By Jamie Bryson
There are some salient facts being missed in the hyperbolic coverage of an election nationalism as a constitutional designation lost.
The real story is that over a quarter of a million people voted for unionist parties on the basis that enough is enough.
The weaker UUP were obliterated, having totally misjudged the mood, instead falling into the trap of thinking twitter- or £40k academic reports- reflected the views of the unionist community.
The DUP, TUV, PUP and Alex Easton all stood on the most fundamental ideologically unionist manifestos in twenty-five years. Let us remind ourselves what those commitments included:
- The Belfast Agreement required fundamental reform before it could command unionist support. The core of this had to be the amendment of section 1 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (the principle of consent) ensuring it operated to protect the substance rather than merely the symbolism of the Union. Put simply, you can’t change everything but the last thing, the last thing being merely the final formal handover of sovereignty. That was a significant policy position adopted, and reflects a key objective of anti-agreement unionism.
- The Act of Union, which is the Union, had to be restored. That is a purist ideological commitment to the fundamental elements of the Union. Perhaps people haven’t grasped the reality of that key test (and all the parties I have mentioned backed it- including the DUP in their ‘seven key tests’). It means that NI must be entirely outside the EU single market, and it prevents NI having dual UK-EU market access or status. That, correctly, erodes the very fundamental plank of the Protocol.
- There could be no consideration of forming an Executive until the Protocol was removed, and that was to be judged against whether the Act of Union was restored.
In addition, the DUP, TUV, PUP and Alex Easton stood firmly behind anti-Protocol rallies which were much mocked and derided. The SDLP campaign strapline was an attack on the DUP due to my involvement in the rallies- ‘vote Jeffrey get Jamie’ was their line of attack.
Leaving aside the fact that if we adopt the SDLP’s infantile and absurd logic that they have bestowed me with a mandate of over 180,000 votes (perhaps that illuminates how ridiculous their line of attack was), the reality is that it turned out that a vote for the SDLP was a vote for whoever you transferred to.
We were told by the political bubble, twitterati and commentariat that the DUP would suffer for sharing platforms with what they termed ‘hardline unionism/loyalism’. There was a tidal wave coming whereby the unionist electorate would reject ‘angry unionism’ (according to Doug Beattie who predicated he would be First Minister and UUP seats would triple), and instead the unionist electorate would put the trust in the UUP who had turned their back on those attending anti-Protocol rallies, which they say (rightly) were also anti-Agreement rallies.
This purported wisdom was backed up by the UUP forking out around £40k for an academic strategy which apparently told them what unionism was really thinking. The unionist electorate didn’t really care about the Protocol, nor did they feel the Union was under threat.
And so there was a stark choice: the UUP went with their belief that they understood the mood of unionism (based on their expert academic paper and RTs, Likes and endorsements on twitter), which wasn’t reflected by the ‘noisy, angry’ minority at anti-Protocol rallies.
The DUP stood firm on the fundamentals of the Union. They proudly attended anti Protocol rallies and adopted the hardest line position for their party in decades. The DUP stood before the electorate and said a vote for the DUP was a vote for no Executive until the Protocol was removed, which meant the restoration of the Act of Union, and until there was reform of the imbalanced Belfast Agreement to ensure the constitutional guarantees protected the substance of the Union.
To their credit, the TUV always held the positions the DUP adopted, and they can justifiably feel they have been vindicated in their stance which was once mocked and derided. The PUP held equally strong positions in their committments, as did Alex Easton.
The unionist electorate voted as follows:
184,002 for the DUP
65,788 for the TUV
2,665 for the PUP
9,568 for Alex Easton.
In total for those ‘angry’ unionists, the electorate provided a vote of 265,023.
In turn, the unionist electorate cast 96,390 votes for the UUP’s ‘soft’ brand of quiet compliant unionism. They didn’t shrink to grow, they just shrunk.
The DUP lost around 42,000 votes, and the TUV gained 45,000. That is clear as to the trajectory of unionism; the DUP didn’t lose votes because they were too hardline, they lost votes because for too long they weren’t hardline enough. It was only due to the clear position Sir Jeffrey Donaldson adopted that the DUP consolidated as the dominant unionist party.
Put simply, the UUP were wildly out of touch with the grassroots unionist community and despite their disgraceful abandonment of urging transfers across the unionist family, their leader had to squeak home on TUV transfers.
One would hope the UUP will show a little humility and accept that they got it wrong and completely misjudged the mood of unionism. They might also want to look about a refund on their £40,000.
Anti Protocol rallies had two core objectives; (1) to pressure political unionism to take a firm position on the Protocol and implementation of the Belfast Agreement; (2) to motivate unionist electorate on that message.
Those objectives have been achieved, and resoundingly so.
On the overall picture, unionism won with 360,648 votes whilst nationalism only had 343,271 and thus lost. The DUP returned with 25 seats, despite the worst period in the party’s history, and went very close in North Antrim and West Belfast which would have delivered 27 (and at that stage, surely Alex Easton would have returned to the fold, at least for the purposes of providing the numbers).
The nationalist vote has remained at the same level it was in 1998. Despite a twenty five year rigged process, and a number of years of a siege against traditional unionism by the US Gov, the Irish Government, the media establishment and all other parties in NI, even on their best day, nationalism cannot defeat unionism.
The dominant party in unionism now has a significant mandate to stand firm on the commitments they made in their manifesto. I am sure they will be held to those commitments.
Northern Ireland, we were told, only works when majorities in both communities give their consent to governance arrangements. There is no unionist consent for power sharing whilst the Protocol, and fundamental imbalance in the Agreement itself remains.
Therefore, those who champion the Belfast Agreement will surely, you would imagine, be seeking to deal with the issues which are fundamental to unionism, in order to enable the majority of the unionist community to give consent to power sharing.
Unless, of course, the commitment to those core power sharing ideals were only a ruse whilst they were necessary to ensure nationalist support, but now nationalism think they have a majority (to be clear, they don’t) that all of a sudden it should be majority rule.
In the same vein, as a core principle of their precious Belfast Agreement nationalism told us FM and DFM was a joint office, hence they called Michelle O’Neil ‘joint FM’, if they ever (unlikely as it is) actually take up the FM post, I wonder will that go out the window as well?
The way forward is clear. The DUP, supported by the TUV, PUP and Alex Easton, must stand firm on their manifesto commitments. This will without doubt require a new talks process and political agreement.
If the DUP can secure an Agreement or ‘deal’ which they feel deals with the fundamental issues set out in their manifesto, then they would need a fresh mandate from the unionist electorate for this deal and accordingly that requires a fresh election.
Therefore, the three stages ahead are (1) negotiation, including on the Belfast Agreement implementation itself, and ensuring the Act of Union is restored; (2) finding an agreement that deals with unionism’s fundamental issues; (3) going back to the unionist electorate for an endorsement of that deal.
If the DUP can achieve a fair and balanced deal, which delivers equitable power-sharing arrangements, then they will be able to command support from all sections of unionism/loyalism.
Any backsliding on the fundamental commitments will undoubtedly lead to significant pressure on the DUP, however thus far it seems they remain firm on the commitments upon which the electorate gave them a mandate.
It is time for a fair and balanced deal, which can command unionist support, in order to make Northern Ireland work for everyone.