Thursday’s local elections in Northern Ireland should be about local issues: such as bins, burials, street lighting, rates, community services, planning and leisure services. All of those issues, and more, are mentioned on the election literature and party election broadcasts. Yet everyone, particularly those intending to vote, knows that a majority of those who do vote will do so on the dreary steeple issue of the constitutional question. Twenty-five years after the Belfast Agreement, that question still predominates and eclipses every other issue.
Unionism, as ever, remains all over the place. Four unionist parties are contesting the elections and all of them refer to the importance of a strong, united voice. Yet all four are coming to the Protocol/Windsor Framework from different angles and all four are taking pot shots at each other on a daily basis. Bizarrely, even though they disagree and sometimes distrust each other on key issues (such as rebooting the Assembly and Executive as soon as possible), the leaderships of the parties still urge their voters to transfer their preferences across and within the unionist “family”.
In 1998, Sinn Féin took note of four developments: the provision for a Border poll in the Belfast Agreement; the narrowing electoral margin between unionism and republicanism; the first signs of what became known as the “others” demographic; and the continuing serial division within the unionist/pro-union communities. That’s when it became serious about “unionist outreach” programmes, commissioning and publishing research on the costs and consequences of Irish unity and focusing on island-wide panels and debates about a “new” Ireland.
Post-Brexit it noted the continuing growth of the “others” and reckoned that since many of them had been pro-Remain they might be biddable on Irish unity; prioritising a return to the EU over a link with the UK that has been under considerable strain since 2016 and the emergence of new-generation English nationalism. In other words, Sinn Féin was preparing for every eventuality and opportunity, expected or otherwise. Long-term planning is something which Sinn Féin is very good at. It is rarely taken by surprise.
But, as I say, unionism remains all over the place. It dismisses “difficult” opinion polls and insists the union remains safe: and says so with exactly the same certainty it dismissed the prospect of a Sinn Féin First Minister, the prospect of Sinn Féin emerging as the largest party overall, the prospect of unionism losing its overall majority in the assembly and the serial “betrayal” by four prime ministers since 2017.
So, here’s a difficult truth for unionism: it needs to do what Sinn Féin has been doing since 1998 – prepare for the long game. Find a way of gathering key elements of political/electoral/civic/small-u unionism – maybe a convention or conference of some sort – to discuss existing and potential challenges over the next 25 years. What is unionism? What does it mean to be an Ulster/Northern Irish unionist? How does it build a broader vehicle for pan-UK unionism? How does it broaden the electoral support base? How does it halt the serial division? How does it bring together party-political/electoral unionism and the growing demographic that describes itself as pro-union rather than unionist?
Political/electoral unionism is no longer a bankable majority in Northern Ireland. All of the unionist parties need to acknowledge that reality rather than hide from it. They need to accept that if Northern Ireland is to be viewed as stable – and stability is key to survival – then it requires devolution and input from them. Crucially, all of unionism must adjust to the fact that it can neither govern alone nor dictate the agenda to a UK government.
The fate of the union requires buy-in from people who are reluctant to describe themselves as Ulster or Northern Irish unionists. They don’t vote for unionist parties either. But if enough of them are biddable then they might still support the union in a border poll. Making a decent, sensible bid is the best way for unionists to preserve the union.
Alex Kane is a commentator based in Belfast. He was formerly director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party