Opinion

Fionnuala O Connor: Pre-election nerves are building

DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson may himself have talked about starting a new party and considered his own future, and perhaps is still weighing Stormont against Westminster. This is no way to face into an election
DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson may himself have talked about starting a new party and considered his own future, and perhaps is still weighing Stormont against Westminster. This is no way to face into an election DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson may himself have talked about starting a new party and considered his own future, and perhaps is still weighing Stormont against Westminster. This is no way to face into an election

Brazen, blatant, and done; the modern republican way is true to its history.

In Sinn Féin headquarters they’ve deleted a mountain of press releases to keep things tidy and perhaps make life easier for canvassers caught on doorsteps by smart alecks quoting old statements. But the fortunes of northern Sinn Féin in May’s election may have more to do with the history and behaviour of unionism.

The state of play inside DUP HQ? By the time you read this the party leader may have turned another somersault or two, shaking loose more confidence and, surely, votes that stay at home rather than rise with open mouths to the cry of ‘defend the union’. Dependence on a Tory party now led by the clownish Boris Johnson has undermined that tradition, with no assistance from Irish nationalism. Tracing the twists and turns of Sir Jeffrey Donaldson succeeds a year of watching the party contorted by internal rivalries. Or ideological struggles, the two now hopelessly entwined.

Johnson shamelessness almost defeats comment. His pretensions as a would-be mediator clash head-on with the behaviour of his government on visas for fleeing Ukrainians and, it is increasingly clear, on breaking with oligarchs who have pumped donations into the Tory party. Syrian mercenaries are on their way to Ukraine, so they say, to repay a debt to Vladimir Putin. People are making petrol bombs in desperation for last-stage street-fighting. Cue Britain’s prime minister, who’s fallen on the disaster of Ukraine to blur his ‘partygate’ disgrace. Having tried to sound like an authoritative

European voice against Russian landgrabbing, he blew it at the weekend by comparing Brexiteering Britain exiting the EU to the Ukrainian struggle against Putin.

The sight and sounds of that war make it harder to focus on the mini-legislature called Stormont. But Stormont provides a political stage, and the DUP trajectory is a problem for everyone, as demoralising to chart as it is to face. The Foster years almost literally went up in smoke. What was once more clearly the Free Presbyterian wing has been increasingly unhappy with social and political change - equal marriage, gay rights, abortion, integrated education. Masks, lockdowns, vaccination passes. The Irish language.

The party is more divided than at any time in its history, rifts bursting out in the struggle over who gets to be called leader.

The bogus issue of the protocol has been patched over the top. Now probably bogus and contradictory Johnson government intentions are leaked through Conservative papers the Telegraph and Times.

First it was that Liz Truss had proposed to Johnson that they shelve a head-on clash with the EU on the protocol; not the time for that. Next it was let’s force it after all. Little there for Donaldson to build on.

But pre-election nerves are building. The DUP leader may himself have talked about starting a new party and considered his own future, perhaps is still weighing Stormont against Westminster. This is no way to face into an election. Though many in the DUP will want Stormont to survive: who has faith in London? And probably most in the other parties also; many jobs, salaries, mortgages depend on it.

There is the usual pre-polling day departure of some who cannot face any more time in Northern Ireland’s politics, or dread asking for votes when their own parties baffle them. Assorted DUP people are bowing out, with explanations of varying conviction. The mistakes and mis-steps that can change a party’s prospects may be starting too. Alliance has been basking in good polls, their leader’s popularity and standing out ahead of the rest, but that ad for canvassers, volunteers or poorly paid? While others are making a virtue of foot-slogging with party stalwarts?

Nationalist disgust, unionist bewilderment, ‘neithers’ trying their strength - and the cost of living may yet turn out to be the hottest issue on the doors, unless more mis-steps grab the spotlight.