THE DIVISIONS WITHIN unionism have been brutally exposed during the course of the current electoral campaign in Northern Ireland.
None more so than during a rally against the Protocol in Co Armagh earlier this month where a election poster of Doug Beattie with a noose around his neck was left on a bench.
Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader Beattie was not present at the rally but the leaders of the other main unionist parties Jeffrey Donaldson (DUP) and Jim Allister (TUV) were.
Both Donaldson and Allister removed the poster from view and condemned those who had made it, but the image of the pair looking at the offending poster is one that will last beyond the campaign.
The reason Beattie was not in attendance at the anti-Protocol rally is because believes the events are creating too much tension and have morphed into “anti-Belfast Agreement rallies”.
During the specific rally in question, one of the organisers described Beattie as a “Lundy” and a “traitor”. Again, Donaldson and Allister were forced to distance themselves from the comments, with the latter telling the BBC that they were “wholly wrong”.
Beattie has expressed disappointment that the comments were not called out more clearly on the day itself.
The event served as an example of the difficulties being faced by unionism during the campaign and the potential that the division is becoming increasingly counter-productive.
While all unionist parties are opposed to the Protocol, the effective three-way contest between them appears to be clearing the path for Sinn Féin to emerge as the largest party. If that happens, Sinn Féin would be entitled to nominate a first minister.
At 27%, Sinn Féin’s vote is down only marginally from its bumper result in the last Assembly election in 2017 whil the DUP’s is down almost eight points to 20.2%.
The UUP is up by 0.6 points to 13.5% while the TUV has more than doubled its support base to sit at 5.4%.
Other polls have the TUV even higher and the main aim for the party will to win more than the single seat Allister currently holds for the party. If they do, it is likely to be at the expense of the DUP.
Allister was a long-time DUP representative and ally of Ian Paisley but he resigned from the party in 2007 following the party’s decision to enter government with Sinn Féin. He has since represented a more hardline element within unionism than the DUP.
The recent advancement of the TUV stem from an entrenchment of unionism as a result of the Protocol but also the internal turmoil that has seen the DUP struggle to maintain its image as the predominant leadership voice in that community.
From the ousting of Arlene Foster to her replacement Edwin Poots lasting only weeks in the job last year, the party has been in disarray and has been leaking support.
The polls indicate that, while the TUV are making hay at the DUP’s expense, moderate unionists may also be looking at the non-designated Alliance as an alternative, with Naomi Long’s party up by a massive 5.5% in this election cycle.
Elected MLAs must designate themselves as either ‘nationalist’, ‘unionist’ or ‘other’ upon entering Stormont and the Alliance Party along with the Greens and People Before Profit chose the latter option.
After the DUP upheaval of last summer, Donaldson has steadied the ship somewhat but the party is struggling to regain its confidence. Winning 28 seats from 38 candidates last time out, the DUP is running only 30 candidates this time in a strategy that could be seen as defensive.
The party also faces a difficult task in terms of messaging.
Opposition to the Protocol is central to the DUP’s message but this is complicated by the fact that the party is blamed by some quarters of unionism for the Protocol existing in the first place.
Donaldson has sought to bridge the gap between the three unionist parties on the issue, telling a rally earlier this month that unionists “must stand as one in opposition to the Protocol”.
In doing so, Donaldson has overtly told DUP voters to transfer to other unionist parties, with the Stormont elections using the same PR-STV system as the Dáil.
“It is critical that our families go to the polls and transfer down the unionist ticket,” he has said.
It is the most important election in a generation and will decide the future direction of Northern Ireland.
Allister has called for TUV voters to do the same but there remains the risk for his firebrand unionism that taking votes from the DUP could increase the chances of Sinn Féin winning races and becoming the largest party.
In marginal seats, such as the fifth seats in Foyle where the DUP holds one and in West Belfast where it would like to, the DUP’s chances could be hurt by a split in the unionist vote.
This split couldn’t be clearer than in North Down where the DUP’s 2017 poll topper Alex Easton is now running as an Independent Unionist after quitting the party last year.
On transfers, the more moderate UUP has not entered into any arrangement, with Beattie instead telling voters to transfer as they see fit.
The same poll mentioned earlier also examined where transfers are likely to go, with DUP first preferences transferring heavily to the UUP but UUP votes more likely to go to the Alliance Party and the TUV than the DUP.
Preference flows in the latest poll pic.twitter.com/8MdRPW8B94
— David McCann (@dmcbfs) April 4, 2022
Regardless of how the election goes however, there seems to be very little possibility that Northern Ireland will actually have a functioning government at the end of it.
As we have examined previously, the twofold reason for this is the continuation of the Protocol and the possibility that Sinn Féin may be in a position to nominate the First Minister.
Allister has been clear that no unionist should be in government with Sinn Féin as first minister with Donaldson declining to definitively answer the question.
Speaking to The Journal, deputy editor of the Slugger O’Toole website David McCann said the DUP have been able to avoid answering that question because the UUP are avoiding it too.
“They’ve managed it so far and the reason why they’ve been able to manage it so far is that Doug Beattie can’t give an answer to that question either. So that kind of gets them off the hook a wee bit because neither of the two main unionist parties are answering that question.”
McCann added that the question of Sinn Fein being the largest party is still hypothetical.
I think for many unionist voters the answer is ‘well we’ll believe it when we see it, we’ll see what happens’. The DUP have got a very simple answer. They’re saying, ‘look we’re in it to win it, we’re the largest party already and we’re fighting to maintain that position.’
McCann said the election campaign has yet to throw up any big surprises and that the DUP may be feeling that the steadier things continue the better for them.
The DUP are getting a bit more confident as the election is going on. If you talk to some of them, they feel like the TUV are falling back in a number of areas and they feel like the Ulster Unionists aren’t really making enough headway.
“So they feel like come polling day they will be in a better position than maybe the polls are projecting them to be at the moment. They’re still nervous, but they feel they will be in a better spot than the polls have them.”
Voting takes place to fill 90 seats across 18 Northern Ireland Assembly constituencies on 5 May.
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