WHEN younger I worked in a loyalist bar. On a Saturday evening Linfield fans came in and I asked how the Blues had got on. "They won 4-nil," came the reply, followed by "the Blues were terrible". The formation of a sentence that upheld the stereotype of unionists who need to firmly pin the negative upon the positive. Of course, such a stereotype does not stand up to scrutiny as many unionists supported the intended positives of the Good Friday Agreement. They knew this meant Sinn Féin would sit in the very partitionist assembly they swore never to darken the doors of and in so doing would challenge their long-term shibboleth of not accepting the right of the people of Northern Ireland to choose their constitutional future. Unionists are at times more perceptive than they are credited for.
In classic form, when met with crisis, the DUP moth-balled the assembly over the protocol and in the process lost some voters to the TUV. When Sir Jeffrey tried to 'out-Orange' Jim Allister he may have been minded that when the SDLP tried to out-green Sinn Féin it only led to electoral decline. Such a strategy, against a more identity vociferous opponent, is usually akin to trying to sail a ship across a desert. But we may be witnessing Jeffrey Donaldson having achieved such as feat. In the latest Institute of Irish Studies, Liverpool/Irish News poll we observe a rise in the intention to vote DUP and a decline in TUV fortunes.
Potentially, the ‘vote Jim get Michelle’ message has worked but what seems to have arisen is a sense that unionist intransigence over the protocol led to better outcomes. In effect, unionists agree with Ireland’s Future's Professor Colin Harvey's notion that the Windsor Framework was analogous to the UK government providing a gift to the pro-union community wrapped in red, white and blue. If one were to be pedantic we would note that the EU’s bending over backwards had the same outcome. The EU’s priority, once the mendacious Boris hurtled off the political coil, was the UK government and not Sinn Féin or the SDLP. Unsurprising, then that more nationalists (19.1 per cent) stated that they were opposed to the Windsor Framework than unionists (15.7 per cent). Sinn Féin negativity versus unionist confidence was also pronounced when survey respondents were asked about those aspects of the agreement that strengthened Northern Ireland’s place within the internal UK market. A negativity, at times, reflected among TUV voters, and a reminder that if you live long enough you will observe strange bed fellows.
The acknowledgement that ‘unionist parties highlighting problems with the protocol led to better outcomes’ commanded majority agreement among DUP (73 per cent) and UUP voters (64.7 per cent). Even a quarter of SF voters concurred with a mere 6.8 per cent of unionist disagreeing. Greater inter-community, probably unintended, consensus formed around the question ‘political parties that demanded the protocol be implemented in full underestimated the need for re-negotiation of the protocol?’ Over two-thirds of unionist voters agreed with 42 per cent of Sinn Féin and over half of SDLP voters agreeing. Twice as many nationalists agreed than disagreed.
If these and other findings do not give the DUP the boost needed to return and work the institutions then we are beyond hope. If you cannot even see that your own people support moving forward then consider that many of those who would never vote for you see that you have achieved. Too many leaders fear becoming the next Trimble or Hume, however, this is a different situation in which demanding and then gaining a better deal is recognised by the electorate. No one could construct even the most flimsy logic that this is not a better deal.
Leadership is like being a dog in a bobsleigh team. It is only at the front that you get the best view and the survey findings provide that opportunity to head the parade, end the nonsense that the DUP do not want to share power with Sinn Féin when they do so every day in councils and begin to articulate and examine the non-constitutional societal needs that have been belittled by sitting outside Stormont. As the recent census shows we are in a demographic stalemate and Northern Ireland is not going any place soon. Surely, for the DUP the leadership of renewal over intransigence has finally arrived?
We are, within this place, moving to a position in which there isn’t too much to argue about any more except for doing your job. The choice is simple – offer the people more than the ideologue and submit to the building of sustainability and shared prosperity. As Disraeli summed “I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?”
Professor Peter Shirlow is director of the Institute of Irish Studies
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