority of small-n nationalists who are reasonably content to remain within the United Kingdom; especially now that Northern Ireland has power-sharing stability.
As Northern Ireland develops into a “normal” country, it will become very much harder for local republicans to sustain the argument that it is a “failed entity.” And, as memories of the one-party state fade and republican concerns and grievances have been mostly addressed and resolved, it will also be hard for Sinn Fein to convince their own grassroots that unification is the answer. Put bluntly, it will be difficult to be in government, supporting the legal and security institutions, while continuing with a campaign that claims that the “North is an artificial and offensive creation.”
Oh yes, Sinn Fein will continue with the pretence that the march to unification is as vibrant as ever, but the reality is that they have reached the end of the road and lost the only battle that ever really mattered to them. However they may try and spin it otherwise, Sinn Fein has been forced into an accommodation with unionism in a Northern Ireland that is more firmly entrenched within the United Kingdom than it has ever been before.
What is Sinn Fein without the IRA? What is Sinn Fein without the catalogue of grievances to be addressed? What is Sinn Fein without a growing mandate from the Southern electorate? Indeed, how republican is a party which governs part of Her Majesty’s territory?
In the mid-1990s Gerry Adams calculated that unionists could be broken apart and the Union ended. His main aim was to make Sinn Fein look serious about an internal deal, while unionists, whingeing as they walked away from negotiations, would look like political dinosaurs. The problem, of course, is that the UUP refused to be bluffed out of the peace process, forcing Sinn Fein, in turn, to stay in and negotiate the very internal settlement they didn’t actually want.
Worse was to come: while the UUP was hugely damaged by events, the DUP, probably to Sinn Fein’s surprise, simply picked up the pieces and finished the job. Adams was forced to make the best of an increasingly bad hand, all the while praying that he would get a breakthrough down South and install a Sinn Fein bogeyman in the next Irish cabinet. The electorate didn’t oblige, however, which leaves Adams in the uncomfortable and absurd position of having to persuade Sinn Fein supporters up here that the party’s presence in an unwanted partitionist Assembly should be regarded as a mere transitional step towards the ultimate goal!
In other words, Adams miscalculated utterly. A strategy which was supposed to enrage, isolate and demonise unionists, paving the way to a greening of Anglo-Irish relationships and copper-fastening the inevitability of unification, has ended up with Sinn Fein trapped into government with those same unionists and with little sign of an exit route for republicans.
The IRA has been stood down and their weapons put beyond use. Sinn Fein has shredded the sheet music of “A Nation Once Again” while their Ministers and MLAs get on with the business of governing this part of the United Kingdom. The Armalite didn’t do it for them. The ballot box won’t do it for them. The rhetoric can’t do it for them. Their day isn’t coming.
That being the case, there is no need for unionists to engage with Sinn Fein as part of the Unionist Outreach project. Unionists don’t want unification and the Irish electorate don’t want it, either. This is not a time to be offering political or publicity lifelines to Sinn Fein. For those unionists who believe in outreach, could I suggest that they concentrate, instead, on reaching out to that huge bloc of non-voters within their own pro-Union community?
Hi Yokel,
I am very confident that there won’t be a United Ireland in my lifetime (and I’m giving myself another 30 years of life); and pretty confident that it won’t happen in the lifetime of my youngest (9 in October).
That aside, I still think Unionism—in party political and propaganda terms—is a bloody disaster. Both Fair_Deal and Willowfield have touched on the problem in earlier posts.
You conclude, “It’s not so bad really is it”? I don’t share your confidence.
Best wishes,
Alex.
PE.
OK “ethnic conflict” is a poor term but what I mean it is about the complex interplay of identidy, tradition, politics and stuff. Intellectually sloppy short hand I accept.
Greagoir,
Thank you for bringing Freud into it.
Anthony Clare was in discussion with Adams once on “In the psychiatrists chair”, a programme which I hated, but claimed that Unionists had a form of false conciousness. Clare (who I guess knew a thing or two about Freudian stuff) rounded on him and said that was a fundementally fascist analysis (his words not mine) and extremely perverse.
I guess I was leading parcifal into a trap but I would have tried not to be quite as sharp as to call him a fascist.
“I am very confident that there won’t be a United Ireland in my lifetime (and I’m giving myself another 30 years of life); ” – Alex Kane
I’m giving myself another 40 years of life and… I’m very confident that I’ll be too senile to care by then.
My guess is we’ll be in purgatory by then (err, wrong term)… that we’ll have voted for a UI and be in that stage wherein the former NI is ‘quarantined’ as it becomes integrated with the south… probably lasting a decade or so as state employees (such as the judiciary, police force, ect) are retrained and re-educated in accordance with the south.
Guesses, however, are as good as three-dollar bills.
Will there be a United Ireland in the next thirty years? Given that there is no history of regular referenda on the matter, and the one referendum that was held was boycotted, it is hard to say. However, if we look at the decline of the Unionist 1st preference vote in the European Parliament elections, we can get some idea of how things are going:-
1979: 60.8%
1984: 58.0%
1989: 57.8%
1994: 55.4%
1999: 52.3%
2004: 48.6%
In 2004, Unionists were able to win two seats with the aid of 4% of transfers from the Centrist candidate. In 2009, assuming a continued decline at the same rate and the same percentage of available transfers, the results are really too close to call. I have done the calculations two ways, and one predicts that the UUP will get in by 10,000 votes, another by just 2000. This of course represents the narrowest of margins. However, there seems little doubt that as of 2014, NI will be represented in Europe by two Nationalists and one Unionist member. My predictions for the Unionist 1st preference vote in EU elections for the next thirty years is a continued loss of 5% per decade, which would give results as follows:-
2009 Est 46.1%
2014 Est 43.6%
2019 Est 41.1%
2024 Est 38.6%
2029 Est 36.1 %
2034 Est 33.6%
2039 Est 31.1%
2044 Est 28.6%
2049 Est 26.1%
Personally, I would not give the Union much chance of survival beyond 2014 on a Unionist vote like this. Nationalist strategy when a Nationalist majority is achieved would be to integrate as many public bodies as possible, health service, police etc, leading to an even faster decline than this.
Predicting loss of Westminster seats is a lot more haphazard. It all depends on the bickering of political parties, the popularity of politicians, the fickleness or cuteness of electorates and the decisions of Boundary Commissioners. Here again there is a pattern of Unionist loss and Nationalist gain. Judging on past performance, Unionists will continue to lose a seat at every election, or, if they are lucky, at every other election, for at least another twenty years. The following represents a guesstimate of what will happen:-
Constituency:: Becomes Nationalist
01) West Belfast:: 1974
02) Foyle:: 1983
03) Newry & Armagh::1986
04) South Down:: 1987
05) Mid Ulster:: 1997
06) West Tyrone:: 2001
07) Ferm & S Tyrone:: 2001
08) North Belfast:: Est 2009
09) Upper Bann:: Est 2014
10) South Belfast:: (2005)
11) East Londonderry:: Est 2019
12) South Antrim:: Est 2024
13) North Antrim:: Est 2029
14) Lagan Valley:: never
15) East Antrim:: never
16) Strangford:: never
17) North Down:: never
18) East Belfast:: never
Since I made this calculation it looks like South Antrim is going to turn before East Londonderry. But the result here is the same: I would expect a majority of Westminster seats to be held by Nationalists by 2014.
But of course, what I am presenting is the Nationalist view of the shape of things to come. I do not suppose it will find much favour among Unionists. They are welcome to find comfort in the prospect of reappearing Garden Centre Prods, Crypto-Unionist Papists, transferable votes from Quebec, etc etc. All I can say is that my calculations work well enough for me, and have been confirmed by election results for some time now.
The number crunchers have arrived and sanity departed.
Paddy Reilly,
Yes I am terrified already. Prince Eoghan, when do I book the flight of the intolerant, looks like I need to soon. Alternatively I will start moving supplies to Devenish.
10) South Belfast:: (2005)*
Due to a split Unionist vote, expect the natural order to be restored come 2009.
08) North Belfast:: Est 2009
Don’t think so …
11) East Londonderry:: Est 2019
Coleraine, arguably the most loyalist town in the Northern Ireland and the hub of this constituency. Not very likely.
13) North Antrim:: Est 2029
to paraphrase the favourite expression of the present MP … Never.
Given Paddies figures above, is there any evidence that this is the “beginning of Unionist consolidation”. Looks more like a drip, drip, drip in the wrong direction for them. Thats not to say we’ll have a UI by 2016.
2014 looks more likely these days.
Diluted Orange,
Whilst I agree entirely about your views on the figures I am a little careful about quoting that particular type of remark from Martin McGuiness’s new friend.
[i]Turgon
Whilst I agree entirely about your views on the figures I am a little careful about quoting that particular type of remark from Martin McGuiness’s new friend.[/i]
How silly of me! It should have read … Never, Never, Never, … erm, OK then!
East Londonderry: yes, this constituency is currently 59.9% Unionist. But that does not mean it will stay so forever. As I have pointed out, Northern Ireland was 58% Unionist in 1984, but only 48.6% twenty years later.
Paddy
To be fair these predictions represent a mere expansion of current statistics across a much larger time-frame and well into the future. The rate of growth in the Nationalist population has slowed a lot in recent years, which your analysis fails to account for when you suggest that Unionism will lose a seat to Nationalism in every general election from now on.
Using your logic you could, given current rates of growth amongst different ethnic pockets across the British Isles, similarly extrapolate the following demographics for 2029:
England to become an Islamic republic.
Northern Ireland to become a satellite Polish state.
Republic of Ireland to become a satellite Polish state. (Unification at last?)
Scotland to become Northern Ireland.
I think you can say with some certainty that the balance in the Assembly will narrow over the next three elections. A third nationalist seat in Upper Bann, a fourth in Fermanagh South Tyrone, a seat in Strangford in the nearish future – then (and I know this sounds daft but the demographic contrast between age groups is staggering) a fourth seat in North Belfast and a third in Derry East and then its almost equal.
Recognise absolutely that things change, migration patterns, birth rates etc – but the top bit of above is fairly inevitable.
England to become an Islamic republic.
This would require an increase of 54,000,000 in the Islamic population, or similar decrease in native population.
North Belfast to fall to Nationalists
Requires increase of 3,500 in Nationalist population (or comparable Unionist decrease)
Upper Bann to fall to nationalists
Requires increase of 6,000 in Nationalist population (or comparable Unionist decrease)
The rate of growth in the Nationalist population has slowed a lot in recent years
I see no evidence of it in this year’s election. But even if it has, it has not frozen in mid-air.
[i]England to become an Islamic republic.
This would require an increase of 54,000,000 in the Islamic population, or similar decrease in native population. [/i]
Well, duh! I said given current [b]rates[/b] of growth – therefore using your own tried and trusted form of prediction to show how the British Isles will look in the next 20 or so years.