Opinion

Tom Kelly: Progressive voices heard loud and clear

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly is an Irish News columnist with a background in politics and public relations. He is also a former member of the Policing Board.

Alliance leader Naomi Long celebrates as Nuala McAllister tops the poll in Castle, north Belfast PICTURE: Matt Mackey/Press Eye
Alliance leader Naomi Long celebrates as Nuala McAllister tops the poll in Castle, north Belfast PICTURE: Matt Mackey/Press Eye Alliance leader Naomi Long celebrates as Nuala McAllister tops the poll in Castle, north Belfast PICTURE: Matt Mackey/Press Eye

Well some of the people have certainly spoken. Half still stayed at home but those that did manage to come out and vote in the local government elections have sent a fairly clear message to the politicians – make Northern Ireland work.

The two larger parties, Sinn Féin and the DUP, can feel relatively content with the electoral outcome as despite bad taste jokes, forced political resignations, Brexit, RHI, blatant sectarianism, parliamentary censure, abstentionism, drink driving (albeit that offence was forgiven in other parties too) and even a few affairs, their respective supporters stayed loyal.

That said, the scale of the ambitions of Sinn Féin and the DUP were far in excess of the actual result. To give you an idea of just how ambitious, the DUP fielded 172 candidates and Sinn Féin 155. They got elected 122 and 105 respectively.

A poignant media moment was Gavin Robinson’s eloquent defence of new DUP councillor Allison Bennington against the political Luddite that is Jim Wells.

But smiling like a cat who got the cream, Naomi Long is beaming.

The only way to describe the Alliance performance is stunning. No doubt a few cynical commentators will have choked on their cornflakes at the revival of the Alliance party as it proves there is an appetite for middle ground politics and more importantly that liberal unionists do exist.

On the latter point, whilst Alliance has made impressive growth west of the Bann, it was liberal unionists east of the Bann flocking to the Alliance standard that really turbo-charged the party to victory.

The DUP-lite strategy of Robin Swann has completely backfired as did the pathetic attempts by some East Belfast Ulster Unionists to demonise Alliance as fellow travellers with Sinn Féin or worse still, the IRA .

The Alliance campaign was highly presidential in style and it invested heavily in its charismatic leader Naomi Long. In this election there was ‘something about Naomi’ that worked. There is long term risk in this strategy but that’s for another day. This election was phenomenal for the Alliance party and deservedly so.

The UUP is now between a rock and a hard place. Robin Swann is a nice man at the deep end of the pool. The ageing membership of the UUP is out of step

with the aspirations of younger and middle-class unionists.

It’s the Alliance Party which is now the standard bearer for pluralism, diversity and tolerance which appeals to these unionists. Voting Alliance is not a threat to the Union.

Mike Nesbitt had the right approach but lacked the political experience to deliver a new narrative for the party. The Rip Van Winkles in the Ulster Unionists still pine for the glory days of shipbuilding, world-class textile companies and giant ropeworks.

Alliance were not the only people celebrating – the public also opted for the Green Party, People Before Profit and a wide range of independents.

The Green Party is now a proper force in Belfast and candidates such as Mal O’Hara and Áine Groogan are a breath of fresh air.

The SDLP was largely written off by the media before the election. Some commentators were openly sneering. The reality was quite different – a raft of new younger candidates across the north have put a bounce into a party that was moribund. The SDLP revival in Derry is nothing short of miraculous.

And contrary to the psephological forecasts, the SDLP, like Alliance, remains transfer friendly.

Not that the SDLP’s Paul McCusker in North Belfast needed transfers with a whopping 2,856 first preference votes.

First-time candidate Gary McKeown, who took a seat for the SDLP in Botanic, is one of the rising stars in the party along with Pete Byrne in Crossmaglen and Mary Durkan in Derry.

The independents were also a major phenomenon in this election, from Mark Gibbons in Rostrevor to Ray McKimm in Bangor. These independents won support from across the political spectrum.

Independent Gavin Malone’s performance in Newry dwarfed long-standing elected Sinn Féin members. The return of Eamonn McCann was equally welcome. His voice on equality and poverty is authentic – even if you don’t agree with him.

This political kaleidoscope is an endorsement for progressive politics. There will be those who will try (and fail) to import their crude sectarian analysis about nationalist and unionist ‘gene pools’ amongst independents and smaller parties but these groupings and individuals will resist such partisan pigeonholing.

The message from this election is that compromise is the future and civic society has champions.