Stormont’s elections could make or break the UK – why does no one in England care?
It would, I think, be fair to say that just about no one in England is having sleepless nights worrying about the forthcoming elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly. The vote might as well be taking place in Mongolia.
Why is this? The six-county province is, after all, one of the four constituent nations of the United Kingdom. Indeed, without Northern Ireland there is no United Kingdom, just Great Britain. Reduced to England, Scotland and Wales, the Queen’s realm would shrink by more than five per cent and lose nearly two million of its population.
The French would be hugely amused. The English, however, having watched a broadcast of the Union Flag being lowered for the last time from the rooftop of Hillsborough Castle (“Where is that, anyway?”), would swiftly turn back to debating the merits of Liverpool versus Manchester City.
To borrow from the American satirist Bill Maher, I don’t know it for a fact, I just know it’s true: Northern Ireland’s identity crisis is of interest only to those who live there and their unfortunate neighbours in the Irish Republic, for whom unification is both a dream and a nightmare.
The Protocol; the prospect of Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill as First Minister; the Protocol again; the threat that the DUP’s Sir Jeffrey Donaldson (“Which one is he?”) will pick up the ball and leave the pitch; a Border Poll, leading perhaps – and perhaps not – to Irish unity. Not to mention, the Protocol. It’s crazy and dreary at the same time. At least before the Troubles, the English could pretend that Northern Ireland didn’t exist. Most of them had never been there and were happy to keep it that way. To their cynical twenty-first century descendants, it has ended up as just another piece of colonial real estate on which the lease is up – a historical development ranking somewhere between the handover of Hong Kong to China and the recent decision of Barbados to sack the Queen as head of state.
So where does this leave us? On 5 May, by way of a studiously ponderous system of proportional representation, Northern Ireland goes to the polls. Ninety seats have to be filled at Stormont, with the successful candidates identifying as either Unionist, Nationalist or, increasingly … whatever. Under the terms of the post-Troubles constitutional settlement, the largest party is then expected to propose one of its own as First Minister, with the Deputy First Minister post going to the runner-up from the opposite side of the spectrum. Finally, the parties, in accordance with their numbers, get to choose their portfolios in an Executive of, let us say, all the talents.
It would be as if Boris Johnson were to be joined in Number 10 by Keir Starmer as his deputy (with the power of veto), with Ian Blackford as Home Secretary and Ed Davey in charge of Work and Pensions.
As if this is not complicated enough, the premise assumes the two largest factions to be Unionist and Nationalist (i.e. Protestant or Catholic), which was the case when the regulations were drawn up in 1998. But with the latter-day Alliance Party, the Greens and People Before Profit refusing to identify as either one or the other, a growing section of the community, appealing mainly to younger voters, is effectively cut out of the process. The leadership can be any colour they like so long as it’s Orange or Green.
Are you awake at the back? I’m trying to keep this simple.
No one knows how the pieces will fall. The count can go on for days. The allocation of preferences continues all the way down the ticket, so that the last candidate to be declared “elected” will owe their victory to the disappointed supporters of at least three other parties.
Standing behind all of this is the larger demographic division of the country. In 1921, when Ireland was partitioned, the population of the six counties that remained in the UK was roughly two thirds Protestant, one third Catholic. The Protestant element rose slightly in the 1920s with the arrival, as “refugees,” of their kith and kin from the three “lost” Ulster counties, Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan.
One hundred years on, the old Protestant-Catholic/Unionist-Nationalist map has been redrawn. It is now estimated that the two communities are more or less on level pegging, with Unionists holding the edge due to their superiority in numbers over the age of 60. Five years from now, the chart is expected to show a Nationalist majority, albeit only by one or two percentage points, meaning that 5 May could be the last time that Unionists register the largest share of votes.
Adding to the dismay of the DUP and other Unionists is the fact that a high proportion of young Protestants, especially those who have chosen to attend university in England and Scotland, end up living in mainland UK, while most Catholics these days (who are already likely to have received a superior secondary education) opt to study in Ireland, north and south, and then to stay on, dominating the professions and the civil service.
The irony is that if things go on as they are, Northern Ireland in future will be disproportionately administered by a Catholic middle class. “Loyalists” – overwhelmingly working class – will continue to take to the streets, but there will be fewer and fewer Orange “bosses” in suits and bowler hats to tell them what to do. Unionism as a political force will be like a bicycle with a leaking tyre.
On the reverse side of the coin (or the other foot), Republicanism faces its own challenges. Sinn Fein is currently at the peak of its power, closely allied to the fortunes of its counterpart south of the Border. It will almost certainly win the largest number of seats next week and put forward Michelle O’Neill (whose family on both sides were prominent in the IRA) as First Minister. The much more moderate SDLP, once led by Nobel laureate John Hume, has declined in recent years, perceived as “worthy” but lacking the necessary muscle to lead the struggle.
If Sinn Fein enters government in the Republic next time round, which many are predicting, the Northern branch can expect its authority in the eyes of voters to go up sharply. The party would, after all, be the most influential across the entire island, recognised as such in both Britain and Europe. If, on the other hand, it remains confined to the Dáil’s Opposition benches, middle class Catholics could incrementally shift their support away from hardliners towards the ideological centre, still hoping for Irish unity but prepared in the meantime to make the North a better – and more rationally governed – place for all its citizens.
The Alliance Party, which draws its support from moderates on both sides of the divide, is stronger now than it has ever been. An ideological sibling of the Liberal Democrats, it could win as many as 15 seats next Thursday, with one or two more going to the Greens or People Before Profit, a Socialist grouping with its origins in the Catholic working class but grudgingly respected even in Loyalist circles.
“Others” are now reckoned to command 20 per cent of the popular vote, against 41 per cent for Unionists of all stripes and 39 per cent for Republicans and Nationalists. If this were to be reflected in next week’s final tally (allowing for traditional loyalties coming to the fore in the privacy of the polling booth), the seat allocation would go something like this:
Unionists: 35-37 seats
Nationalists: 36-38
Others: 15-17
In the event of Sinn Fein coming out on top, the DUP has said it will refuse to nominate one of its own as Deputy First Minister. Instead, the party will go rogue (though still, apparently, claiming its share of ministers in the Executive). The smaller and more moderate Ulster Unionist Party would then propose its leader, Douglas Beattie, a much-decorated former soldier, to sit with O’Neill, supported by Alliance.
The DUP’s position in this scenario ought to be untenable. Having walked out in protest, it would have to walk back in to claim its ministries It would simultaneously be in government and the leading party of the Opposition. Alternatively, the Assembly itself, despite being newly elected, could collapse into chaos, forcing Downing Street to reinstate direct rule. Insane? No question. Irresponsible? Absolutely. But this being Northern Ireland, both outcomes are entirely possible.
Under the present rules, there is no official Opposition. Everyone’s a winner. If and when an Executive is formed (and without a Deputy First Minister there can be no First Minister), the first item on the agenda ought, logically, to be the economy, ravaged by Covid and galloping inflation. In fact, while ministers may, as individuals, try to get on with the job in hand, the most animated exchanges at Stormont will be about the institution itself and the province’s longer-term identity, British or Irish, or both.
The English, having nothing else to worry about, will be rivetted. All the talk in pubs up and down the land, from Plymouth to Berwick and from Ludlow to Lowestoft, will be about the impact of the latest Ulster vote on the power struggle between Michelle O’Neill and Jeffrey Donaldson, with Alliance’s Naomi Long caught uncomfortably in between. Will Northern Ireland remain an outlier of the United Kingdom or will it continue to shift, crablike, into the embrace of Dublin and Brussels? It is to be hoped that landlords stand ready to break up the fights between the various factions. For Talk TV’s Piers Morgan and James O’Brien and Nick Ferrari of LBC, it will be like Brexit all over again. Duh!