It’s about leadership stupid.
Something strange that has yet to be explained in the defenestration of Paisley the late chuckle brother. It was ideological as well as personal over his loss of grip due to age. A leap too far with the Shinners? Peter Robinson although not the coup leader was the natural but uneasy beneficiary. If the DUP rank and file overthrew their creator what would they be prepared to do to his erstwhile junior sidekick, the man who had tried to make sense of the old boy’s impulses?
Robinson had been the eternally frustrated highly disciplined deputy never sticking his nose out in public. Except once – and memorably. He had had his wings clipped as long ago as 1985 over trying to end pan unionist negativity after the shock of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, It gave the Republic a formal consultative role for the first time and a physical prescence in Northern Ireland. A major aim had been to strengthen support for the SDLP with greater support from Dublin against the rise of Sinn Fein after the hunger strike four years before. In spite of all the shouts of No, No, No the AIA left unionists out in the cold . With Frank Millar then the UU’s general secretary and sole strategic thinker, Robinson with Millar in response read the political runes that the balance of power – even negative power – had shifted. They tried to chart a more positive course for unionism. But the young Turks were firmly slapped down. Robinson back sounding like a hard liner bided his time for another quarter century.
In office, by exploiting the weaknesses and delays in the peace settlement the DUP’s main political success was in supplanting the UUs just as SF replaced the SDLP. Could a coalition of extremes ever work? At least the DUP could never been outflanked! Elected separately as the biggest party rather than jointly with Sinn Fein the DUP supplying the First Minister for life. They started to sound almost like Lord Craigavon’s Unionists.
Only after his retirement all of ten years ago and after nearly twenty years of the Assembly including four suspensions, Peter Robinson the ex First Minister began to warn constantly against negativity again, over never quitting the Assembly and in favour of preparing for the possibility for a border poll, “I don’t expect my house to burn down but I still ensure it against the possibility it could happen” and against merely denouncing the Windsor Framework. All sage advice which was ignored.
What happened?
By filling the old Molyneaux seat of immobility they blew the chance to influence a more open Brexit with Theresa May’s minority government and got landed with the unpalatable ( if far from disastrous). Windsor Framework. It turns out it wasn’t a big stepping stone to unity after all, even though they might have been forgiven for fearing so.
It would take quite a small tweak towards diversity to secure a more comfortable position for unionism. Rather than bang on about a structural arrangement, why don’t they create a policy approach first based on achieving the best of both worlds of Britain and Ireland throwing lines out to London and Dublin- and above all to themselves in order to reach agreement on the approach? On condition that constitutional change is off the table. Present it as a getting closer to Europe move that makes political and economic sense all round. Dublin would grab at it, London would support it and Sinn Fein would be checkmated. The potential gain exceeds the loss of telling TUV to get stuffed. Almost any Assembly election result for the DUP will prompt a reapprasial but in what direction? The lagger is looking terribly cramped. Is there a lessson in the number of seats looking marginal that would benefit from fresh thinking?
Is is there anyone with the imagination and initiative to do it? I knew quite a few able people 30 years ago on both sides of the change argument. Today at this distance, I can’t see them stand out though maybe that’s more about my age. It says something unfavourable about the appeal of unionism when the same is less true about nationalism. Ths taint of sectarianism even at wolf whistle velocity seems terribly hard to shake off. In more encouraging days old Paisley still had powerful charisma, McGuinness grim but undoubted authority. Both had real commitment to the peace process and made significant cross community gestures. Each very different man recognised self confidence in the other. If McGuinness hadn’t been fatally ill I wonder if Sinn Fein would have withdrawn over cash for ash, an internal DUP debacle?
Today both parties are governed by shadowy politburos, the nominal Assembly leaders being mere figureheads. Status quo at a time of ferment is so much harder to sustain than almost any form of change. Go for change.
Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London
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