Monday, February 01, 2010
Peter Robinson: the folly of tactics over strategy; and space hoppers
The progress towards an agreement on policing and justice has taken more twists and turns than seemed believable when the current negotiations started. Currently it seems that the DUP are locked in discussion as to whether or not they can accept the current agreement.
It is unclear exactly what the final draft will be but unless it is collapsed at the last minute it seems that the devolution of policing and justice will occur within the next few months. Where now the talk of political lifetimes? Gregory Campbell may have tried heroically on Nolan this morning to keep up the talk of six months or six years but it sounded pretty unconvincing. However, now at the last possible moment it seems as if some in the DUP are willing to try for something better. The problem is that as their options have narrowed their aspirations have shrunk to an extent which is almost pitiful. It seems the arguments are around the timing of any concessions on parading and possibly a few other minor gains. Compare this with the suggestion that the DUP would not be bounced into P&J devolution. The once proud DUP, preparing humiliation after humiliation for Sinn Fein have been reduced to this.
With any DUP capitulation of course unionist confidence, something I suggested there was good reason for a few short weeks ago, is now severely dented. The DUP should not pretend that any agreement which devolves P&J in the near future will be anything other than a major humiliation for the them and a major dent to unionist confidence. In contrast republican confidence will soar and no doubt Mick’s suggestion of a return of the unity by 2016 nonsense will recur (I wonder where you got that line Mick).
Once the DUP told us that they would not be bounced into P&J devolution. The reason why the DUP are now acting like the space hopper I greatly enjoyed as a child is, of course complex. It is maybe worth a brief look as sooner or later someone will have to begin to put together the pieces of unionist confidence and rebuild.
Irisgate has of course been a problem: it shattered the DUP’s air of invulnerability and although Robinson himself may not have been massively damaged there is the suspicion that those scandals have not fully played themselves out. Irisgate also brought low the seemingly impervious Peter Robinson, a man who always looked in control of his own fate. Objectively he handled himself pretty well during the media storm and managed to garner significant sympathy. However, that seemingly clinical, ice cold, calculating politician was revealed as a mere mortal like the rest of us: the admittedly non charismatic but rock like mystique was smashed irrevocably.
However, Irisgate was only the final, most obvious straw, which brought the DUP low. The problems of the Swish family Robinson, the expenses scandal, the multi-jobbing and possibly most of all the family dynasties all contributed to bring down the DUP from their exalted position.
Two other factors are, I would submit, however, the most important in understanding the current DUP predicament and they are interrelated.
The first which is known to the political cognoscenti more than the general population is of course the change in the mechanism for electing the First Minister which was enacted after the St. Andrew’s Agreement. As most readers now know it was none other than Peter Robinson who acquiesced to the change which made the First Minister’s position within the gift of the largest party rather than the largest party of the largest designation (unionist or nationalist). No other decision in the whole of Peter Robinson’s long political career better demonstrates his tactical cunning or his strategic idiocy than this decision. At the time it was a master stroke: it seemed that Robinson had produced a formula to force unionists, in perpetuity, to support the major unionist party lest the First Ministership fall to Sinn Fein. Of all Robinson’s tactical manoeuvrings over the years to defeat the UUP, this was his most brilliant. Finally the DUP were insured against any realistic likelihood of a UUP comeback. It was a decision of tactical brilliance.
It also demonstrated in the starkest possible relief why Robinson’s understanding of unionism is incomplete and why he is the most strategically flawed of recent unionist leaders: even more so than Trimble.
So little had Robinson thought about the longer term strategy that he seems not to have conceived of a time when the DUP would not be likely to be able to command the majority of unionist votes. Such an idea seems not to have crossed his mind: or it did and was dismissed with the arrogant contempt of one who had come to believe his own propaganda. The DUP had negotiated the best possible deal: how could the unionist community think differently. How could any serious unionist apart from the die hard UUP types not see that the DUP had achieved all that unionism could want.
What Robinson had forgotten was that in the dark past the DUP had been the party of which did not really do tactical cunning, not for them the sharp suits, focus groups and media savvyness: it did simple old fashioned hard line unionism; a unionism which told it as it was. Although that constituency of hard line unionists had not always voted DUP (the UUP once held some of that vote) it was the bedrock of traditional unionism. The fundamentalist Protestants of North and East Antrim, the Orangemen of County Londonderry, the paranoid border Protestants of the dreary steeples. For these people the DUP had once represented the party which would not enter power sharing with those who had murdered their kith and kin, would not compromise on the basic tenet that the causers of the mayhem of the past thirty years should not have control of the levers of power. That constituency held that if the price of power was to hand similar power to the IRA’s political representatives then it was not worth the price.
Robinson’s blunder was to think that these people had either gone away or were so wedded to the DUP that they would never switch to anyone else. He seems to have thought that the magic of the DUP party name and Dr. Paisley would ensure that any deal cut by the DUP was the best possible: Carlsberg do not do political deals for unionism but if they did….
Robinson, however, had forgotten that independent streak in those Prods: once they had deserted the UUP to help Paisley found his new party; later others had defected to make the DUP the top unionist party. However, they were not completely enraptured to the DUP and its charismatic leader. That of course led on to Robinson’s next almost as fatal mistake.
When Dr. Paisley stepped down from the MEP post which he had held Robinson needed a suitable new candidate. He did not want a person whose profile would be raised too much: he did not want a potential rival to his place as the heir apparent. Hence, it was a clever wheeze (and it was assuredly Robinson’s own idea) to find a name from the DUP’s past: a man of considerable talent but to Robinson’s eyes one who would not be a threat. Does Peter remember which tie he wore when he went to see Jim Allister? does he remember the crunch of his shoes on Allister’s drive? does he remember his first words? presumably he had had a chance to rehearse them in the car.
Although Robinson did not know it at the time he had in those two decisions: the First Ministership’s election and the choice of European candidate; the beginnings of what would bring him to his current problems. Those two decisions encapsulate all that has made Peter Robinson such an effective politician and the exact reason why he is now trapped in a nightmare of his own creation. They demonstrate like a morality tale of old the difference between tactics and strategy; the difference between cunning and vision.
Even at bay, however, Robinson still has ideas: the prospect of an understanding with the UUP may be flawed by the old animosities but it does hold out some possibilities.
At the moment, however, the DUP seem to be thinking of the prospect of some sort of pact as a way of minimising the damage they are likely to suffer at the hands of the electorate. Indeed if it could by chance work out it might save a few DUP members from their P45s. However, again it is a tactic. If the DUP could forge an understanding with the UUP they might be able to do a deal and still hold enough seats after the nest Stormont elections to keep the first ministership. Again a clever tactic: again a lack of strategic vision.
When the DUP were in their pomp after the recommencement of devolution they could dismiss Sinn Fein’s threats regarding collapse of the agreement. If SF had done so the DUP reasoning was that they would come back to a practically identical set up with no major gains. That was the calculation before the European election when Robinson predicted Jim Allister gaining 20-30,000 votes. Now the idea of a tie up with the UUP seems to be to do the deal on P&J and then try to get a deal with the UUP to hold the line.
There is another possibility but that requires a strategic vision which Robinson has never held: one I advocated before Irisgate ever happened but the possibility of a UUP understanding might hold out.
Robinson could simply hold out and allow Sinn Fein to collapse the agreement. Then if he could arrange a tie up with the UUP he could go into the election. In such an election he could pose as the hard liner who both for practical and principled reasons would not bow the knee to Sinn Fein. In such a scenario it is quite possible that the united unionist party would command more seats than Sinn Fein and hence, the First Ministership. Such an assembly with Sinn Fein little further on and with a cohort of TUV MLAs might then be the spring board for further negotiations except this time with the whip hand back with the DUP and not Sinn Fein.
Such a possibility is almost certainly pie in the sky: Reg Empey lacks the courage and vision to take such an opportunity imperilling as it might the Conservative tie up even more than his recent vacillation has; the suspicion between the DUP and UUP probably runs too deep. A suspicion of course intensified by Robinson’s careful, methodical destruction of the UUP over the 1990s: again tactically brilliant, strategically lamentable. In addition Robinson probably lacks the strategic vision to even begin to go down such a route.
So now Robinson is faced by a party in partial revolt: unwilling to compromise now as many will be signing their political death warrants for a year hence; yet if they do not compromise now effectively accepting an earlier date for their own political execution. Never has Robinson’s tactical brilliance been needed more than now. Never has his strategic stupidity in bringing the DUP (and unionism) to this point been better demonstrated.
Turgon @ 10:09 PM
`The DUP should not pretend that any agreement which devolves P&J in the near future will be anything other than a major humiliation for the them`...erm devolution of p&j is in the DUP manifesto..how is that humiliation? If the deal is right then do it, if it`s not right then don`t. Simple.
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:21 PM“might then be the spring board for further negotiations”
Or then again, Turgon, London and Dublin might opt for Plan B instead. Do you have a strategy and tactics to outflank that option?
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:25 PMTurgon
We are facing a Unionist Paradox and you yourself know it.
The DUP have blown it; hoisted on their own petard. There is every chance that some of them may jump ship to the TUV. What is certain is that their more extreme supporters will vote TUV.
The TUV, much like the Real Ira exists as a repository for extremes; it subsumes and nullifies those on the edge (the purists).
A stronger TUV, packed full of the purists, will leave the rest of the Unionists to come together in the middle ground.
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:30 PMKilsally,
Turgon has been labouring under the misapprehension, touted by his leader that devolution of P&J is somehow some massive defeat.The issue isn’t that TUVvies would suggest this - the issue is that their reasons for objecting to it have slowly, but constantly changed over time as they’ve one by one been proven wrong.
They’ve moved from telling us that it was inevitable that there would be a SF minister and McGuinness appointing judges (remember that anyone?) to moving to issues about the role of the Executive and rubbish suggestions about cross-border activity.
Turgon, or should I call you Turgid, because of your long rambling ‘analysis’ - its interesting that you give us such a detailed character attack on Peter Robinson but not a single reason to back up the supposed core of your analysis - that P&J is some grand defeat for unionism and will somehow reinvigorate SF’s long-since buried plan of a UI by 2016.
Isn’t it odd that your focus on Robinson and attempt to damage him personally resonates with the tone of Allister’s public meeting on Friday night - not for him was it policy issues he was advertising it to be about, but rather the “Robinson affair” a nice and loosely worded title which allows him the pretence that its about politics but then a neat segway into personal bile in which Allister surpasses all others.
Perhaps the next time you’re composing some weighty tome with which you’re going to burden us then you could use some of your skills on telling us exactly what SF will supposedly gain from the devolution of P&J and how this will bring a unted Ireland a single minute closer. No military analogies or theorising please, a few hard facts…..
Doubt we’ll get it though because isn’t it much easier just to keep raising the spectre of “Irisgate” or the “Robinson affair” as a way to damage the DUP in the minds of the electorate.
But maybe that’s morally right so we’re all ok politically then…
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:31 PMKilsally,
Keep spinning. Once your party said that P&J would be devolved at the time of your choosing; after a political lifetime, maybe after six years.That you are reduce to such pathetic spin shows how narrowed the vision has become: how desperate the position; how pathetic the end.
However, keep spinning Kilsally because with every denial of the predicament in which you find yourselves you simply slice off a few more votes to the TUV.
Before the European elections some of the DUPers on this site suggested that I brush up my CV as I might get a job with the DUP.
Apart from the fact that (no offence, nor too much arrogance) but I do not think you could afford to give me a job, I do feel pretending all is well while Rome burns has served your party pretty poorly for the last couple of years.
Maybe time for some DUPers to consider their future careers.
Nevin,
I have consistently said that Plan B if it exists is extremely unlikely to be as bad as suggested. Firstly and most significantly for me it avoids having convicted criminals and their cheerleaders in power. Secondly the pretended Plan B must be remembered in the context of trying to scare Paisley into an agreement. An agreement which was needed to give a fig leaf to Tiny Blair’s exit from Downing street: an exit caused by the greatest British foreign policy debacle since Suez.Dr. Paisley may have bowed the knee and like Shylock said “Send the deed after me, And I will sign it.” That does not mean that all unionists should fear Plan B: only those who chose to raise it as a bogeyman for their own ends.
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:35 PMI said last week they will try to stay in there until someone else calls time. Nothing has happened yet to change my mind on that.
Each day that goes past, brings more focus on SF and the DUP to the exclusion of their respective junior partners.
If I were Robbo, I’d be deploying the argument that they need that bit extra so they can run at Jim with at a rate of knots.
In the meantime, Reg’s indecision should blunt his party’s competitiveness nicely.
The DUP and SF still have what the UU and the SDLP don’t yet have: bags of nerve. Whether it will be enough to work in the end I have no idea.
But isn’t this battle a day working its tedious wonders on our memory banks over the Mrs R affair?
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:36 PMAwwwwww Turgon .... I was waiting for the punchline ....and all they need is the smack of firm leadership…step forward ....... Jim Allister
I just watched his inspiring speech on Newsnight at the Albertbridge Orange Hall. Nice hall. The crowd of about 60 seemed to have an average age of about the same number. The sea of white hair and bald heads was striking and many of them were, as my daughter might say ‘coffin dodgers’ unlikely to ever be bothered by a United Ireland. If Gerry still promises ‘a United Ireland in our liftimes’ he’d better get a move on.
Now Turgon you talk a lot about strategy. Before you can develop a strategy however you need vision of where you are going / what you are trying to create.
Have the TUV got one?
PS ‘beating themuns’ will not suffice
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:37 PMAs long as unionism is split who cares what caused their downfall, whether it be Robinsons lack of vision or the whole of the component parts mentioned. Divided they fall, and they can’t fall soon enough imv, it’s great theatre watching those guys twist and turn in the shinner stranglehold at the staging post.
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:42 PM“wonders on our memory banks over the Mrs R affair”
I thought there were two affairs, not one, Mick. Robinson and Adams? I don’t suppose Peter and Gerry have colluded with the MSM to downplay their little local difficulties ...
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:42 PMTurgid
“Once your party said that P&J would be devolved at the time of your choosing; after a political lifetime, maybe after six years”The old ‘political lifetime’ one is a good one to trot out when you’re in trouble. AFAIK that was said in relation to a SF Justice Minister, i.e it would be a political lifetime before it would be devolved in the circumstances of SF having a role. Given that isn’t going to be the case, despite your party’s desperate attempts to claim *cough - lie - cough* otherwise, then the political lifetime issue is just yet another red herring thrown up to distract people from the fact the TUV have shifted their position more times that its just about possible to count.
Perhaps we should go back and read Allister’s statement on the day he resigned from the DUP about his reasons for doing so (yes its still online). Interesting just how few issues on it he ever mentions these days and how he’s shifted the arguments in a vain attempt to jump on whatever bandwagon has happened to be passing at the time.
The plain fact remains that in the entire 22 paragraphs (by my rough count) there’s absolutely zero substance in terms of the Policing & Justice issue but just attempts to attack Robinson’s character and ability.
That’s fine if you want to play that game - but at least have the honesty to admit what ground you want to attack. Must think up a very long analogy about TUV hypocrisy… oh wait, it only takes two words. Torrens Knight.
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:44 PMCarson’s Cat,
Sorry posts crossed.You boys are really out to help the Dear Leader tonight.
Remind me who said P&J devolution would be a political lifetime? Which party told everyone P&J would only be devolved at the time of the DUP’s choice?
However, as I said to Kilsally above: keep spinning; it was exactly this sort of spin which helped provide you with the European election “victory”, I am sure a bit more of it will ensure the next election will be even more “successful.”
Once you were going to be more humble and less arrogant and learn from your mistakes: remember that?
Cynic2,
I think the DUP still have a chance to have a strategy which works. However, that requires a radical vision. They need to simply hold the line. Then if SF collapse the agreement they need to put it up to the UUP that they (the UUP) need to fall in with a united party and stop Sinn Fein.That would be a strategy and also a tactic which might well cause the TUV considerable problems. The DUP would be seen to be facing down SF and acting out of principle. Voters might well vote down the UUUC card and isolate the TUV.
Then returned with a majority and teh First Ministership the DUP (with UUP help) would have seen off Sinn fein and the TUV.
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:45 PMjust for info- the 22 paragraphs I refer to is in your post Turgid, not Allister’s statement but I’d still go and have a read of it too - interesting how the *ahem* emhpasis *ahem* has changed somewhat.
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:46 PMTurgon, I doubt if many Unionist politicians are aware of the present role of Dublin officials in policing issues here so you’d need to factor that into your analysis.
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:47 PMTurgid
Re the 11:45
Oops - think the “political lifetime” one was dealt with. AFAIK it was Dodds who used the line and has repeated it time and time again that it relates to an SF role - something which wont happen.Now, any chance of dealing with some substance?
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:47 PMCarsons Cat,
Remind me who was that convicted paedophile the DUP recently let back into the party and made a party official? Oh yes here it is: Brian Hutchinson.Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:49 PMThe edgy purists must be delighted by the on again off again nature of this last pow wow.
Makes it all seem superficial and banal, whether to have self government, but only with silly walks and bilingual street signs.
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:50 PMRelations within unionism are worse than between unionism and Sinn Fein, how amusing….!
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:51 PMTurgon,
Is TUV policy officially now that two wrongs make a right?Any chance of the issues? No, thought not.
No chance of telling us exactly how P&J devolution would weaken the union and advance some mythical SF project.
The simple fact is that SF lied to their supporters in 06 and said they’d get it devolved (on a basis which was just fantasy). Now they’re keen to get it devolved on just about any basis (cos the bogtrotters won’t have a clue about the nitty gritty). Yet somehow simply because of that unionism will be fundamentally undermined.
And you have the cheek to accuse Robinson of having no strategy or ability?
Allister is an opportunist who will attempt to use any issue from water charging to justice powers to claim that its all some massive provo plot which only he can see of course. Its probably no surprise that on top of it he’s none to keen on any idea of unionist unity - he wasn’t mad on the idea in the 80’s either.
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:54 PMMaybe, just maybe, we can leave the whataboutery out of the argument.
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:55 PMCarson’s Cat has it right.
So P&J might get devolved, as originally planned.
So bloody what? Does this mean that all lawyers mutate into leprechauns overnight.
Turgon, you write well but you need to tone down the hyperbole over this:
“DUP capitulation”, “major humiliation”,“rock like mystique was smashed irrevocably”,“trapped in a nightmare of his own creation”Calm down FFS.
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:56 PMEither way TUV will do well out of this.
Even if most of the 15 alleged DUP dissenters can be persuaded to stay in the Party, theres bound to be a few who will jump.At random, I take David Simpson who is prolly very vulnerable to the UUP in May.
He will lose votes to the UUP AND TUV (even Davey Calvert!!!).
But the TUV wont take that seat…..but if the sitting MP defected….his name recognition AND TUV should see him hold off UUP….especially if Moutray jumps with him.So David Simpson….JUMP!!!
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:57 PMCarsons Cat said
” (cos the bogtrotters won’t have a clue about the nitty gritty). “
Unionist enlightenment strikes again.
Posted by on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:58 PMPanic
Just to be clear - I draw a very clear distinction between some of the “hardmen” in SF’s background to even the SF electorate, never mind the wider nationalist community.Posted by on Feb 02, 2010 @ 12:00 AMNo chance of telling us exactly how P&J devolution would weaken the union and advance some mythical SF project.
Didn’t you hear Jimbo on radio ulster? It brings control of the police and judicary on to the island of Ireland,says he, which I agree. For nationalists thats something, a little disengagement of the British state. It may not bring about a UI by 2016 but as Adams says it’s a staging post. Allister is our friend..!!
Posted by on Feb 02, 2010 @ 12:00 AMIf SF want devolution of P&J then unionists should be sure it is not in their interest.
Posted by on Feb 02, 2010 @ 12:00 AM
