Opinion

Alex Kane: Loyalists are fed up but booing Sammy Wilson won't fix their problems

TUV leader Jim Allister intervenes after DUP MP Sammy Wilson is heckled at an anti-protocol rally in Markethill. Picture: Cate McCurry/PA
TUV leader Jim Allister intervenes after DUP MP Sammy Wilson is heckled at an anti-protocol rally in Markethill. Picture: Cate McCurry/PA TUV leader Jim Allister intervenes after DUP MP Sammy Wilson is heckled at an anti-protocol rally in Markethill. Picture: Cate McCurry/PA

What happened in Markethill last Friday night—when Sammy Wilson was booed by the crowd and Jim Allister devoted much of his speech to attacking the DUP—struck me as fairly typical of what happens when unionism tries to unite.

The unity is less about creating a coherent message and strategy which will stand the test of time, and more about achieving the specific short-term goal of ensuring nationalism doesn’t get its electoral nose in front. So it’s no real surprise that it doesn’t take all that much for the cracks to be exposed and the anger yelled out.

But I was surprised by the size of the crowd. It was a freezing night, with fierce wind and flurries of snow. Not an ideal night for either marching bands or people listening to political speeches. And yet thousands of them turned up to both march and listen. The largest anti-protocol rally since the rallies began in the run-up to the general election in 2019.

It’s easy enough to knock the turnout—it’s a mere minnow when compared to the tens of thousands who used to turn out to protest the closing of Stormont in 1972, the anti-Sunningdale strike in 1974 and the huge anti-Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985—yet it’s still much bigger than many expected.

The fact that Sammy Wilson—once the crowd-pleasing darling of this sort of event—was heckled attracted most of the media attention. That Jim Allister had to step forward and ask the crowd to listen to all platform speakers (while gently reminding them that they could also make their voices heard in May’s election) must have been embarrassing for Wilson. He’s used to playing the crowd and winning the cheers; so being seen as a Lundy probably came as a huge shock. I have never seen anyone return to their seat and look so miserable.

Over the past couple of years I’ve been writing about the emergence of what I usually describe as ‘a younger generation of loyalism’. They’re fed up with being ignored. They’re fed up with how often their spokespeople seem to be bested by nationalism. They’re fed up with what they perceive as the bias of the mainstream media. And they’re particularly fed up with the ‘weaknesses’ of parties like the UUP and DUP. Put bluntly, they’re fed up with being on the losing side for far too long and watching while Northern Ireland is ‘prised further and further apart from Great Britain.’

But booing Sammy Wilson is not going to solve their problem. And nor is bringing thousands of younger supporters onto the streets or into Orange Halls. The people they need to persuade don’t live in Northern Ireland. Boris Johnson lied to them (and will do so again). Lord Frost, supposedly on the same wavelength as unionism, resigned as the UK’s chief negotiator before he even came close to delivering for them. And within weeks of taking over his job Liz Truss has shifted from being viewed as a welcomed and ‘proper Brexiteer’ to being described as, ‘like her predecessor and boss, fearing the EU. It threatened sanctions if we protect Northern Ireland and she buckled.’

Another problem the younger generation have is that they seem not to be hung up on the importance of retaining the assembly. Indeed, I suspect many of the people behind the creation and coordination of the loyalist/unionist ‘coalitions’ which have mushroomed in the last year or so wouldn’t shed any tears if the assembly and executive weren’t even rebooted after the next election. But do they really believe that their interests would be better served by a new form of direct rule from Westminster? Isn’t that putting an awful lot of trust—and power—into the hands of the very people who have lumbered unionism with the present mess?

Where unionism is right now reminds me of where it was 50 years ago. The primary party of unionism is under enormous internal and external pressure. Increasing numbers within unionism and loyalism seem to fear a British government more than they fear their political opponents. New voices are struggling to make their voices heard, particularly at grassroots level. Political/electoral unionism doesn’t speak with one voice. Unionism attacks itself more than it attacks others. And there is also a growing alienation between mainstream unionism and civic unionism.

So, if the younger generation is not to repeat the mistakes of the generation that emerged in the late 1960s/early 1970s (which has, in turn, become an old generation which seems as out of touch as mainstream unionism was in 1972) what is it offering as an alternative? The crisis of 1972 is as serious as the crisis of 2022: but all I’m hearing, so far, is much the same as I saw and heard in 1972.

And at the root of both crises is the same truth: unionism still doesn’t have an agreed, thought-through strategy for saving itself.