Opinion

Tom Kelly: The DUP alone is responsible for the wreckage in unionism

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.

The DUP bartered for political influence at Westminster only to lose control in Northern Ireland. Picture by Hugh Russell
The DUP bartered for political influence at Westminster only to lose control in Northern Ireland. Picture by Hugh Russell The DUP bartered for political influence at Westminster only to lose control in Northern Ireland. Picture by Hugh Russell

This is Northern Ireland and we are well used to low standards in high places. The last executive demonstrated in full sight the depths to which those low standards can plumb.

Incompetence, corruption, innate sectarianism and at times visceral hatred permeated Stormont. Resignations for wrong doing were few and far between and those that occurred showed little remorse. Eels can appear to be less slippery and have more backbone than some of our political classes.

As a political experiment Northern Ireland is a basket-case. Since its conception it was born to die. And eventually it will.

And when that time comes, unionist politicians won’t just be pall bearers - they will also have been responsible for cutting short the life of what they regard as their ‘wee country”.

But Northern Ireland has never been a country. Or a province. Or a truly integral part of the United Kingdom.

Unionist leaders ensured it was a place apart. A sectarian cesspit devoid of civil norms and rights.

To their credit for the greater part of its existence they managed to keep Northern Ireland as a puritanical, dystopian and despotic backwater.

Even in sport, the north is not recognised as part of Team GB.

In fact it is the only part of the United Kingdom where the mechanism for its exit is already planned. Having failed Northern Ireland, unionism has little to offer the Union either.

Unionist leaders have consistently failed to fully grasp every opportunity afforded. Terence O’Neill, Brian Faulkner, David Trimble tried but ultimately failed because they were undermined by those too stupid, too bigoted and too blinkered to realise that the future of Northern Ireland could only be assured when all of its citizens felt like stakeholders.

But unionists didn’t plan for their demise alone.

The IRA campaign was a terrorist one and cast a long shadow over the collective memory of the unionist community. It was not supported by the wider nationalist/Catholic community. Unlike Sinn Féin today, its leadership did not care one jot about political mandates.

Some of the most bombed towns like Omagh, Derry, Newry and Strabane had horrendous rates of deprivation, poverty and unemployment but it mattered little to the IRA.

Their campaign was also very much targeted at the mainstream unionist population. It struck fear and terror amongst them. It increased levels of insecurity and paranoia amongst loyalists until their own terrorists didn’t much care whether their targets were in the IRA or not - it sufficed that they were Catholic.

Today unionism feels threatened. There is no unionist majority in the cradle of Northern Ireland - Stormont. Belfast, once a unionist citadel, has only twenty unionist councillors in a chamber of sixty. Two of the three MEPs are non unionists.

With a fair electoral wind, Belfast may have only one unionist MP after this election.

The DUP alone is responsible for this wreckage. The party bartered for political influence at Westminster only to lose control in Northern Ireland. No more than King Canute can they turn the electoral tide.

Over the past fifty years each generation of political unionism has fallen foul to rabble rousing nobodies. Men more of wind than wisdom.

Unionist leaders foolishly place their fate and that of the precious Union in the cold and callous hands of the murderous UDA and UVF; whilst allowing a sectarian hate fest to be waged by political munchkins and keyboard bigots.

Today they are making the same mistakes as they huddle in Orange halls around the north, making blood curdling speeches peppered with warnings about betrayal and defiantly roaring no surrender. It is a hollow call made more in desperation than hope. It’s a rush to the lifeboats, not an attempt to steer the ship.

All rather sad because to make Northern Ireland work, it will need moderate unionists. There’s nothing to celebrate in the demise of unionism as for better or worse, it’s part of who we are too.