All’s fair in love and war — and in politics also it seems. The carry-on in the North Belfast constituency is a telling indication of how much is at stake.
As if that banner with its particular take on the family history of Sinn Féin candidate John Finucane wasn’t enough, the spotlight has since moved to the unfortunate incident last June where the lord mayor was short-taken in the city centre.
Not for the first time you find yourself asking the question: who would want to be a politician? Any one of us could be unexpectedly caught in a situation where we needed to relieve ourselves immediately and could not find any proper facility for that purpose. Discretion is important but are we supposed to wear nappies? Is that the next step on the road to Complete Political Correctness?
Since Finucane is at the head of a major Sinn Féin bid to increase its influence on the political scene, neither he nor his supporters should be surprised at what is being done in an effort to keep him from winning. This contest is the political equivalent of a Wembley Cup Final or All-Ireland day in Croke Park. Sinn Féin has been going through a difficult patch and the sight of a victorious Finucane being cheered to the rafters by deliriously-happy supporters would be quite a morale-booster for them. Likewise, holding off the republican challenge to their deputy leader is of massive importance to supporters of the Democratic Unionist Party.
Whatever you may think of his politics, Nigel Dodds is a person of considerable ability. He was involved in the negotiations on the weekend of March 24 and 25, 2007, which led to the formation six weeks later of the history-making power-sharing executive headed by the late Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness. We are told Dodds had to depart from the talks early because he was a bit under the weather, but that he informed the Sinn Féin delegation in cordial terms: “Sorry lads, I’m leaving, but there’s no significance to it. I don’t feel very well.” His conciliatory tone was all the more impressive in light of the fact that, in December 1996, when he and his wife Diane were visiting their seriously-ill son in hospital, the IRA launched an attack in the course of which a member of the couple’s police escort was shot in the foot.
John Finucane was of course an eye-witness to his own father’s assassination by loyalists, thirty years ago. Like Dodds, the Sinn Féin contender is a person of substance. He has made his mark in the office of lord mayor and would no doubt make a strong impression if elected as MP. It would be even stronger if his party accepted my advice to hold their noses and go through the oath procedure to take their seats in the House of Commons. And let’s not forget the highly-capable Alliance Party contender, Nuala McAllister: on balance, her party made the right move by running in all 18 northern constituencies. If they had facilitated the victory of a nationalist over a unionist, or indeed vice-versa, it would have been seriously damaging to the Alliance brand and it was correct in their particular case to put this ahead of the anti-Brexit Remain cause.
The SDLP, Greens and Workers’ Party all ran in North Belfast in 2017, securing 3,062 votes between them. On that occasion, Dodds came in 2,081 votes ahead of Finucane. If the same voting pattern applied this time, the Sinn Féin candidate would need to attract almost 70 per cent of the vote obtained by those smaller parties. It’s quite a challenge and no doubt much will depend on whether the anti-Finucane propaganda works in his favour or against him.
Meanwhile, at time of writing and in the wake of the YouGov opinion poll released last Wednesday night, a number of betting websites have the Tories as odds-on favourites to win an overall majority, so it looks at this stage as if Boris Johnson will not need to go cap-in-hand to the DUP for support. A decline in their influence at Westminster might increase the appetite among Arlene Foster’s followers to see her restored to the office of first minister at Stormont after talks resume in a fortnight’s time. There are interesting times ahead.
