ULSTER says no, until it says yes. Jeffery Donaldson has been enjoying the plaudits as he persuaded the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to end their boycott and return to the power-sharing executive at Stormont.
There is no walk of shame for the DUP whose boycott harmed the people they were elected to represent. Two years ago, they collapsed the Assembly leaving Northern Ireland without a government. In those two years the North’s public services almost collapsed. NHS waiting lists are the longest the UK and the wait time in A&E is 36 times longer than anywhere else in the country. The cost of living soared, prompting teachers and nurses to strike for better pay, calling upon the government to return and fix these crises.
The DUP crashed the Assembly and almost crashed the economy because they were unhappy with the post-Brexit deal negotiated by discredited former Prime Minister Boris Johnston. The DUP were hard-line Brexiteers who favoured a more isolationist post-Brexit Britain.
But Britain needed a deal with the EU to avoid collapsing its economy and no deal would have been forthcoming if it damaged the frictionless border with the rest of Ireland, a key pillar and legal obligation of the Peace Process.
The UK agreed to the Windsor Framework, accepting new trade rules that required some customs checks on goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. The DUP argued that this invisible border in the Irish Sea was unacceptable as it treated them differently than other parts of Britain, thereby undermining the union.
In February 2023, the UK and the EU agreed to ease these checks in order to appease the hard-line unionists but this was not enough for the DUP who continued their boycott for another year.
Deal or no deal
So why deal now and what have the DUP gained? According to Donaldson they have secured an agreement that ensures ‘zero checks and zero customs paperwork’ on post-Brexit goods coming into Northern Ireland which they argue gets rid of the Irish Sea border. London, Dublin and Brussels don’t see this new deal as fundamentally changing anything. The UK Government has stated that it reflects mere ‘operational’ changes.
The boycott has effectively failed, the Irish Sea border remains, albeit with a lighter touch, which essentially changes the nature of the constitutional relationship between Northern Ireland and the UK.
The DUP had no option but to change their stance. Rishi Sunak, who negotiated the original Windsor Framework deal, made it clear that unless they returned to work new elections would be called. As the UK is already in election year with the prospect of a strong Labour majority in London and the advance of Sinn Féin, the DUP were facing a future of electoral jeopardy. Labour will not have forgotten how the DUP previously propped up a vicious Conservative Government, enabling the austerity programme that laid waste to public services, and are unlikely to allow them have so much influence this time round.
Electoral landscape
Another reason for their return to Stormont is the continued advance of Sinn Féin who have now surpassed the DUP as the largest party in the North and, for the first time ever, there is now an Irish Republican First Minister, Michelle O’Neill.
According to the polls support for the DUP is consistently showing a significant decline in its vote from a high of 36 per cent in 2017 to a predicted loss of about a third of its support, to around 25 per cent, while Sinn Féin’s share of the vote is consistently higher and is now at 31 per cent.
The centrist Alliance Party would remain in third place providing a necessary balance to Sinn Féin and the DUP who distrust one another. The DUP resent Sinn Féin because of their links to the IRA while Sinn Féin suspect that the real reason behind the boycott is because the DUP do not want to share power with Catholics or Nationalists. But the Alliance Party supports devolution and the restoration of Stormont.
Polling too notes that the DUP are facing the consequences of their actions as voters are turning away from them because of the boycott of a fully, if imperfectly, functioning Assembly which they see as obstructionist and damaging to society.
Growing support for unity?
Crucially, normally pro-union younger voters are now considering Irish unity as a reasonable option. The DUP’s torpedoing of Stormont which was done to save the union has effectively weakened it.
In a survey by Liverpool University, published in the influential Financial Times, respondents demonstrated how the boycott is encouraging people to look at different constitutional arrangements for Northern Ireland.
In the UK and Ireland, religious devotion has fallen. In Northern Ireland voting patterns reflected religious affiliation, but a new generation who are growing up in a mostly peaceful society are less likely to follow religious instructions and make more pragmatic choices about their lives and their society.
Commitment to the union remains steadfast, more Catholics remain pro-union than protestants are pro-unity.
However, the survey asked about the impact of the continuation of the boycott and non-working of the Assembly and there were significant markers of attitude changes.
Alliance voters who are 2-1 in favour of the union became a 54.4 per cent majority who would consider Irish unity if the Assembly remained suspended. Sinn Féin and the SDLP are in favour of unity and this has not changed, but even within Unionism there is a small but statistically relevant shift with some agreeing that Irish unity is worth considering.
Time will tell if this is a mood change or a significant shift in the mindsets of once profoundly loyal Unionists.
Unionism in self-destruct mode?
Significant too is that this shift was caused by Unionism itself. Within Unionism lie the seeds of its own destruction. Socially, this part of the world has moved on but the DUP appears strangled by the fundamentalism at its core.
Evidence from the survey states how majorities within Unionism support the Assembly as the proper place for Northern Ireland’s politicians to govern. They support the DUP’s efforts to lessen customs checks and over-burdening paperwork, but only to a point. They feel the operation of the ‘imperfect’ Windsor Framework is vital to the functioning of economy and society. Even within the DUP attitudes are mixed—40 per cent oppose the Windsor Framework, but that leaves 60 per cent who don’t oppose it. Hardly an endorsement for the boycott.
A government run by civil servants who are taking industrial action effectively against themselves is farcical. An active Assembly can argue for changes to the Windsor Framework if required. The current Conservative government is weak and vulnerable to disintegration so the DUP could have leveraged those changes it wanted while maintaining an executive.
Unionism needs to modernise. Donaldson’s ‘liberals’ may have won this argument, but the minority extremists within and outwith his party are lying in wait. The ‘No Surrender’ brigade argues strongly that they are the voices of the people and that the majority of Unionism opposed the Windsor Framework and will oppose this deal too.
But where is the evidence for this? There is noise from usual agitators and talking heads but in the local elections last May the core Loyalist vote did not vote in great numbers—the Unionist vote actually declined. That’s not to underestimate the potential for Loyalist unrest over this deal with rumours of roads being blocked.
The DUP has fired up its enemies within. There is a hard-core of ‘not an inch’ Unionism including Sammy Wilson (above) who feel betrayed by Donaldson and are actively plotting against him so we can expect further expressions of Unionist unhappiness and insecurity.
The union is secure. It is the Unionists who could screw it up.
Stephen Colbert is a lecturer at New College Lanarkshire
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