Ulster's Doomed!

Swedenise us!

2010-06-07T13:33:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Gerard O'Neill of Turbulence Ahead for publishing yet another of the international comparisons that allow us to see how well – or badly – we are doing compared to other western countries.

This one looks at our image of politicians. Needless to say it doesn't include Northern Ireland separately, but it would be surprising if Northern Irish people trusted their politicians any more than the average western European.

But one country stands out, as almost always in comparative surveys, no matter what the topic – Sweden.

In Sweden 43.8% of people have a 'rather favourable' opinion of their politicians, compared with an EU average of 12.4%. And only 18.4% of Swedes have a 'rather unfavourable' opinion, against the EU average of 55.4%.

Swedes are not foolish people, and are no more likely to be fooled by their politicians than anyone else, so what these results show is that Swedish politicians are simply better than any others. If their voters have a positive opinion of them it must be because they are more honest, more diligent, more representative and more efficient than any others.

And, of course, good politicians lead to good politics and good governance – and these lead, almost inevitably, to a more responsive state in which the needs of the people are served better than elsewhere. No wonder Sweden is close to the top of the list in almost every international comparison, whether it is looking at freedom, affluence, education, development or happiness.

Whatever it is that Swedish politicians are doing, they are doing it well, and their voters are happy with them. We need to learn from them.

UUP selecting Assembly candidates

2010-06-07T12:18:00.001+01:00

An article in today's News Letter about the UUP's selection process for next year's Assembly election manages to avoid using two embarrassing words – Tory and UCUNF.

Nowhere in the report on the process is there even a hint about whether the UUP will again fight the election in partnership with the Tories, or whether that embarrassing and failed experiment is now firmly in the past.

Given the paucity of talent that the Tory part of UCUNF managed to contribute in May, it would be interesting to see if they could find anyone better next year.

Some Tory hopefuls will undoubtedly wish the UCUNF 'joint-selection' process to be used, and for the candidates to then stand as 'UCUNF' candidates – otherwise, standing as Tories, they would have almost no chance of being elected to the Assembly. But perhaps the UUP, still the overwhelming majority of the partnership, have decided that the Tories are more of a hindrance than a help.

Martin Mansergh's mysterious message

2010-06-07T08:57:00.002+01:00

Long one of unionism's bêtes noires, Martin Mansergh – former Senator now TD, and southern Protestant republican – has a letter in today's Irish Times in which he appears to say, in a circuitous way, that constitutional republicanism is an ideology that everyone can and should embrace, "unless one is a unionist".

So Mansergh is aiming his message fair and square at the nationalist community in the whole country, but obviously more specifically in the north, and his message appears to be one of ideological unity, if not unity of political parties.

There is no democratic, historical or ideological justification, or any basis in international law, unless one is a unionist, for not embracing a constitutional republicanism, now that we have at long last succeeded in creating a foundation for future active cooperation between Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter and other more recent traditions. The original peaceful constitutional ideals of William Drennan in 1791, when the United Irishmen were founded in Belfast, have something that everyone, even unionists, can in part identify with.

However his message contains other, slightly veiled, hints that he sees the political future – in the short-term at least – as containing two separate Irish jurisdictions:

While I respect the view – which I shared – that equates a free Ireland with a united Ireland, recent developments as a result of the peace process, which give us new freedom to achieve freedom in Ireland as a whole, suggest that we have now taken a broader and more pragmatic view. […] Self-determination, as the term suggests, and as international law prescribes, permits the free choice of more than one outcome.

Since Mansergh is seen by unionists as one of Fianna Fáil's key pointmen on the north, these remarks will be interpreted as a significant change of tack by that party, and one that signals a move away from the anti-partitionist, pro-united Ireland rhetoric of the past. It is too soon to tell whether they are right, and, of course, Mansergh's remarks chime with the official post-GFA line, that seeks to give the northern institutions time to 'bed in'.

Nonetheless, his remarks appear to be a carefully coded message to both nationalists – saying that republicanism is both right and correct, but only if constitutional – and to unionists, saying that, as far as the southern government is concerned the 'seige' is lifted, but on condition that they also move towards 'republican' ideas of fairness and inclusion (the mention of Protestant United Irishman William Drennan was a clear message).

Why Mansergh chose to publish his message now is less obvious. There are no immediate 'crossroads' on the political horizon, and the threat he implicitly invokes – that dissident republicans will hijack the centenary of 1916 – is hardly immediate. Perhaps his message was just part of a slow subtle campaign to mould consciousness north and south in a direction that suits the needs of Fianna Fáil at present. Faced with pressing economic problems to resolve, Fianna Fáil does not want either dissident republican or extreme unionist agitation north of the border to upset its attempts to steer the south back to calmer waters.

2009 Young Life and Times Survey

2010-06-06T14:27:00.006+01:00

The results of the 2009 Young Life and Times Survey have recently been published on the ARK web site. The survey is based on questionnaires sent to a sample of 16 year olds and suffers from the unreliability of all such surveys and opinion polls.

Nonetheless, with that caveat, the results show up some interesting results.

For example, on identity, when asked “Which of these best describes the way you think of yourself?”, only 28% of the sample self-identified as ‘British’, while 36% self-identified as ‘Irish’. The second most popular description, beating British, was ‘Northern Irish’ on 30%. Thus 66% - two in three – young people seem to identify primarily with the island of Ireland, or their particular part of it.

Amongst boys the situation is more pronounced than among girls. Only 25% of the boys questioned saw themselves primarily as ‘British’. The ‘Irish’ and ‘Northern Irish’ groups accounted for 68% of the total.

Even amongst Protestants only a bare majority – 51% - saw themselves first and foremost as British. Almost as many (40%) saw themselves as ‘Northern Irish’), though the 6% who self-identified as ‘Ulster’ can almost definitely be added to the ‘British’ group.

Perhaps unionism can gain some reassurance from the 5% of Catholics who saw themselves as ‘British’ – only partly compensated by the 2% of Protestants who identify as ‘Irish’. However, 76% of Catholics saw themselves as ‘Irish’ – greatly outscoring the Protestant ‘British’ category.

The attachment of the two religious groups to their perceived ‘natural identity’ is visibly different – Protestants are less likely to have a primary ‘British’ identity than Catholics are to have a primarily Irish identity. Protestants seem to be moving more towards a ‘Northern Irish’ identity. The results of the wider NILT survey for 2009, due soon, will allow a comparison between the 16 year olds and their parents and grandparents.

A second question: “How important is your national identity to you?” adds an interesting twist to the results above.

35% of Catholics say that their national identity is ‘very important’ – the figure for Protestants is only 24%. In fact, 21% of Protestants say that their national identity is ‘not very important’ or ‘not at all important’ – the corresponding figure for Catholics is only 11%.

So it seems that amongst 16 year-olds the ‘Irish’ identity is not only more widespread than the ‘British’ identity, but it is also more strongly held. Young Protestants, on the other hand, seem to have a weaker attachment to their Britishness.

Remember, these young people, 16 years old in 2009, will be voting next year!

The Republican illusion

2010-06-06T11:54:00.003+01:00

The description by others, and by itself, of Sinn Féin as a ‘republican’ party is only partially accurate – and reflects only a minor and unimportant part of that party’s policies.

In fact, in terms of actual republican values, the SDLP is a more republican party:

The SDLP's vision is a reconciled people living in a united, just and prosperous new Ireland.
As the party of civil rights, the SDLP is working for an Ireland free from poverty, prejudice and injustice; a vibrant country of energy, enterprise and endeavour, where economic prosperity delivers better public services and greater opportunities for all.

The SDLP wants to build an Ireland where conflict, violence and sectarianism become footnotes to our past; where reconciliation, equality and inclusion are chapter headings in the new story we will write together. We will build a better Ireland where we truly cherish all the children of the nation equally.

The SDLP wants this generation and those that will follow to live in an Ireland that stands tall in the world as a champion of global justice, environmental protection & sustainable development; an Ireland that stands out as a beacon of hope for peace, democracy, human rights and respect for diversity.

Yet the media refer to Sinn Féin as the republican party, and the SDLP as nationalist. The reality is probably the inverse.

Sinn Féin’s self description is focussed on the achievement of the nationalist project:

For 100 years now Sinn Féin has been to the forefront of bringing about change in Ireland. Republicans and Socialists from Constance Markievicz, James Connolly and Liam Mellows to Bobby Sands, Mairéad Farrell and Joe Cahill have brought us closer to our goal of Irish unity and independence. Today’s generation of republicans continue that work.

The SDLP’s self-description, though also couched in the context of Irish reunification, talks much more about the type of society that it wishes to see in the new Ireland – and that society is one that is republican in the true sense.

Ironically, the aims of republicanism and Irish nationalism are unconnected, despite their popular conflation. It is not necessary to be a nationalist to be a republican – some unionists like Alex Kane are openly republican in relation to the UK constitution – and in almost all practical terms the UK is itself a republic. The residual existence of a largely powerless monarch blinds many in Britain to the fact that their country is a de facto republic.

But whether or not the UK complies with 99% of the republican agenda (the other 1% is the monarch and the undemocratic House of Lords), Irish nationalists still do not feel themselves to be a part of it, and continue to aspire to reunite their country as a single democratic republic.

In that sense both the SDLP and Sinn Féin are actually nationalist parties, but the SDLP is a republican nationalist party, while Sinn Féin is simply a nationalist party.

This distinction is not unimportant. From outside Irish nationalism may look quite monolithic (the famous pan-nationalist front of unionist paranoia), but the reality is that there are as many different and competing strands within nationalism as anywhere else. For many people, while it is important that Ireland is reunited and sovereign, the achievement of these objectives is not in itself sufficient. A repressively Catholic Ireland, or an economically-illiterate Ireland, or an inward-looking insular Ireland, are not what most true republicans want, and any political movement that promotes one is doubly unhelpful to the cause – because that party would lose the support of many true republicans, and because that party would be unable to attract the support of those outside the traditional nationalist camp.

Many commenters have pointed out the obvious truth that Sinn Féin is essentially a Catholic nationalist party, and one that remains closely associated with the 30 years of war that Northern Ireland endured. Most resign themselves to the inevitable continuation of Sinn Féin and its seemingly inexorable usurpation of the lion’s share of the nationalist vote. Few – bar the dissident republicans, who exclude themselves from normal political discourse by their continued support for political violence – dare to think the unthinkable, or to say it out loud: Sinn Féin, its history, its members, its methods and its policies, are part of the problem.

For Irish nationalism to succeed in its project – and for that project to have been worth the effort – it must be a truly republican project, and as things stand at present Sinn Féin is not.

The future of the Irish nationalist project is less certain as Sinn Féin gains in strength. The chance of attracting (ex-)unionist support drops to zero, and even Irish nationalist republicans may drift away into apathy.

Sinn Féin is not sacrosanct. It is a political vehicle that succeeded earlier vehicles – the Redmondites, the Parnellites, the Fenians, the United Irishmen … Just as parties or movements grow, they decline and are replaced by others more suited to their times. Sinn Féin’s time has passed, and it is time for Irish republicans to create a new republican party that is neither Sinn Féin nor the SDLP. The latter, though republican in policy is ineffectual in practice. This is something that some SDLP members have clearly realised (including the unfortunate Declan O’Loan).

It is time for Irish republicans to start to create a truly republican party – one that robustly supports democracy, inclusion, fairness, tolerance, the rule of law, and that creates the conditions that allow all citizens to enjoy a full and worthwhile life. Of course all parties pay lip-service to such values, but a truly republican party would actually practice them.

Let a new party arise – a party that unites Catholic, Protestant, dissenter, atheist and all others is a common endeavour. Let the rump of Sinn Féin co-exist, if for no other reason that to emphasise the difference. And then let the battle of ideas commence.

Yes, I did … No, you didn’t …

2010-06-04T19:36:00.001+01:00

Schoolyard debating stuff, which most parents and teachers are familiar with. ‘Stop that, you boys’, they say, hoping that puberty will kick in soon.

But what can be done if the children are – shall we say – somewhat over the normal age of puberty?

Today’s instalment of primary school squabbling is brought to you by none other than James Allister QC:

"I wish to answer the pernicious falsehood, being peddled by anti-TUV factions, that my party contributed in any way to the failure to win back Fermanagh & South Tyrone … “

STOP THAT, CHILDREN!

Now, Arlene, say sorry to Jim. Jim, stop sniggering and tell Arlene you accept her apology. Now go and play nicely. I don’t want to have to talk to you about this again.

Ah, if only adult politics was as mature as the playground.

A Unionist Labour Party?

2010-06-04T12:40:00.003+01:00

The blogosphere has been buzzing with speculation about the future of Dawn Purvis and the PUP since their recent dramatic parting of company. Some of this speculation has even extended to the possibility that it is a sign of, or perhaps a catalyst for, a more fundamental realignment within unionism.

Purvis is reported to be a 'left winger' (this blog disagrees, but that is a different argument), and the speculation is whether she could find a home in any of the other unionist parties. The consensus appears to be that she would not be happy with any of them, as they do not match her 'feminist' and 'left wing' principles.

While Purvis may simply wander off into a political wilderness, there are many who would like to see her recent discovery of morality as a sign that she has a serious future in Northern Irish politics, and could join with others – some mavericks, others not – to form a new grouping based on left-of-centre politics. A Unionist Labour Party of sorts.

Other names being mentioned in connection with such a grouping include:

Sylvia Hermon, whose humble origins and undisguised opposition to the Tories make many see her as a de facto Labour MP,
Alan McFarland, a close associate of Hermon in North Down,
Fred Cobain, the UUP's man in North Belfast,
Chris McGimpsey, whose opposition to the UUP-Tory link was public,
Even Naomi Long is being eyed up, as a working class woman from East Belfast she is assumed to share many of Purvis's attributes (but not her (previous) support for sectarian murder, of course)

Of course, such a 'class-based' realignment of Northern Irish politics has been eagerly anticipated by many people for many years, but has never actually happened. The PUP itself was hailed as a harbinger of change – but failed to prosper, and now its single MLA (who received 80% of all the voters cast for the party in 2007) has walked away.

The Holy Grail for many unionists is the participation of the big British parties. They know that their own little parties will never attract Catholic support, and that Catholics will therefore continue to vote for nationalist parties, thus keeping the 'constitutional question' constantly in the spotlight. If the British parties – Labour and the Tories – could be persuaded to set up shop in a serious way in Northern Ireland enough Catholics might be lured away from the nationalist parties to ensure that they never come close to the 50%+1 threshold that unionists so fear.

This year the Tories made their most serious effort yet to set up in Northern Ireland – and failed quite spectacularly. But the Tories were never going to attract mass Catholic support – the Catholic community, for historical reasons, is largely statist and would be unlikely to vote for a party that promises a Big Society but a smaller state. The main hope amongst unionism is that the British Labour party – to which most Irish emigrants in Britain gave their votes – would come to Northern Ireland and sweep up large numbers of Catholic votes into what would remain a de facto unionist party.

So far, though, that has not happened, and the Mexican stand-off between unionism and nationalism continues.

But the absence of the British Labour party, and the clearly nationalist standpoint of the SDLP, has left working class Protestants poorly represented. The DUP takes their votes but provides them with a regressive and reactionary representation. Any working class Protestant looking for a socially liberal party is sorely challenged.

A new 'left-of-centre' unionist party would – so goes the theory – provide working class Protestants with a political vehicle that represents their interests. The fact that the proposed party must be specifically unionist is an interesting admission – no one is speculating about the formation of a cross-community left-of-centre party (the old one, the NILP, withered and died years ago). It is an admission that politics in Northern Ireland is played out in parallel in two different communities – as in Belgium – and that the hope of attracting the British Labour party is slim. If 'normal politics' are to be established in Northern Ireland, they must be tailored to Northern Ireland's unique context, it seems.

If a new grouping (or even a party) appears in the unionist community it will necessitate changes – there simply are not enough votes for so many real parties to co-exist. In order to have any impact a new unionist labour party would need to take votes from the DUP, the UUP and even Alliance, leaving each of these in danger of defeat in some areas. Proportional representation minimises the potential damage to unionism as a whole, of course, but considerable uncertainty would be added to an already uncertain situation.

The new party would clearly have a very Belfast-centric orientation. All of the names being mentioned are from Belfast or North Down, and the PUP's support was almost entirely in those areas. The new party would need to try to broaden its appeal, particularly in areas with significant working class Protestant votes – Coleraine, Larne, Carrickfergus, Derry's Waterside, Ballymena, Portadown, and so on – but these are precisely the areas that provide the DUP with much of its support. More than any other party the DUP has reason to fear any new party. Squeezed between a declining constituency in the 'west' and the challenge of the TUV in its heartland, the DUP cannot afford to lose the Protestant working class vote in Greater Belfast.

One possible scenario for the future is that a left-right realignment in unionism leads to the emergence of two parties – a new left-of-centre party that absorbs the PUP, leftist UUP members, and much of the DUP's urban vote – and a middle-class party (the DUP) that represents the farmers and the suburbs, and absorbs the remains of the UUP and sees off the TUV. This second party may be the 'unionist unity' party that the DUP are already trying to create in time for next year's Assembly elections. It would be ironic if they succeeded in finally taking over the UUP only to see a serious new competitor appear, this time to their left.

Of course, new dawns are commonplace in Northern Ireland, but revolutions are rare. It is just as likely that nothing will happen – Purvis will become an independent with a short political life, and unionism will continue its self-destructive spiral.

The PUP – saints and scholars

2010-06-03T19:20:00.004+01:00

The media reaction to Dawn Purvis’s resignation from the PUP leadership, and her possible replacement by John Kyle, is little short of revolting.

Sycophantic journalists describe the odious Purvis as having “a firm committment [sic] to her left wing unionist principles”, and describe the equally awful Kyle as “a Christian GP”.

Let’s be honest here – Purvis was, and Kyle still is, mouthpieces for the political front of the UVF. Not the Alliance Party, not the Greens, not the Natural Law Party.

The UVF were – and seemingly still are – a gang of sectarian murderers. They were directly responsible for at least 426 deaths between 1969 and 2001, and their pseudonymous siblings the Red Hand Commando killed another 13. That is the minimum – another 250 were killed by ‘non-specific Loyalist groups’, many of whom were actually the UVF in drag.

Since 2001 the UVF has not had a change of heart either – it killed John Allen in 2003, Andrew Cully and Brian Stewart in 2004, Jameson Lockhart, Craig McCausland, Stephen Paul and Michael Green in 2005, and Bobby Moffett in 2010. And only now does Purvis have a fit of conscience! While the UVF were slaughtering Catholics purely because of their religion she had no such quibbles. Kyle still doesn’t.

Purvis – the left-winger – and Kyle – the Christian – chose to join a party that argued for, supported and succoured these killers. They had choices – they could have joined the UUP, or even the DUP. Purvis – the ‘committed feminist' – could have joined the Women’s Coalition. Kyle – the Christian – could have joined the Alliance Party. Neither of them did, though – they joined a party that they knew to be the other face of the UVF. Kyle has said that “he wouldn't rule out a complete break with the UVF” following the Moffett murder. That means that he accepts openly that his party is currently closely linked to a terrorist gang – and yet the media insult our intelligence by calling him a ‘Christian’.

Purvis is not a ‘left-wing feminist’ – she is a bigoted loyalist fascist who considers that the random murder of Catholics is defensible, and sang dumb year after year while her associates killed working class men, women and children.

Kyle is not a ‘Christian’ – he supports the murder of innocent people, simply because they are believed to belong to a different faction of Christianity.

And the media is a disgrace. It colludes with the UVF by pretending that their apologists are saints and scholars, while it knows as well as anyone else that they are immoral and indefensible.

How the TUV gifted victory to Gildernew

2010-06-03T16:41:00.001+01:00

This is it, according to the DUP:

In order to cut through TUV spin and deceit, here are the facts about Michelle Gildernew’s 4-vote win in Fermanagh and South Tyrone:

1. Michelle Gildernew was returned by four votes as the Member of Parliament for Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

2. A greater number than four people spoiled their ballots in that election by writing “TUV” across them.

3. TUV supporters ensured Michelle Gildernew was re-elected.

4. That was the contribution TUV made to the Unionist unity and co-operation in the recent General Election.

Presumably the DUP has some evidence of the spoiled ballot papers through its tallymen. But since there were 263 'invalid votes' in the constituency, then there must be quite a few other possible culprits according to the DUP. Maybe there were even "a greater number than four people" who scrawled 'DUP' or 'UUP' or 'Conservative' on their ballots, in protest at the lack of any of these options in the election.

The public should be told - maybe the DUP tallymen could release their report?

The DUP's obsession with trying to blame the TUV looks quite odd. It could have completely contrary effects – either by hammering a large nail into the TUV's coffin, or by providing the TUV with the oxygen of publicity. Whatever the DUP is trying to do is not immediately obvious – perhaps developments will point towards some actual point to their current tantrum.

The 'west' – 40 years a-greening

2010-06-03T13:55:00.003+01:00

The previous blog, in response to a question on the 'greening' of Fermanagh, raised the issue of the 'greening' of the 'west' as a whole.

A series of comparable elections – from 1973 to 2005 – allows us to look closely at the political evolution of the district council areas, which have remained largely unchanged. For the purposes of this blog 'the west' will be considered to be the area covered by Cookstown, Derry, Dungannon, Fermanagh, Limavady, Magherafelt, Omagh and Strabane districts – for which the results of the nine elections from 1973 to 2005 are available.

Caveats:

'The west' is not, of course, the west – that starts on the other side of the Shannon, but for this blog's purposes the term will be used for the western half of Northern Ireland.
Whether Derry and Limavady are 'the west', or the north-west is a matter of judgement. The blog includes them.
For some early elections candidates stood under a variety of labels, or as independents. Where possible, they (and their voters) have been considered to be unionist, nationalist or neither on the basis of later political affiliations, or if the patterns are clear, from the transfers of votes to or from them.
The further back in time one looks, the less clear the picture. For the last few elections, though, the mist has cleared somewhat and the figures are thus more reliable.

The period from 1973 to 2005 represents almost 40 years – a generation and a half. It is a short period in historical terms, even if 1973 looks like pre-history to many today. Yet even in this generation-and-a-half the changes in 'the west' are clear to see.

Firstly, in terms of the share of the vote that the two main blocks received:

In 1973 – hard though it is now to believe it – unionism polled more votes in the west of Northern Ireland than nationalism did. This has changed steadily, and by 2005 the balance was clearly in nationalism's favour (almost 2 to 1).

Share of the vote allows the actions of other candidates to have an impact on the apparent strength of a block, though. It is useful, thus, to look at the share of the electorate (i.e. all those eligible to vote) that the blocks receive:

This shows that the share of the population of the 'west' as a whole that votes unionist has dropped from a high of 34.8% in 1981 to only 24.4% in 2005. From more than a third to less than a quarter in barely a generation – unionism is in serious trouble in the 'west'.

At the same time nationalism has seen its share of the electorate rise from 30% to 45%. Whether this is due to demographic increase in its 'natural' community (i.e. Catholics) or its ability to attract the votes of those who voted for centre or independent candidates in the past is immaterial – both types of recruits contribute to the 'greening' of the electorate.

The nationalist population is growing – as the demographic figures predict that it should – and the unionist population is stagnant or shrinking, as its birth rate barely matches its death rate. Neither of these factors is likely to change much in the next few years, so the 'greening' of the 'west' ought to continue. Whether there will be another local election using the same boundaries is, however, less certain.

(Sources: readers can find the full unedited results of all elections since 1973 on the Electoral Office web site at: http://www.eoni.org.uk/index/elections/election-results-1973-onwards.htm. Edited and commented (though sometimes incorrect) versions are to be found on Nicholas Whyte's site at: http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections)

Fermanagh questions

2010-06-03T13:19:00.003+01:00

A reader asked, in a comment on the recent post on Fermanagh and South Tyrone – whether there was any real proof of the 'greening of the west' in the electoral figures for that constituency:

"… doesn't the fact that the Nationalist and Unionist populations of Fermanagh have voted in more or less equal numbers since Partition rather undermine the idea of a fast-growing Nationalist population? Or to put it another way, why hasn't Fermanagh greened like the rest of the West?"

The situation in FST masks two different realities – the constituency comprises the whole of Country Fermanagh (aka Fermanagh District), and much of Dungannon borough (it used to comprise all of it, but the Coalisland area was moved to Mid Ulster in the 1990s).

The Fermanagh part of the constituency shows a very clear period of nationalist under-voting, just like the figures for for the whole Westminster constituency. But Dungannon Borough does not show such a period of under-voting. There are electoral influences at work in Fermanagh that appear to be unique to that county.

The period of nationalist under-voting in Fermanagh is evident from the graph below, which shows the results of the nine district council elections from 1973 to 2005:

It is clear, thus, that the withdrawal of large number of nationalists from active involvement in politics was not limited to Westminster, following the traumas of the Hunger Strikes and Bobby Sands election. Many also withdrew from voting in district council elections during the same period.

In 2001, however, they returned to the ballot boxes, in the local elections as in the Westminster elections, and the numerical superiority of the nationalist community was demonstrated again.

What shows the 'greening' of Fermanagh more than the fluctuations of the nationalist vote is the steady decline in the unionist vote after 1989. The unionist vote as a share of the electorate was fairly constant from 1973 to 1989, at around 38%. After 1989, though, it has fallen in every election and by 2005 was just over 31%. At the current rate oif decline it would be below 30% when the next elections are held. This steep decline is a combination of two factors: a general reduction in the turnout rate, and a numerical decline in the number of unionist voters in the county.

Turnout in 1989 was 80%, but in 2005 it was 73.1% - a falling away of 8.6% of the voters (calculated as: (80-73.1)/80). If it is assumed that both communities suffered a decline in voter motivation, than their shares of the electorate should have declined by around the same 8.6% - but unionism's share declined by 19.6%.

Nationalism's share actually increased by 10.9% over the same period, but 1989 is a bad starting point as it fell within the period of nationalist withdrawal. However, even compared with its high-point in 1981 the nationalist share has declined by only 5.3%, while turnout since 1981 had dropped by 13.4% (it was 84.4% in 1981) – implying a real increase in the nationalist share.

Using the share of the electorate is a more accurate measure than using share of the actual vote, because a community's share of the electorate is not dependent upon the ebbs and flows of the other community. The drop in the unionist share of the electorate represents a fall in the unionist share of the electorate and/or its interest in voting. The fact that the drop in the unionist share is far greater than the overall fall in turnout implies strongly that its underlying share of the electorate is dropping.

To answer the original question, therefore, the nationalist and unionist populations of Fermanagh appear, since 1989 at least, to be diverging quite quickly. The unionist share of the county's population appears to be shrinking – as the demographic figures suggest – and the nationalist share appears to be increasing – as the demographic figures also suggest. Fermanagh is 'greening' like the rest of the west – perhaps at a different speed and in its own way – but that is, of course, typical of Fermanagh.

The end of the PUP

2010-06-03T09:04:00.001+01:00

"I can no longer offer leadership to a political party which is expected to answer for the indefensible actions of others." So said Dawn Purvis, as she announced her resignation as leader and member of the PUP.

She said she was leaving because the PUP was "severely restricted because of its relationship with the Ulster Volunteer Force".

Purvis will remain as an independent MLA for East Belfast.

Barring a miracle for the party, this is it for the PUP. Purvis represented 80% of their electoral support – her 3,045 votes in 2007 were 80% of all of those cast for the PUP. The two other PUP candidates, in South Belfast and North Down received 410 votes and 367 votes respectively. Purvis successfully retained David Ervine's seat in East Belfast, but her abrupt exit from the party – and its reasons – ought to ensure that neither she nor the party retain the seat next year.

That leaves the PUP as a micro-group, with at best a couple of councillors, including its new interim leader, Belfast City councillor John Kyle. A major question mark must now exist over the very existence of the party. If it folds, like the UDP before it, the alphabet soup of unionism will thin a little, and some working class loyalist voters will have to find a new political home. The direction that the UUP is taking makes it unlikely that they will follow it, and while the DUP is a more logical choice, there remains a suspicion of that party amongst the PUP's community.

So the PUP's small vote – only 3,822 in 2007 – may either be dissipated amongst various other parties or independent candidates, or it may join the many other potential working class loyalist votes which are simply not cast – PUP voters may simply not turn out at all next time around.

Curious and curiouser

2010-06-02T22:44:00.003+01:00

Arlene Foster, DUP MLA for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, today took an unsolicited swipe at the TUV (and why not, because it’s always easier to kick someone when they’re down). But her attack on the TUV included the following curious accusation:

Grassroots Unionists are crying out for closer co-operation within Unionism. Jim Allister represents the divisions of the past. Grassroots Unionists want to see Northern Ireland moving forward. TUV wants to take us back to being sidelined and ignored in our own country. TUV supporters handed Fermanagh and South Tyrone to Gildernew: that was the TUV contribution to Unionism in the recent election.

Given that the TUV did not stand in FST – and explicitly called on unionists to unite where seats were closely contested with nationalism – this is a strange claim.

How precisely could ‘TUV supporters have handed Fermanagh and South Tyrone to Gildernew’? It can be fairly safely assumed that none voted for her, so Foster must be alluding to the question of turnout. The only possible explanation of her remark is that she believes that TUV supporters stayed at home, rather than vote for the ‘unionist unity’ candidate – who was not even a member of Foster’s own party.

But turnout was quite low by FST standards across the board. If TUV supporters stayed at home, then so did DUP and UUP supporters – so how can Foster accuse the TUV of particular complicity?

Foster may, of course, simply be trying to distract attention from her own party’s responsibility for the lower turnout. But pushing for a ‘unionist unity’ candidate Foster, Elliott, and both of their parties, ensured that some unionists felt uncomfortable voting for the chosen ‘unionist champion’. For some, he came too close to being seen as a sectarian ‘Protestant’ champion. Of course, it is very likely that Michelle Gildernew would have won in any event, had there been competition on the unionist side. But having conspired to pull a ‘stroke’ – and failed – Foster may be looking for a weak scapegoat.

The TUV have been quick to respond to Foster, saying that:

The facts are clear. We were the first party to call for non-party candidate.
Indeed, at that point Mrs Foster was still strutting around promoting herself as the DUP candidate. TUV kept out of the contest in Fermanagh and South Tyrone and called repeatedly for our supporters to vote for the unity candidate. Mrs Foster’s dishonest attempt to smear TUV, therefore, does not stand up to scrutiny.

It looks as if the intra-unionist bitterness and rivalry will continue for the time being – and probably as far as next year’s two major elections. This is, as has frequently been noted, a gift to nationalism – so this blog is pleased to note the resumption of normal relations between the DUP and the TUV.

The TUV is not gone away yet

2010-06-02T15:39:00.001+01:00

Apparently:

At its Central Council meeting last night TUV delegates reviewed its disappointing General Election results, but determined that it would continue to give voice to Unionists who still rejected unrepentant terrorists in government and the rigged system of mandatory coalition which put them there.

A TUV spokesman said:
"The message from across the party was clear, the cause which brought TUV into existence remains right. Likewise the extension to Northern Ireland of the universal right to vote a party out of office and to have an Opposition is an unanswerable imperative which can only be attained through the replacement of unworkable compulsory coalition at Stormont with the democratic and viable alternative of voluntary coalition."

And so on it goes, until next year's Assembly and local elections …

Unionist disunity is, of course, a gift to nationalism, but sometimes one can have too much of a good thing. Allister and his friends should listen to the electorate – their brand of negativity is unpopular and is not likely to come back into fashion unless something dramatic happens.

A dearth of defections

2010-06-02T09:52:00.001+01:00

Northern Ireland's politicians are remarkably promiscuous. They have a tendency to hop from political bed to political bed that is unmatched in most countries. But their political promiscuity seems to be entirely restricted to their own political blocks – unionists happily swap the UKUP for the TUV, or the UUP for the DUP; some mix in periods of 'independence', but always (à la Hermon) within the wider family.

Nationalists are perhaps a little more loyal to their partners, but there are still some defections – from the SDLP to Sinn Féin, from Sinn Féin to 'independence' or even Fianna Fáil, and so on.

Politicians who start out in the 'centre' also tend to stay there – there is movement between the Alliance Party and the Greens, for example, but almost no movement through the invisible walls to either unionism or nationalism.

Lastly, the small left-wing group tends to intermarry as well – the labels change, and the parties merge or disappear, but the affiliation rarely changes.

An examination of political affiliations over the past 40 or so years shows an almost complete dearth of real defections – from one side of the house to the other. This blog knows of no example whatsoever where a member of a nationalist party has crossed over to a unionist party, or vice-versa. The only recent defection – remarkable in its rarity – was one last year from the centre (Alliance Party) to the unionist camp (Tory Party) – Ian Parsley.

Perhaps there have been quiet defections at the level of the ordinary members or supporters, but at the level of the elected representatives there have been almost none at all. This contrasts greatly with both Britain (where, for example, the recent Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Shaun Woodward, was elected as a Tory but switched to Labour in 1999), the USA, where politicians sometimes switch from Republican to Democrat or the reverse, or the south, where there have been high-profile defections including that of Michael O'Leary who defected to Fine Gael while he was leader of the Labour Party!

In other places, it seems, politicians join parties on the grounds of principle, and reassess their membership against changes in their own, and the parties, principles. In Northern Ireland, while this does happen, it happens only within the parameters of the main blocks. These blocks give the appearance of being hermetically sealed – people are born into a block and remain within it. Occasionally a person will appear in a block that is not the 'normal' one for their ethno-religious background – but even they will then tend to stay within that block for the whole of their political life. Billy Leonard, although a Shankill Road Protestant and ex-RUC reservist, took no active part in politics until he joined the SDLP, and from there he moved to Sinn Féin. None of the SDLP or IIP's Protestant members – Ivan Cooper, Eddie Espie, John Turnley, etc – appear to have ever been 'unionists'. The very recent, and fleeting, appearance of Catholic unionists – Peter McCann and Sheila Davidson flirted with the Tories last year – shows the same trait. Neither was ever known to have been a 'nationalist'.

The strict and rigid separation of the blocks suggests that issues of pure principle are not really at play here. There is no logical reason why a Protestant is more likely to be a unionist than a Catholic is, or why a Catholic is more likely to be a nationalist than a Protestant is. But reality shows that that is the pattern. And, as the dearth of defections shows, once a person is born (literally, or in a political sense) into one block, he or she will almost always stay there.

The consequence of this is that the in-flow to the two blocks is of prime importance. The block that recruits more new members will ultimately win. Recruitment at birth is the largest factor – and unionism appears to have belatedly realised that it is losing on that front. It may appear unsavoury to some that children are 'assumed' to be nationalist or unionist based upon their parents religion – and in a normal country that would not be so – but the hard reality of Northern Ireland is that parental religion is the greatest single determinant of future political adherence, and this does not appear to be changing.

In recognition of its weakness in the maternity wards, unionism turned to Plan B – recruit people who have not yet made a firm political choice. And, of course, though unspoken, what they really meant was 'recruit some Catholics'. By tapping into the supply of young Catholics the unionists, through their new vehicle UCUNF, hoped to divert some of the flow to their ranks, and thus to tip the balance back in their favour. But despite the best efforts of the Tories – the UUP's partners in this venture – the UCUNF strategy has so far failed. There was no evidence at all of an increase in votes to UCUNF – in fact the opposite occurred – in 2010 it received 27,671 fewer votes than the two parties received in 2005!

As for defections, well, there was just that one – Ian Parsley, and he only came from Alliance. UCUNF had had hopes of attracting some previously uncommitted (Catholic) support, but the ham-fisted way that it acted ensured that that could not happen. The already-committed – those active in the SDLP or Sinn Féin – showed absolutely no inclination to join what was clearly a tribal unionist venture.

If the walls between the blocks remain as impermeable in the future as they have been in the past, unionism is doomed. Its in-flow pipe is delivering fewer new members and voters than the nationalist in-flow pipe. Expect, then, a renewed effort – probably via a new vehicle (not UCUNF) – to divert some of those young Catholics in the direction of 'civic unionism'. The Tories tried and failed, so next up should be the British Labour Party.

All-island or all-Ireland?

2010-06-01T09:08:00.001+01:00

Elaine Byrne spoils an otherwise interesting article in today's Irish Times by making an unrelated and unnecessarily political point in the last line.

But the overall content of her article is positive. She argues that civic society is quietly creating an 'all-island' approach, in areas like sport and trade, and that it is time that politics caught up.

Byrne is particularly positive about Martin McGuinness, who, as the Stormont institutions bed in, is growing in stature. As she points out, he is increasingly demonstrating a spirit of true republicanism:

In the same breath as his call to commemorate the centenary of the Easter Rising, McGuinness noted that “it is equally right to recognise the sacrifice of those who fought in the first World War” because, he believed, “the experiences of republicans, nationalists, unionists and all others form part of our collective memory. They are part of who we are, as a nation, and as a community.”

She notes that the recent Westminster election showed that "instead of looking to the United Kingdom for political direction, a majority of unionists now seek to determine their own future within the context of a Northern Assembly that is beginning to bed down", and that Martin McGuinness's attempts at reconciliation are aimed at reassuring them that, in the case of him becoming First Minister next year, the sky will not fall.

The article notes the improvement in north-south co-operation between the two justice ministers, and that even DUP Finance Minister Sammy Wilson acknowledges that infrastructure investment and economic growth are intrinsically linked between North and South, necessitating an all-island, if not (yet) an all-Ireland approach.

Small steps, to be sure – but steps in the right direction.

A Unity of Added Potential

2010-05-31T19:43:00.006+01:00

Peter Robinson has called for a Unity of Added Potential, not a Unity of Necessity, at the North Tyrone DUP Branch annual.

The joke implicit in that statement is compounded by Robinson’s assertion that:

"For the DUP the concept of closer co-operation and the ideal of unity with fellow unionists is not a new one. Our willingness to work closely with other unionists, particularly the Ulster Unionist Party, was evident for all to see in past decades. "

And the basis for unity is:

“Any examination should be based upon common values, realism and a vision for Unionist renewal.”

So what are the common values that we are held between the UUP and DUP?

“A common belief in the maintenance and the development of the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”
(OK, so you’re both unionists. We got that – it’s in the ‘U’ in your names!)

“Identification with the institutions of the state and the over-arching British identity”
(Um, is that now what you just said?)

“Non-sectarianism”
(Sorry? Are you pulling our legs? How many Catholic members have you? How often have you set foot in a Catholic Church?)

“Making the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Executive work”
(By trying to block every nationalist interest? This is Orwellian!)

“Upholding power-sharing with nationalists”
(By pushing for ‘voluntary coalition? How does that work? Do you truly think that people are stupid?)

“Transformation of the Northern Ireland economy”
(Tell us how. Tell us which public sector cuts you will push for, in order to reduce the burden on the private sector, and in order to minimise the out-bidding by the public sector that robs the private sector of talent)

“Many a harsh word has been exchanged between our parties. This has led to mistrust and will take time to overcome.”

Well, at least he admits that.

“Minority ethnic communities are growing and new ones being established in Northern Ireland that have little linkages with politics in general and Unionism in particular.”

So the DUP is worried that its negative and xenophobic tendencies are losing it the ‘migrant’ vote.

“…we must be honest in this debate by recognising that the immediate prospect of a single Party is unrealistic. We must crawl before we can run.”

But no single party means no first-grabs at the First Minister post next year. Is Robinson giving up on that already?

Having successfully sabotaged the prospects of unionist unity in 2010, the DUP is pretending to be keen on it for the future! But why? Simply because ‘unionist unity’ is a necessity for the DUP in order for it to retain its ‘top dog’ position – and the all-important First Minister post. What the DUP is proposing is, of course, a Unity of Necessity, not a Unity of Added Potential – the contrary of what Robinson is claiming.

A Unity of Added Potential is a contradiction. For the full potential of unionism, or nationalism, to be achieved, there must be a variety of alternatives. One single option is like one flavour of ice-cream – some people will be happy, some will make do with it, but some simply won’t like the flavour.

Robinson’s call smells of a mixture of desperation and opportunism. Desperation to hold on to its leading position, and opportunism concerning the chances of eating up the UUP. But if the DUP succeeds, and ends up as the core of a single unionist party, this can only lead to a long-term weakening of unionism, as it becomes simply a single-issue campaign, rather than a full political spectrum. For that reason, this blog supports the concept of ‘unionist unity’ – gathered up in one single conflicted party, unionism would quickly become like a bag full of cats – and would decend into strife and schism, to its detriment.

Fermanagh and South Tyrone – the story of a Westminster constituency

2010-05-31T13:12:00.007+01:00

The seemingly never-ending story of Fermanagh and South Tyrone continues. The latest episode is that Rodney Connor, the defeated unionist unity candidate has launched a legal challenge over the result, by asking the Election Court in Belfast to review the election.

Although it is relatively rare for such a review to be requested, it is not surprising that it is FST that is the subject.

FST is a closely contested constituency, and has been one since its creation in 1948.

The first election in the new constituency was on 23 February 1950, and FST quickly established its exceptionality by recording a turnout rate record – 92.1%. The election was a straight battle between the veteran nationalist Cahir Healy (who stood as an abstentionist) and the unionist Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Richardson. Healy won, with 32,188 votes (51.9%) to Richardson's 29,877 (48.1%).

In 1951 another Westminster election was held, on 25 October 1951, and Healy won again – against the unionist candidate Frederick Patterson. Healy received 32,717 votes (52.1%) and
Patterson received 30,082 (47.9%). FST broke its own turnout record, with 93.4% of the electorate voting.

Sinn Féin contested the Westminster election that was held on 26 May 1955, and won – but with a smaller vote than Healy had previously received. Philip Clarke (SF) won 30,529 votes (50.2%) against the unionist candidate Colonel Robert Grosvenor who received 30,268 votes (49.8%). The turnout dropped to a still-remarkable 92.4%.
Clarke was a controversial candidate, having been captured less than a year earlier in an IRA raid on Omagh barracks (in a pre-operation for the planned border campaign). Clarke was declared ineligible due to his imprisonment and the Unionist runner-up was declared elected without a by-election.

The IRA's Operation Harvest (aka the border campaign) started in 1956, and would continue until 1962. It was a military failure, but a political disaster. The Westminster election held during the campaign, on 8 October 1959, saw Sinn Féin being wiped out in FST. Grosvenor, the sitting unionist (who had received the seat following the exclusion of Philip Clarke in 1955) received 32,080 votes (81.4%), while Sinn Féin's candidate, James Martin received a paltry 7,348 votes (18.6%). Although the turnout rate (61.6%) implied that most nationalists simply boycotted the election, Grosvenor actually received votes equivalent to more than 50% of the entire electorate – the first and only time such a thing has happened in FST, and implying that some nationalists had actually voted for a unionist in an apparent emphatic rejection of the IRA's campaign. It would be 1970 before the nationalist vote in FST would fully recover.

The next Westminster election, on 15 October 1964, came after the end of the border campaign, but the voters had not yet forgiven Sinn Féin. The new unionist candidate, James Hamilton received 30,010 votes (55.1%), while the Sinn Féin candidate Aloysius Molloy – who, since Sinn Féin was by then a proscribed organisation, called himself simply 'republican' – received 16,138 votes (29.6%). For the first time in FST 'other' candidates stood: Giles Fitzherbert (Liberal) got 6,006 votes (11.0%) and Baptist W Gamble (NILP) got 2,339 (4.3%). The turnout, still respectable, dropped to 85.9%.

By 1966, FST had already started to innovate with 'unity' candidates. In the Westminster election on 31 March 1966 the first such candidate – on the nationalist side – JJ Donnelly, managed to get beaten by the unionist incumbent James Hamilton, who got 29,352 votes (54.0%) to Donnelly's 14,645 votes (26.9%). Donnelly's score was not helped by the fact that he was not the only nationalist in the race (despite his description): a certain Ruairí Ó Brádaigh stood as a 'republican' (i.e. Sinn Féin), and got 10,370 votes (19.1%). Already chief of staff of the IRA, he would go on to become president of Sinn Féin and of his own Republican Sinn Féin party.

In 1970 the nationalist tactic of standing a 'unity' candidate finally paid off. Eight years after the end of the border campaign, the whole 'nationalist' (aka Catholic) electorate was prepared again to vote for a nationalist candidate. On 18 June 1970 Frank McManus, standing for Unity, received 32,813 votes (51.1%), beating the unionist incumbent, James Hamilton who got 31,390 votes (48.9%). The turnout rose again, to 91.2%.

However, as so often in FST, there were swings and roundabouts. In 1974 the new SDLP, buoyed by its success in the 1973 Assembly elections, contested the constituency, splitting the vote and letting the UUP candidate take the seat.
On 28 February 1974 Harry West, standing for the UUP-UUUC got 26,858 votes (43.6%), while Frank McManus got only 16,229 votes (26.3%). Denis Haughey, for the SDLP, got 15,410 votes (25.0%), and Hubert Brown, standing as a Pro-Assembly Unionist, got 3,157 votes (5.1%). McManus went on to become one of the founding members of the Irish Independence Party (IIP) in 1977.

But, remember those swings and roundabouts. A second election was held in 1974, on 10 October 1974, and this time the SDLP seems to have learned something, because they didn't stand. Instead nationalism found another unity candidate, Frank Maguire, who won the seat back with 32,795 votes (51.8%). Harry West received 30,285 votes (47.9%), which was about the limit of the unionist electorate in the constituency. Alan Evans for the Communist Party of Ireland got 185 votes (0.3%).

Frank Maguire was re-elected at the next election, on 3 May 1979, despite the intervention again of an SDLP candidate. Luckily for Maguire, the unionist vote was also split. He got 22,398 votes (36.0%), followed by the UUP's Raymond Ferguson on 17,411 votes (28.0%), Austin Currie, standing as 'Independent SDLP' on 10,785 votes (17.3%), Ernest Baird for the UUUP on 10,607 votes (17.0%), and, for the first time, an Alliance Party candidate, Peter Acheson on 1,070 votes (1.7%)

Maguire died in 1981 – at probably the most (in)convenient moment possible – right in the middle of the IRA/INLA hunger strikes. The rest is history – but is still fresh and raw in FST. Bobby Sands stood from his hospital bed, and won the seat, providing an immense boost to republican morale, and a huge propaganda victory for Sinn Féin. Much of the bitterness in the constituency's elections dates from this moment.

On 9 April 1981 the by-election was held to replace Frank Maguire. Sands, standing as an Anti-H-Block/Armagh Political Prisoner candidate (but, as a convicted IRA-man, clearly a republican), and received 30,493 votes (51.2%). The UUP candidate (and former short-lived MP in 1974), Harry West got 29,046 votes (49.8%). The SDLP chose not to stand, and with a turnout of 86.9%, its supporters clearly voted for Sands.

What is especially curious about this result was that it demonstrated an almost complete reversal in the attitude of the nationalist voters in the constituency vis-à-vis the border campaign. In the late 1950s and 1960s the vote for any form of nationalism suffered greatly – presumably from a reaction against the border campaign. That campaign, though controversial, was nothing like the IRA's all-out war in the 1970s – and yet in 1981 the nationalist voters of FST were prepared to vote massively for a known IRA man.

There was some element of resistance, of course. The number of spoiled votes – 3,280 – was far higher than normal, and the proportion of the electorate that voted for Sands (42.2%) was somewhat lower than the 45-46% that nationalism had been receiving in recent elections. However, the size of nationalism's lead over unionism ensured that Sands won.

Sands died on hunger strike, of course, and so another by-election was held to replace him, on 20 August 1981. His agent, Owen Carron, stood on the same Anti-H-Block Proxy Political Prisoner platform, and again won with 31,278 votes (49.1%), while Ken Maginnis for the UUP got 29,048 votes (45.6%). Alliance send down one of their big guns to try to bring civilisation to the wild west – Seamus Close got 1,930 votes (3.0%), but failed to inspire any Alliance revival in the constituency. Other odds-and-sods pointlessly jumped on the bandwagon – Tom Moore, for the Republican Clubs got 1,132 votes (1.8%), Martin Green, describing himself as General Amnesty got 249 votes (0.4%), and Simon Hall-Raleigh, describing himself as The Peace Lover got 90 votes (0.1%). Obviously the people of FST were not lovers of peace!
Carron never intended to take his seat, of course – he represented the strong abstentionist tradition in FST. It is interesting to note that the unionist vote in the two 1981 by-elections differed by precisely two votes – 29,046 in April, and 29,048 in August. This was clearly the utter limit of unionism's electorate in the constituency. It has never received so many votes since.

On 9 June 1983 the SDLP came again to unionism's assistance. In the Westminster election they stood again, and thus split the nationalist vote. Ken Maginnis then won the seat for the UUP with 28,630 votes (47.6%), while Owen Carron, standing now openly for Sinn Féin, got 20,954 votes (34.8%). Rosemary Flanagan, for the SDLP, got 9,923 votes (16.5%) and Davy Kettyles made his first appearance in a Westminster election, standing this time for the Workers' Party and getting 649 votes (1.1%).

Something seems to have snapped in the nationalist psyche at this point. Despite outpolling unionism, and achieving over 50% of the vote, nationalism appears to have become severely demoralised by its defeat in 1983. This allowed unionism, despite its downward trend, to outpoll nationalism in the four following contests. Around 5,000 voters, who had previously voted nationalist, stopped doing so. Around half started to vote for the perennial Davy Kettles in one of his various guises, or other small parties. But the other half just opted out.

On 23 January 1986, in the set of by-elections caused by the unionist protests against the Anglo-Irish Agreement, Ken Maginnis was re-elected with 27,857 votes (49.7%), despite the active participation of nationalist candidates (unlike in most other seats, where nationalists boycotted these by-elections – in Newry and South Armagh, however, Séamus Mallon snatched the seat from the unfortunate Jim Nicholson). Nationalism was split in FST, though, and Owen Carron got only 15,278 votes (27.2%), with Austin Currie (standing officially for the SDLP this time) getting 12,081 votes (21.5%). Davy Kettyles, still with the Workers' Party, got 864 votes (1.5%). The turnout was a low 80.9%, implying that neither side had really motivated their supporters.

On 11 June 1987, with an almost identical turnout (80.8%) in the general election Ken Maginnis retained the seat with 27,446 votes (49.6%). Carron, now on the run, was replaced as Sinn Féin candidate by Paul Corrigan, who got 14,623 votes (26.4%), while Rosemary Flanagan for the SDLP got 10,581 votes (19.1%) and Davy Kettyles, still WP, got 1,784 votes (3.2%). The Alliance Party, on another of its forays west, got 941 votes (1.7%) with John Haslett.

Nationalist – or more accurately, republican – demoralisation was approaching its nadir in FST in 1992. On 9 April 1992 Ken Maginnis walked home with 26,932 votes (48.4%), and unionists must have started thinking that this seat was theirs for ever more. Tommy Gallagher, for the SDLP, came in second with 12,810 votes (23.1%), and Sinn Féin managed only a third place, with Francie Molloy on 12,604 votes (22.9%). Davy Kettyles, now a 'Progressive Socialist', got 1,094 votes (1.9%), Eric Bullick, for the Alliance Party, got 950 votes (1.6%), and one of Kettyles erstwhile comrades, Gerry Cullen, standing for 'New Agenda' (a break-away from the Workers Party, and itself to become Democratic Left before merging with the (Irish) Labour Party) got 747 (1.2%).

In the 1995 boundary revision the constituency lost the heavily nationalist Coalisland area to Mid Ulster, thus reducing nationalism's hopes of recovering the seat, and probably reducing nationalist morale still further.

On 1 May 1997 Ken Maginnis again held 'his' seat, with 24,862 votes (51.5%), but Sinn Féin at least managed to overtake the SDLP – Gerry McHugh got 11,174 votes (23.1%), while Tommy Gallagher of the SDLP was close behind on 11,060 votes (22.9%). Stephen Farry, for the Alliance Party, got 977 votes (2.0%), and Simeon Gillan wasted a deposit for the Natural Law Party, getting 217 votes (0.5%). Turnout (74.8%) was slipping, though, perhaps reflecting a lessening of the tensions of earlier elections.

However, those FST swings and roundabouts should never be forgotten. On 7 June 2001 Sinn Féin dramatically won the seat by 53 votes. Michelle Gildernew got 17,739 votes (34.1%), but thanks to the intervention of an independent unionist the UUP candidate James Cooper got only 17,686 votes (34.0%). Tommy Gallagher of the SDLP got 9,706 votes (18.7%), which would ordinarily have been enough to ensure a unionist victory, but nobody foresaw the significant increase in the nationalist vote – from 22,234 in 1997 to 27,445 in 2001. Jim Dixon, the Independent Unionist, got 6,843 votes (13.2%) - and the life-long disapproval of the other unionists.

The increase in the nationalist vote appeared to mark the end of the nationalist demoralisation in FST. The turnout recovered, to 79.0%, and this appears to have been entirely due to nationalists returning to the polling booths – the unionist vote declined slightly.
The reason for the end of nationalist demoralisation is as little-known as that for its beginning. Perhaps the Good Friday Agreement electrified nationalism – but it was already three years old in 2001, and already experiencing unionist obstructiveness. In any case, despite the return to nationalism of a proportion of the electorate, the general tendency, in nationalism as in unionism, was towards apathy. The graph berlow shows the nationalist and unionist shares of the electorate (i.e. all of those eligible to vote):

On 5 May 2005 Michelle Gildernew retained the seat in a four-way race. Both nationalism and unionism had split votes. Gildernew got 18,638 votes (38.2%), the DUP's Arlene Foster got 14,056 votes (28.8%), the UUP's Tom Elliott got 8,869 votes (18.2%) and the SDLP's Tommy Gallagher got 7,230 votes (14.8%). The nationalist-unionist split widened slightly, to 53%/47%.

After the 2005 elections the boundary commission changed some constituencies, but left FST unchanged.

In 2010 unionists in FST had learned a valuable lesson – if they split their vote, they could never win the seat. Sinn Féin's lead amongst nationalists was greater than that of either of the unionist parties within their block. So an intense effort was made to 'resolve' this problem on the unionist side. There were early offers by the DUP to stand aside in favour of a unity candidate, but the UCUNF project had announced that it intended to stand in every seat, regardless of other factors. As the election campaign progressed, there were increasingly desperate attempts by the DUP to break the UCUNF resolve. The fact that the UUP's main standard-bearer in the constituency appeared not to share UCUNF's determination to stand gave it support. And, of course, that campaign worked – UCUNF backed down, and Tom Elliott, the wavering UUP man, was pivotal in helping to select a 'unionist unity' candidate – Rodney Connor – who was a member of neither party, and critically, not a member of UCUNF. His selection made liars out of the Tories, and possibly helped to repel almost as many voters elsewhere as he attracted in FST.
And, of course, the rest is history. Despite 'unionist unity' against a divided nationalism, Gildernew won. The nationalist voters in FST were determined not to be outmanoeuvred by the unionist minority, and plumped for Gildernew, giving her a 4 vote majority – the subject of Connor's current legal challenge.

The result on 6 May 2010 was Michelle Gildernew 21,304 votes (45.5%), Rodney Connor 21,300 votes (45.5%), the SDLP's Fearghal McKinney 3,574 votes (7.6%), the Alliance Party's Vasundhara Kamble 437 votes (0.9%), and Independent John Stevenson 188 (0.4%)Despite the high profile of the contest, and the emotions it aroused, the turnout was only 69.3%.
It is interesting to note that, as a result of the falling turnout in the constituency, nationalism attracts fewer actual votes than unionism ever did before 1997. The drop in turnout appears to be affecting both blocks roughly equally, but if turnout rates became decoupled the outcome would be hard to predict.

The British government's proposed reforms to the electoral system will make FST both easier and harder to predict in the future. Easier in the sense that the Alternative Vote (AV) system will make 'unity' candidates obsolete. If votes remain in their 'blocks' then there is no danger to either block if they compete amongst themselves – and by offering a genuine choice within each block such competition may actually increase the (first-preference) vote of the block. The nature of FST is such that transfers would tend to remain in the block, and thus the winner will almost always come from within the largest block – and will thus be a nationalist. Tactical voting by unionists, however, may help decide which nationalist wins.

The other proposed reform involves reducing the number of constituencies. FST, nestled up against the border, will remain largely untouched, though the precise parts of South Tyrone that are attached to Fermanagh may be changed. It is hard to see this changing the balance except in nationalism's favour. The part of West Tyrone (Westminster constituency) bordering the current FST constituency is the West Tyrone DEA of Omagh district, which is quite heavily nationalist. The intention is to create constituencies of around 70,000 electors, and FST currently has almost 68,000, so it may emerge unscathed.

2010 is thus unlikely to represent the last election to the FST Westminster constituency, unless the reforms are more radical than expected. The constituency will continue to arouse passion for some time to come.

The battle for 1916

2010-05-31T10:52:00.004+01:00

In Ireland anniversaries matter, and in the republican calendar none matter more than 1916. As this blog pointed out in November 2009, the country faces a decade of centenaries, with 2016 being a particularly important one. The southern establishment seems to have decided that it needs to reclaim 'ownership' of the key dates in the struggle for partial independence.

Part of the reason why the southern ('official republican') establishment wanted to reclaim the past was to stop the more shadowy dissident republican groups claiming it.

Today the Irish Times has published a letter from Des Dalton, President of Republican Sinn Féin, in which he stakes his party's claim to 1916:

"Madam, – Speaking in UCD on May 20th, the head of the 26-county administration Brian Cowen accused Irish republicans of seeking to “hijack” the centenary of the 1916 Rising (Home News, May 20th). It is an accusation that does not stand up; republicans cannot hijack something they have never abandoned. Irish republicans will commemorate the centenary of 1916 as well as the anniversaries of the other landmark events in Irish revolutionary history, just as we have in the past.

Each year Irish republicans both in Ireland and abroad have commemorated 1916 without fail. The 26-county state on the other hand has alternated between ignoring the anniversary and banning commemoration of it. 1916 commemorations throughout the 26 counties were banned by the Dublin administration in 1937. In 1976 republicans were prosecuted – including Fiona Plunkett sister of Joseph Mary Plunkett – and some jailed for their participation in a banned commemoration at the GPO. Each year republicans face the prospect of prosecution for selling Easter lilys.

For 40 years the 26-county administration ignored the anniversary of 1916, but since 2006 it has opportunistically seized on it in order to sell the big lie that history has come to an end and British rule in Ireland is now accepted.

1916 remains unfinished business while Britain holds any part of Ireland.

The message of 1916 could not be clearer; “Ireland unfree shall never be at peace”. – Yours, etc,"

The next few years will be crucial for dissident republicanism. If it fails to exploit the past – and usurp ownership of it – it will become increasingly irrelevant. But faced with the 'big guns' of the southern establishment and the two main northern nationalist parties, they will struggle to be heard. The southern state will hold increasingly confident celebrations, helped by academia, the media and its monopoly of diplomacy – and the dissidents will look pathetic in comparison.

The single best hope for the dissidents is that some of Ireland's contrarians will provide them with space. Already the 'contrarian-in-chief', Kevin Myers (ex-Irish Times, now Irish Independent columnist) has signalled loudly that he will use his undeniably powerful writing skills to counter the celebration of the Easter Rising, the war of Independence, and anything else that nationalism holds dear. By doing so, of course, he will spark a reaction that will play right into the hands of the dissidents.

The other main contrarians on the island are, of course, the unionists – in so far as they systematically act and speak counter to the prevailing nationalist discourse. However, the unionist position is old, predictable and discounted by most people on the nationalist side of the fence. So when Nelson McCausland uses his position as Minister of Culture to try to pour cold water on the commemorations, nobody will be surprised or even very interested.

The battle for 1916 will be fought within the nationalist family, and so far it is shaping up to be extremely one-sided. As Republican Sinn Féin (and it's comrades-in-arms, the Continuity IRA) appear to be suffering from internal tensions (as reported in the Irish News, for which no link is available, but which is quoted on the Slugger O'Toole blog), there may not even be a coherent 'dissident republican' organisation left by 2016. This would be no great loss.

1916 was history, and its context was widely different from today's. Nationalist Ireland should remember 1916 with pride and with interest, but should not try to map its context onto that of 2016. Instead it should gather the memories of the Home Rule struggle, the Rising, the War of Independence, the civil war, and so on, and commemorate them as past events, while dealing in a 21st century manner with the issues of the 21st century. One of the essential requirements, of course, is that groups like Republican Sinn Féin, which seek to refight the battles of the past, must be marginalised. In that respect, the decision of the southern state to reclaim its past is the right one.

Boo hoo!

2010-05-28T19:08:00.004+01:00

So Bobby Moffat, a member of the Red Hand Commando, has been shot dead.

Matthew verse 26:52 is the appropriate biblical quotation for those of a religious nature.

This blog is irreligious, but shares the sentiment.

One less blood-stained loyalist scumbag on the streets of Belfast can only be a good thing. The reporters who reported on his death knew who he was and what he was - why were they so silent while he was alive? Whose deaths was he responsible for? Which families still grieve because of his sadism? Journalistic collusion is no better than police collusion.

Who killed him? Which loyalist group kept the guns that they claimed to have decommissioned? Will Moffatt's brothers in brutality respond in kind? Hopefully. But hopefully they will kill only other loyalists. Lots of them.

What an embarrassment

2010-05-27T19:22:00.001+01:00

Margaret Ritchie, a so-called Irish nationalist:

When an old woman dies

2010-05-27T12:55:00.001+01:00

There may be a secret injunction that prevents the discussion of the following issue, or maybe people just feel uncomfortable even thinking about it, but it is time the silence was broken.

There is an old woman called Elizabeth – many people may have seen her still at work this week. Unlike many of us she cannot retire – like the Pope she will die in office. She is now 84 years old, but longevity in not unknown in her family – her mother lived to be 101. Nonetheless, the life expectancy for females in the region in which she lives is around 83. If you add a few years for good behaviour, and the best medical care that other people’s taxes can buy, she will certainly exceed the average – but by how many years?

When she dies – and she will – what will the impact be, particularly in Northern Ireland? For many people she is the only head of the British state that they have known – she started work when Stalin still ruled the Soviet Union, and has outlasted almost every other head of state in the world. She inherited her job in the aftermath of World War II, a time when Britain still had an empire and delusions of power.

The nationalist side of the north's population – certainly younger members – will not be greatly upset by her death. But the unionist side, especially the large numbers of old unionists who identify more closely with the glory days of empire, might see her death as the end of an era.

For many unionists she provides continuity with the past, and with a time when unionism was undoubtedly dominant. But 58 years on, much has changed – the empire is gone, and Britain is barely a middle-ranking European country. Northern Ireland, so unionist in 1952, is now more evenly balanced.

For many, the mere act of transfer – the famous ‘the king is dead, long live the king’ moment – will be revolutionary, and will cause them to stop and ask whether this is really the best model for the 21st century. At a time when the hereditary House of Lords is being seriously re-thought, can the questioning of a hereditary head of state be far behind?

No doubt some unionists will use the death of their Queen as an opportunity to try to promote their view of the world. Some will be genuinely upset – and the Princess Diana effect, where people experience some connection with a celebrity who they have never actually known, will no doubt reappear. Every unionist-controlled council will pass the obligatory obsequious motion of devoted loyalty, and they will try to brow-beat nationalists to join in. Nationalists, if they are polite, will express sympathy on the death of the British head of state, but will hopefully resist all the unionist attempts to drag them to their knees. Nationalist Ireland should let its President represent it, with all the pomp and formality that she wishes.

Elizabeth is a strictly formal figurehead who has never put a foot wrong, but her heir, Charles, is less revered by unionists, and for the more religious amongst them he is anathema thanks to his somewhat salacious private life. Paradoxically, he is probably more popular with nationalists that Elizabeth is – he can, and does, visit the south with no problem and is well received there.

Attempts to transfer the carefully constructed loyalty to Elizabeth to her son may not succeed, however – even amongst unionists. The death of Elizabeth may represent another irreversible step in Northern Ireland’s parting from Britain. Charles will not occupy the ‘sainted’ position that his mother currently occupies. The monarchy will become more head of state than god.

And if Charles cannot win the hearts of Northern Ireland’s unionists, then where will their loyalty lie? It is often said that they owe their loyalty to the crown as an institution rather than just a person. But if they do not respect the personification of that crown, how can they truly be loyal to it?

ABC

2010-05-26T13:24:00.003+01:00

That's 'Anything But Celtic' – and must be the new McCausland family motto, judging by the Minister for Culture, Arts and Leisure.

Nelson McCausland – the DUP Minister in question – has just made a fool of himself (again) for writing to Northern Ireland's museums asking them to give more prominence to Ulster-Scots, the Orange Order and 'alternative views on the origin of the universe'.

The first two are, of course, uncontroversial – both are part of what Northern Ireland is, after all. But the third item on McCausland's wish list brings him into the realm of the nutter, and makes him an object of ridicule amongst intelligent people in Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

"Without specifically mentioning creationism, Mr McCausland's letter includes a request for the trustees to consider how alternative views of the origin of the universe can be recognised and accommodated".

He has already been publicly dismissed by Richard Dawkins, and will undoubtedly be the object of as much ridicule as his fellow-DUP 'young earther' Edwin Poots.

But there is more to McCausland than merely an incomprehensible belief in creationism – he is trying his best to use his position to advance his own segment of Northern Ireland's society (the Orange, Protestant and Ulster-Scots segment), and to block the recognition of the other segment, the Gaelic, Celtic, Catholic one.

On his own blog (yes, even creationists can use the internet!) he expends considerable energy trying to dispel the notion that Northern Ireland is a 'Celtic' country, or that it forms part of the 'Celtic fringe':

Yesterday: "… we are not a Celtic country in a linguistic sense. Neither are we a Celtic country in an ethnic sense … The use of the term 'Celtic countries' is therefore erroneous."

In April: "The Celtic Media Festival has been taking place this week in Newry and I was invited by Cathal Goan to attend and officially open the annual festival. … Towards the end and in the context of some remarks about a 'shared and better future' I referred to the way in which the festival organisers described the participating countries as 'Celtic nations'. If we are to recongise and respect the cultural diversity of Northern Ireland, is it appropriate to describe us as a Celtic nation? Yes, there are some people who speak a Celtic language and there are many people who will regard themselves as culturally Celtic or even ethnically Celtic but that represents only one element in our diversity. Is there not a need for a terminology that recognises that important fact?"

The Minister appears to have a bit of a bee in his bonnet about the 'Celticness' of Northern Ireland. 'Celticness' itself is a fairly controversial concept, but in general refers to those areas in which that area's own Celtic languages and cultural traits have survived. According to such a definition Northern Ireland certainly has a very good claim to be Celtic. The area was almost exclusively Irish Gaelic before being 'planted' by a mixture of English and Scots – many also of evident Gaelic ancestry – in the 17th century. Nobody denies that there are many people in Northern Ireland whose ancestry includes other origins, but this is true in the south, and in Britain. Should England stop being called 'English' because there are other elements in its diversity? Or France French because of its North African immigrants?

The real irony in this, of course, is that the Minister carries a Gaelic surname, and thus cannot deny the Celticness of his own paternal line.

One definition of the name McCausland is: probably a variant of MacAuslan, which according to Black is an Anglicization of Mac Ausaláin ‘son of Absolom’, from the name of an early 13th-century cleric. However, there may rather be an underlying Gaelic personal name, possibly Caisealán, meaning ‘little one of the castle’.

Is the Minister suffering from a case of autophobia?

Quality of living

2010-05-26T08:50:00.002+01:00

Everyone – republican or unionist – claims to share a desire to improve the quality of life for the whole of the society in which they live. Definitions of what comprises a high or low quality of life can vary, of course – hence the differences in the republican and unionist approaches – but it is useful to take note of assessments carried out by organisations without any local political interest.

Today, for example, Mercer, a global HR and financial consultancy published its Quality of Living index which covers 221 cities worldwide, including Ireland's two (real) cities, Belfast and Dublin.

The rankings are based on a point-scoring index, which sees first-placed Vienna score 108.6 and worst-placed Baghdad 14.7. Cities are ranked against New York as the base city, with an index score of 100.

Living conditions are analysed according to 39 factors, grouped in 10 categories:

Political and social environment (political stability, crime, law enforcement, etc)
Economic environment (currency exchange regulations, banking services, etc)
Socio-cultural environment (censorship, limitations on personal freedom, etc)
Health and sanitation (medical supplies and services, infectious diseases, sewage, waste disposal, air pollution, etc)
Schools and education (standard and availability of international schools, etc)
Public services and transportation (electricity, water, public transport, traffic congestion, etc)
Recreation (restaurants, theatres, cinemas, sports and leisure, etc)
Consumer goods (availability of food/daily consumption items, cars, etc)
Housing (housing, household appliances, furniture, maintenance services, etc)
Natural environment (climate, record of natural disasters)

European cities dominate amongst the top 25 cities in the index, reflecting the fairly high levels of development and social provision that are part of the European model.

However, for Ireland's two cities the situation is mixed. Dublin ranks at number 26 worldwide – better than any city in the USA or the UK (New York is placed 49, London 39). But Belfast comes in at number 63 – better than Athens, but is that really the best point of comparison?

Ireland's cities should do better. Clearly it is hard to compete on criteria like climate, when Auckland, Perth and Sydney are in the race, but since Ireland has no record of natural disasters and ought to have excellent levels of social provision, medical and educational provision and recreation, there is room for improvement.

All politicians, from every tradition, should see the Quality of Living index as a challenge, and should focus their efforts on moving our cities up the rankings until Ireland achieves Top 10 status.

There is one small piece of good news for Belfast buried in the Mercer's press release – in the parallel Eco-City ranking (based on water availability, water potability, waste removal, sewage, air pollution and traffic congestion) it comes in at number 30 worldwide – ahead of Dublin which is at number 33. There is definitely work to be done here too, of course, and all of these issues are entirely the responsibility of locally elected politicians – the climate or natural factors do not play a part.

Wake up, Ireland's politicians, and take the decisions necessary to bring our cities up to the level of Switzerland, Scandinavia and the antipodes!

O'Loan sent to detention

2010-05-25T16:28:00.002+01:00

It seems that SDLP headmistress Margaret Ritchie called in naughty boy Declan O'Loan for a stern talking-to. And despite whatever excuses the naught boy could offer, Headmistress Ritchie has sent him to detention.

The SDLP has said the party whip has been removed from the North Antrim MLA Declan O'Loan following his call for a single nationalist party. Mr O'Loan will now not be able to meetings of the party's assembly group.

It said party leader Margaret Ritchie took action following a meeting with Mr O'Loan on Tuesday. The party said the whip has been removed for an indefinite period which the leader will decide.

So, despite O'Loan's (probably unwilling) retraction of his original statement, he has still been punished "for an indefinite period which the leader will decide". This implies that he did not prostrate himself before her today – he clearly argued back, and as we all know, naughty boys who argue back are punished more severely!

The SDLP will presumably now need a new spokesman for finance and personnel, since O'Loan is in detention for the foreseeable future.

Will he take his punishment without a murmur, or will he fight back? That is today's Question of the Day. Tomorrow's question of the day might be whether the SDLP has a future now that it has opted for totalitarianism at the top. O'Loan's 'retraction' yesterday was almost Stalinesque.

This blog has never been a fan of Ritchie, but she seems to be driving the SDLP over a cliff much quicker than anyone expected.

Whither O'Loan?

2010-05-25T10:58:00.003+01:00

Declan O'Loan's solo-run in favour of nationalist unity, and subsequent rapid slap-down from his party (the SDLP) places a question-mark over his future in the party.

O'Loan is the SDLP's spokesperson on Finance and Personnel, and is Vice Chair of the Assembly's Culture, Arts and Leisure Committee. As such he is a relative heavy-weight in the party, and not a political novice. His statement in favour of "a major realignment of northern nationalism" cannot have been made lightly – he knew that it was controversial, and that it would be seen as a direct challenge to the leadership of his own party.

Perhaps he was surprised by the rapidity and severity of the party's reaction. It forced him to retract his statement within hours, and left him humiliated, isolated and in the dog-house.

Where does that leave his political future?

O'Loan is a mainstay of the SDLP in North Antrim, but North Antrim is certainly not an SDLP stronghold. Although he was elected to the Assembly in 2007, the constituency has changed and a proportion of the nationalist electorate that elected him is now in East Antrim. In fact the SDLP in North Antrim was already suffering before the boundary changes – when Seán Farren was its standard-bearer it used to get around 16-18% of the vote, but by 2007 this was down to 12.2%. This year, with the new constituency boundaries, the SDLP managed only 8.8% of the vote – too few to have a serious hope of retaining O'Loan's seat in the Assembly. According to the recent Westminster election results, unionism has over 5 Assembly quotas in North Antrim, but nationalism has only one-and-a-half. Sinn Féin was the dominant nationalist party in the constituency both in 2007 and in 2010 (though Daithí McKay has also lost a lot of votes with the transfer of Glenaan, Glenariff and Glendun to East Antrim), and there is no reason to expect a change in that situation. The single nationalist seat in North Antrim would thus probably have been won by McKay even before O'Loan's recent difficulties.

Now, however, O'Loan is in his party's dog-house – and how can he seriously campaign for a party that he effectively wanted to see disappear?

Yet for the SDLP to dump O'Loan would be electoral suicide in North Antrim. He would take with him many supporters, including those with whom he had discussed his original 'nationalist unity' ideas. As he himself put it: "I have discussed the proposition of a new single nationalist party with the grassroots SDLP membership in North Antrim, including the councillors, and it was very strongly supported."

The next few days or weeks ought to clarify O'Loan's position – and the SDLP's. His belief in nationalist unity will make him a liability next year in the Assembly elections if he stands, but if he is 'de-selected' by the SDLP then the party will self-destruct in North Antrim. Will he take the next step, and resign from the party? And if he does, will he be alone?

It is not out of the question that O'Loan's statement could become the catalyst for precisely what he was seeking – a major realignment of northern nationalism – by splitting the SDLP down the middle. The party is already divided between the Ritchie and McDonnell factions, and between the Fianna Fáilers and the others. If O'Loan leaves, and takes other with him, the rump that would be left may not be enough to constitute a serious party any more.

If O'Loan leaves, his destination would be very interesting. It is very unlikely to be Sinn Féin – and the only other serious possibility is Fianna Fáil, which does not yet have a presence in the constituency. Any other destinations would effectively end his political career – but maybe it is already over?

Nationalist unity call – inevitable but wrong

2010-05-24T18:49:00.002+01:00

The news that the SDLP’s Declan O’Loan had mused about nationalist unity, before being slapped down by his party, is hardly surprising. It reflects an almost inevitable reaction to the calls for unionist unity.

Many have said it, and many are right – ‘unionist unity’ would lead almost inevitably to formal or de facto ‘nationalist unity’. Fermanagh and South Tyrone showed that nationalist voters are willing – even without any formal pacts – to vote for the strongest nationalist candidate when faced with unionist attempts to gain a seat by appealing to their tribe.

O'Loan said that his discussions with constituents on nationalist unity were very strongly supported, but he backed down and withdrew his original statement saying it "does not represent established party policy." The SDLP is reported to be "furious" and that O'Loan was "told in no uncertain terms to withdraw the statement".

However, statements made cannot be unmade. Eggs have been broken, and cannot be put back together. O’Loan had earlier said that: "I believe that a major realignment of northern nationalism is now called for and I think that this means the formation of a new single nationalist party”.

The genie is now out of the bottle – and FST has shown how nationalist unity can work in the interests of the nationalist electorate. Clearly the Ritchie leadership of the SDLP does not agree, but she is, at best, a controversial leader. She does not have the full support of her whole party, despite what some might say. There must be considerable tensions in the SDLP at present, and the long run-up to next year’s Assembly election will not help.

A single nationalist party is, of course, no more rational than a single unionist party – except that nationalism needs to achieve a specific single act before it can move to ‘normal’ politics. Nationalism shares the need to succeed in breaking the link with Britain, regardless of the nature of politics that follows that step. Unionism, by contrast, is already operating within their chosen polity, and thus unionist unity (and indeed unionism itself) is a political nonsense.

However, according to the Good Friday Agreement, the act of breaking the link with Britain will be based upon a referendum when it appears that circumstances are favourable. There is no need, before that date, for nationalists to agree on much, and thus no need for a single nationalist party. Nationalists can be – and are – left or right wing, environmentalists, liberals or libertarians. There is no reason for them to all vote for a single party or a single candidate, and indeed in many cases this would be almost impossible. It would be better, and more democratic, for nationalists to vote according to their political preferences, with the constitutional question as a background. In other words, nationalists should be able to vote according to other issues – economic, social, environmental, etc – in the first instance, and then to transfer their vote to another nationalist party if they wish. In this way, the ‘issue’ politics are registered, as well as the constitutional’ politics.

Many voters have two concerns – an issue, and the constitutional issue – and voting pacts between competing parties allow the voters to register a particular socio-economic preference, without damaging the overall (background) nationalist vote. A single nationalist party, however, would disenfranchise many voters who wish to express a preference for, e.g. more or less public spending, or more respect for the environment, etc. Some voters who find themselves unable to express these sorts of preferences might simply not vote, and their voices would be unheard.

It is thus better for nationalism, for democracy, and for all of our futures, that there are a variety of competing parties within the nationalist family. Already, with only two – both irresponsibly statist – many voices are unheard. Nationalism needs more, not fewer, parties. The question of who their voters transfer to is less important. If a right-wing nationalist votes for a future right-of-centre nationalist party, but transfers to a right-of-centre unionist party, this is not illogical. The first preference – for a party within the nationalist family – would be sufficient to indicate a constitutional preference. If both nationalists and unionists vote in this way the ‘constitutional referendum’ nature of every Northern Irish election is retained, but a connection to ‘issues politics’ can grow. Of course, if the voter is also concerned to register a constitutional position, then s/he can transfer to another nationalist party.

Over time, parties based upon issues – economic, social, environmental, etc – would grow in strength, but in parallel within each ‘constitutional’ community. Voters may become more strategic, but the double meaning of each vote would not be lost.

So, Declan O’Loan, forget about 'nationalist unity' – it would diminish nationalism, both numerically and philosophically. Instead, try to offer the voters a choice of outcomes, and let the voter – who, like the customer, is king – decide what they want, instead of being faced with an uncompetitive monopoly.

11 Councils - Withering on the vine

2010-05-23T19:45:00.004+01:00

The plan to replace the current 26 district councils with 11 appears to be heading for disaster. The News Letter reports that:

At best, the proposed new councils will miss the original deadline of May 2011, and the local elections next year will be to the existing 26 bodies. At worst, the 11 new councils will never materialise.

This blog already noted that the plan was heading for the rocks six months ago – but on 20 May the Minister responsible, Edwin Poots of the DUP, ‘refused to confirm that the plan would go ahead’

This blog has never been a fan of the proposal, and considers that it would have represented more of a loss than a gain for nationalism. As this blog said on 26 January 2009:

Sinn Féin could have blocked the change to the 11-Council model, by insisting on a cross-community vote. But they did not, and acquiesced to the DUP's proposal.
By so doing, they actually reduced both the area and the population of the districts that would have come under nationalist control, and consigned a greater number of nationalists to life under unionist political domination.

It seems that nationalist councillors agree with this blog:

In Ballymena, the sole Sinn Fein member, Monica Digney, said: “The whole thing was a damp squib from the start – far too ambitious and too difficult to achieve.

On the North Coast, the SDLP’s John Dallat (formerly of Coleraine Borough Council) said: “It’s just as well it’s dying on its feet. It was a massive form of gerrymandering and I’m surprised that Sinn Fein fell for it in the first place. We were supposed to merge with Moyle, Limavady and Ballymoney which was much too ungainly. Let’s hope it withers on the vine.”

Amen.

Institute of Directors comes off the fence

2010-05-23T19:25:00.003+01:00

‘Closer collaboration between the Republic and Northern Ireland would help both economies face the challenges posed by the need to reduce national deficits’, Joanne Stuart, Chairman of the Institute of Directors in Northern Ireland said on Thursday.

“One aspect that is missing in this debate is how we leverage our relationship with the south. We are very aware of the challenges that the Republic is facing – and is dealing with - and we have a unique opportunity to explore how we could work better on an all-island basis.

“While recognising that north and south remain independent jurisdictions, we believe the potential for even greater synergies exists across a range of areas including transport, health, energy, tourism and economic development.”

The IoD goes on to say that:

Ann Riordan, President of the IoD in Ireland, echoed Ms Stuart’s desire for closer working on an all-island basis. She said: “Cooperation between North and South will be a key factor in strengthening our economies. By sharing the knowledge and expertise of our business leaders and leveraging the wealth of talent that exists on both sides of the border, we can develop strong and cohesive business networks, offering real and sustainable benefits to both economies.”

What would the IoD know? Well:

The Institute of Directors in Ireland is the representative body for senior, strategic business professionals in Ireland. Members include chief executives, chairpersons, board members, senior executives and partners of large national and international entities in Ireland.

So, senior, strategic business professionals including executives, chairpersons, board members, senior executives and partners of large national and international entities think that ‘the potential for even greater synergies exists’. Even a blind man could read that message! The border is a business and economic impediment, north and south, and the people responsible for creating wealth – as opposed to just spending other people’s money – want less border and more north-south co-operation.

As this blog has pointed out before, the border makes no sense and diminishes the lives and welfare of all Irish people, north and south. It must be removed.

The unionist response to the opinion of the business class will be, as always, a deafening silence. Unionism is not a rational creed – it does not seek the economic betterment of the north – it merely seeks to block the tide of ‘Irishness’. It is, to all extents and purposes, merely an ethnic nationalist movement, with the added spice of sectarianism.

Nobody claims that the IoD is republican – or even nationalist. They are rationalist. And their rationalism tells them that unionism’s border is wrong. Presumably, behind the scenes in quiet fora and meetings, the IoD is pushing its position. Economic rationality tends to win at the end of the day – ask the Soviet Union!

Elections, demography, and economics – all pushing in one direction. Unionism’s nasty little statelet is doomed.

Saulters’ “one big unionist party”

2010-05-22T19:23:00.001+01:00

Orange Order Grand Master Robert Saulters believes that there should be one big unionist party:

"It must be a party that is big enough and modern enough to allow people with conflicting opinions to work together for the common purpose of maintaining the union."

So set it up then, Saulters. And then you’ll see how wrong you are, and how completely out of touch the archaic Orange Order is. And the rest of us will get a great laugh.

What if the Alternative Vote system had been used?

2010-05-21T16:15:00.002+01:00

A psephological 'what if' – 'what if' the Alternative Vote system had been used on May 6? Would the result have been significantly different?

AV is basically the well-known PR-STV system, but operated in single-member constituencies. If no candidate is the first preference of a majority of voters, the candidate with the fewest number of first preference rankings is eliminated and that candidate's ballots are redistributed at full value to the remaining candidates according to the next ranking on each ballot. This process is repeated until one candidate obtains a majority of votes among candidates not eliminated.

Obviously this particular 'what if' requires a certain number of assumptions to be made, but luckily Northern Ireland has a rich seam of previous elections – using PR-STV – to mine. So, for simplicity, the approximate transfer behaviour of the 2007 Assembly elections will be used. The TUV, of course, did not exist in 2007, but the transfer behaviour of like-minded unionists will suffice as a proxy.

West of the Bann Sinn Féin and SDLP transfers will go to each other – but only 60% of them – the rest do not transfer. East of the Bann (or, more accurately, in Greater Belfast), SDLP transfers will be split 50/50 between Sinn Féin and Alliance. Unionist transfers will remain within the family, but TUV votes will not all transfer – perhaps only 80% of them. Alliance transfers will be split 50/50 between the SDLPO and the UUP.

In addition, of course, account must be taken for the tactical voting in 2010, where voters had basically one chance to make it count, and may thus have already voted for their 'second, but most realistic, preference', rather than their real first preference (if he/she was perceived to have no chance of being elected).

With these brave assumptions, it is possible to assess the AV winners of each of the 18 seats as follows:

West Belfast, Mid Ulster and North Down would be won outright, as their winner received over 50% of the 'First Preferences'.
East Belfast: it is likely here that the Alliance first preference vote would not have been so high. The nationalist candidates would be quickly eliminated and their votes transferred to Long, but would make only a marginal difference. Vance's TUV votes would have gone in the opposite direction, adding slightly to both Ringland's and Robinson's total. The question of who would next be eliminated decides this contest. Probably all three – UCUNF, Alliance and DUP – are within a short distance of each other. If, at this point, Ringland is ahead of Long, then she is eliminated and many of her votes transfer to Ringland, giving him the winning margin. But if Long is ahead of Ringland, then it is the UCUNF votes that are transferred – and they may tend to stay in the unionist family, giving the victory – a narrow one – to Robinson.
North Belfast: this would be close. All candidates except Dodds and Kelly would be eliminated – giving Dodds the UCUNF transfers, and Kelly some of the Alliance and SDLP transfers. But probably not enough, so Dodds would win.
South Belfast: the Green and Alliance transfers would have seen McDonnell over the line without much difficulty.
East Antrim: when the nationalists are eliminated a sufficient number of their votes would not transfer, and with a small number of transfers from the TUV Sammy Wilson would easily win.
East Derry: Alliance and the TUV would be eliminated first, giving a small boost to the DUP and the SDLP. The SDLP would probably be next to go, giving Sinn Féin a boost, and in much smaller numbers, the UUP. Last to be eliminated, though, is UCUNF, who carry Campbell over the winning line.
Fermanagh and South Tyrone; the SDLP transfers would see Michelle Gildernew safely home.
Foyle: there was some unionist tactical voting here, but this merely pre-empted the transfers that would have happened under AV. Durkan would get in safely with unionist transfers.
Lagan Valley: Donaldson is so close that the non-transferable votes after the elimination of Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the TUV would carry him mathematically over 50%.
Newry and Armagh: this offers the interesting possibility of serious unionist tactical voting. Conor Murphy got 42% of the 'first preferences', but it would take 54% of all the other votes to transfer to the SDLP for Bradley would take the seat. The probability of such coordination amongst unionists is fairly small, though, so Murphy would probably retain the seat.
North Antrim: nobody was within an ass's roar of Paisley, so he would take the seat with ease.
South Antrim: the Alliance votes and some of the SDLP votes would probably transfer to Empey, and there is little chance that Sinn Féin transfers would go to McCrea. McCrea would get some TUV transfers, but there weren't enough TUV votes to change the outcome. Empey would have won.
South Down: as in Foyle, Ritchie's 2010 vote was swollen by unionist tactical votes. But these would happen under AV, just one step later.
Strangford: although Shannon may not have gotten many transfers, the non-transferrable votes from Sinn Féin and SDLP eliminations would see him safely over 50% of those remaining.
Upper Bann: Alliance and SDLP elimination would take Sinn Féin beyond the UCUNF (and maybe DUP) candidates, but the elimination of UCUNF would have brought the DUP's Simpson out ahead.
West Tyrone: Sinn Féin would be over 50% with the help of only a few transfers. It would have taken over 92% of all of the other transfers to have gone to the SDLP for them to have beaten Doherty, and that is nigh-on impossible.

So AV would, in fact, have changed relatively little. Peter Robinson probably would have retained his seat, and Empey would have gained one. That, of course, is just for the 2010 election – in the future Northern Ireland's relatively sophisticated electorate may learn to play the system better, and use their transfers more decisively. Perhaps in 2015 the electorate will get a real chance to try.

Licking their wounds

2010-05-21T12:06:00.004+01:00

The silence from the TUV since May 6 has been deafening.

The resounding rejection of the party by Northern Ireland's voters appears to have stunned them. They had been mislead by a small number of earlier contests to believe that they would attract about a quarter of the unionist vote – with luck and a split vote this might have even delivered them a seat or two. But the main intention, presumably, was to put in a strong performance that would position them for next year's Assembly elections.

But the paltry 26,300 votes that they received (admittedly in only 10 constituencies), puts them in a pretty poor position.

The TUV's score of the vote in the constituencies that they contested ranged from 3.5% to 16.8%, with an average of 7.3%. This is simply not enough to win seats in the Assembly. On the basis of the Westminster results the TUV would win one Assembly seat – Jim Allister in North Antrim. His hope of forming a block to bring down power-sharing would fail.

In the TUV's 10 contested seats the DUP won 49.2% of the unionist vote. Even UCUNF won 29.6%. The TUV won 11.6% of the unionist vote! Unionists rejected dissident unionism, and voted for participation in the power-sharing Executive.

So where does this leave the TUV?

Politics is ruthless, and failed parties rarely last long. The TUV has failed – twice now. Allister lost his European soap-box in 2009, and his party failed to make much impact in 2010. Will the TUV bother to wait around for its almost inevitable humiliation in 2011? Will it continue to attract members, supporters, or donators?

These are obviously the thoughts that are going through the heads of the TUVs band of loyal supporters. But on their own website there is no evidence of any activity whatsoever, and the TUV's Duracell bunny, David Vance – so willing to blog on anything and everything – seems to have little at all to say on the future of his brand of unionism, apart from trying to fold it into the other brands that he was so gleefully criticising before the election!

Is this the last hurrah for rejectionist unionism, or will it return like a zombie to scare us all again next year, and the year after that, and on and on until it finally gets the point?

On albatrosses and anniversaries

2010-05-20T12:38:00.003+01:00

Taoiseach Brian Cowen today spoke at the Annual Conference of the Institute for British Irish Studies, on the subject of history – our shared history, and in particular the decade of centenaries that stretches in front of us.

This blog has, of course, already drawn attention to the decade of centenaries, but the official recognition now given to it by the Taoiseach will probably raise its profile somewhat.

Cowen referred in his speech to the observation, by poet Robert Greacen that "in Ireland, especially in the North, the past hangs round people’s necks like an albatross". Cowen said that following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement "we all – together – began to lift the albatross from our neck" – not in the sense that we have started to forget our history, but in the sense that the albatross is a dead weight that weighs us down.

The albatross reference comes from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (originally The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere), which was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1797–98. The albatross is hung around the mariner's neck by his angry companions as they blame him for bringing misfortune on them by killing it. Unlike in Cowen's version, the mariner did not lift the bird from his neck – it fell off only when he managed to pray.

Whether the weight of the albatross of history will fall from the neck of the Irish nation is hard to know, and past experience does not bode well. History is a powerful motivator, and raises passions that are otherwise dormant. Cowen may well have been bowing to the inevitable by opening a public debate on the decade of centenaries – they will be remembered anyway – and he may have decided to deal with them proactively.

Several years ago the southern state decided to upgrade its commemoration of the Easter Rising. This move was taken for two reasons; firstly because the end of the IRA's war in the north meant that the southern state could no longer be seen as providing moral succour, and secondly to reclaim 1916 for 'official Ireland' in good time for the centenary in 2016. Perhaps Cowen's move today is being taken for similar reasons – if the state and its institutions are leading the commemorations there is less risk that they will be hijacked by others, including the dissident republicans.

The re-appropriation of history by the state carries with it another opportunity. As Cowen said:

" … the Government has considered these issues in recent weeks and has decided that its approach will be guided by several principles.

We want to see full acknowledgment of the totality of the island’s history and the legitimacy of all the traditions on the island that draw their identity and collective memory from our shared history.

We want the process of commemoration to recognise the totality of the history of the period, and all of the diversity that this encompasses,

We believe that mutual respect should be central to all commemorative events and that historical accuracy should be paramount.

Based on those principles, we will engage in a programme of outreach to all those who are interested in commemorating our history, in all its dimensions, with pride and with respect.

That will, of course, include all of the political parties on the island, as well as leaders of civic society and cultural institutions."

This means that unionism will be faced with a dilemma. Its centenaries will be included amongst those commemorated by the southern state – so how will unionism react? Will it churlishly refuse to join it, insisting on having its own separate ceremonies? Or will it embrace the opportunity to detoxify history?

If it is the former, then by 2022, when the bulk of the centenaries will be behind us, unionism will emerge looking smaller, pettier and more isolated than ever. If, as all indications imply, unionism will be a minority creed and Protestantism a bare majority in the north, the psychological impact may be enormous, and may help to speed the death of unionism as a significant political movement.

But if it is the latter, then by 2022 unionism will have been intimately involved with Irish nationalism, both north and south, for a decade, and will have shown that de facto it is an Irish movement with a past and a future in Ireland. All sorts of new relationships will have been created, and all sorts of barriers broken down. The logic of close north-south cooperation may have been learnt, and who knows where that might lead …

That albatross still has a lot of power to influence our lives.

Alliance Party – Little Ulsterists too

2010-05-20T08:34:00.002+01:00

The news that "all 13 Northern Ireland MPs are going to be sitting in the opposition benches" is yet another small proof that Northern Ireland is a ‘place apart’ and not really a full part of the UK.

The surprise in this news lies less in the fact that the SDLP – a sister party of the Labour Party – are formally opposing the Tory-led government, or even that the 'Ulster Nationalist' DUP are remaining in splendid isolation, but in the fact that Naomi Long, the Alliance Party’s fresh MP, is joining the SDLP and the DUP in opposition to the Tory-LibDem coalition.

Because the Alliance Party has always portrayed itself as the sister-party of the LibDems – a fellow member of the ELDR group of liberal parties in the EU. This ‘sister party’ status is mentioned in bold on page 36 of their 2010 manifesto and “we are proud to be members of ELDR (the European Liberal Democratic and Reform party) and of Liberal International, in association with the European and international liberal families”, they say on page 44.

And yet, when their sister party gets closer to real power, and when Alliance could have used their sisterhood to exert some small influence over matters that affect them – they actually turned against their sister party and decided to oppose them! And this despite such opposition being futile, as the coalition has a relatively secure majority.

So why did Alliance do it? Why, when closer to power – admittedly twice-removed – than ever believed possible, did they retreat into pointless isolation, choosing as allies the Little Ulsterists of the DUP?

Why did Alliance not choose instead to proudly announce that they, and only they, of the four Northern Irish parties with MPs, actually could influence policy? Why did they not integrate themselves into the ruling coalition, perhaps even gaining a minor role somewhere?

The alignment of the Alliance MP with the DUP and the SDLP is bizarre and counter to all political logic – bar one thing. That thing is that the Alliance Party too sees itself first and foremost as a 'Northern Irish' party and not as a part of the British political mainstream. By joining with the homophobes and bigots of the DUP in order to extract the 'best deal' possible for Northern Ireland, they show themselves to be regionalists who have no great interest in the wider welfare of the UK. This, of course, is music to the ears of (Irish) nationalists, because it demonstrates loudly and publicly that even the internationalist Alliance Party is primarily a Little Ulster party – 'Ulster Nationalists' in the closet, so to speak – though their choice of Westminster seating arrangements on Tuesday shows that they are starting to come out of the closet.

The majority of opinion in Northern Ireland is now clearly on the side of island-based nationalism – Irish in the case of Sinn Féin and the SDLP, 'Ulsterist' in the case of the DUP and now Alliance. This identification with Ireland (in one or other format) rather than with the UK provides an interesting parallel with the situation over 100 years ago when the Irish MPs returned to Westminster also constituted themselves as an 'Irish Party' – concerned primarily with the interests of their country rather than with those of the UK. That situation now appears to be re-establishing itself in a smaller version, with all 13 sitting MPs grouping themselves into a clear Northern Irish block, even in opposition to their own British sister-parties!

The new Northern Irish block demonstrates that the same separatist tendencies exist, even amongst those who proclaim their 'Britishness' most loudly. It tells the world that Northern Ireland is only a semi-detached part of the UK, interested mainly in the hand-outs. It seems that despite the absence of Sinn Féin, sinn féin remains the mantra of the sitting Northern Irish MPs.

Clegg’s Great Reform Act

2010-05-19T18:04:00.003+01:00

Nick Clegg, Britain’s deputy Prime Minister, today set out his plans for political and electoral reform – what he calls his own Great Reform Act.

How much will they impact on Northern Ireland?

Firstly, it has to be acknowledged that Clegg is but the spare wheel in what is a largely Tory-driven vehicle. Whether he gets his way on this, or on anything much, is yet to be seen. But assuming he does, the following parts of his speech are of interest to the political scene in the north:

"This government will replace the House of Lords with an elected second chamber... Where members are elected by a proportional voting system."

The current House of Lords is a scandalous anachronism – a mixture of inherited privilege and political appointments – that would make even a third-world banana-republic blush. And yet it has been accepted, even respected, in the semi-democratic UK right up to the twenty-first century! Irish nationalists and republicans have, of course, never accepted it – standards of democracy are clearly much higher amongst nationalists. One so-called ‘republican’ – a certain Gerry Fitt – was seduced into membership of the House of Lords, but he was barely able to show his face in Belfast again.

However, an elected House of Lords might be a completely different thing. If it was a democratic body, without the feudal and corrupt overtones of the present body, then nationalists might seek election, just as they do to the present House of Commons. It would, in effect, become another front in Northern Ireland’s on-going constitutional war. The same arguments and contests would take place – who would win more seats, nationalism or unionism, who within each block would prevail, and so on. It would, needless to say, provide another forum for Sinn Féin to boycott.

The ‘proportional voting system’ used to elect its members would obviously have to differ from that of the reformed House of Commons – otherwise the two bodies would simply be mirrors of each other. Might PR-STV in multi-member constituencies find its place here?

"This government will be putting to you, in a referendum, the choice to introduce a new voting system, called the Alternative Vote. Under that new system far more MPs will have to secure support from at least half the people who vote in their constituency... And, hand in hand with that change, there will be new constituency boundaries, reducing the number of MPs overall and creating constituencies that are more equal in size."

These two changes would affect Northern Ireland significantly. Alternative Vote (AV) would mean that in each constituency the seat would be effectively guaranteed to the largest block, so the voting pacts and ‘unity’ candidates that Northern Ireland throws up would become obsolete. All parties would be encouraged to stand everywhere, in the certain knowledge that they would not be ‘splitting the vote’. In a limited number of constituencies, of course, where neither block has a clear majority, the transfers of the ‘others’ (Alliance, etc) will become vital. This means, of course, that the successful candidate would be likely to be that of the more moderate party. South Belfast would continue to return an SDLP member, but South Antrim would no longer return the odious McCrea from the DUP. Tactical voting would take place at the level of the second and subsequent preferences, so the first-preference votes would more closely show the ‘real’ strengths of each party.

The overall impact of AV would not be great, except in the few marginal seats. The party that would suffer most from it would probably be the DUP (who would lose South Antrim, and probably Upper Bann). The beneficiaries would be the UUP and the SDLP, though whether either would gain more than one seat would depend on circumstances.

The second part of Clegg’s plan for the House of Commons is a reduction in the number of seats, and that is very interesting. He provided no details on the scale of the reduction, though Cameron had earlier implied reductions that would leave Northern Ireland with about 15 seats. How they are configured is, of course, the key issue. Some seats, now marginal (North and South Belfast, for instance), could become safer for one or the other side. Others, now safe, could become marginal! The devil will be in the detail.

One further proposal in Clegg’s speech is also interesting. He said that:

"I have already commissioned work on introducing the power of recall. If your MP is corrupt, you will be able to sack them. You will need the support of 10% of people living in the constituency... And your MP will have had to have been found guilty of serious wrongdoing..."

Now while he refers to ‘serious wrongdoing’, it would not be a stretch to include some form of penalisation for abstentionism in this context. If Clegg’s Great Reform Act decides to make the refusal to take a seat a ‘serious wrongdoing’, then the angry unionist voters – in all cases at least 10% – in the seats (now 5, perhaps fewer in future if the number of seats is reduced) held by Sinn Féin could instigate a ‘recall’ of the Sinn Féin member. This would certainly stir up a hornets nest.

Clegg’s plans are, of course, very preliminary, and there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. This is an issue – or series of issues – to watch closely.

The Greening of South Belfast

2010-05-18T13:20:00.003+01:00

In the past South Belfast was a safe unionist seat. It contained areas inhabited by the comfortable Protestant middle class, as well as rougher worker class – but still mainly Protestant – areas. Small pockets of Catholics and nationalists existed, but were marginal.

However, a combination of free education and improving equality led to increasing numbers of middle-class Catholics – and many of them also wanted to live in the nicer areas off the Lisburn Road, the Malone Road, or in Stranmillis. Queens graduates, already familiar with the Holy Land from their student days, perhaps sought to remain in the area if they found jobs in Belfast. Little by little the Catholic proportion of the population in South Belfast grew.

In the 2001 Census, the statistics on Community Background (religion or religion brought up in) showed the scale of the Catholic influx. Of those aged over 75, around 80% were Protestant – however amongst lower age groups the proportion of Catholics increased until, around the age of 40, it starts to equal or exceed that of Protestants. Amongst the student-age population the Catholic proportion exceeds that of Protestants, but many of these are transient residents of the constituency.

Tellingly, amongst the children, Catholics exceed Protestants at the youngest ages – indicating an increased tendency amongst young Catholics to settle in the area. The proportion claiming no religion also increases at these youngest ages, and we will have to wait until after the next census to try to understand which religion (if any) these children are being brought up in.

This increase in the Catholic proportion of South Belfast's population had its inevitable impact on the politics of the constituency. Forty years ago – when those over-75s were in their thirties – South Belfast was over 70% unionist. This is entirely consistent with the age profile of those aged over 50 in the graph above – only these would have been in the electorate in 1970. But as time passed, the decreasing Protestant proportion, and the increasing Catholic proportion, meant that the unionist proportion of the vote declined, and the nationalist proportion increased:

The spike in 1986, of course, represents the anti-Anglo-Irish Agreement by-elections, which were boycotted by many nationalists, so are not truly representative. Otherwise the trend in the unionist proportion is almost uniformly downward. The nationalist trend is generally upward – creeping closer and closer to the unionist proportion until May 6 2010, when the nationalist vote – for the first time ever in South Belfast – exceeded the unionist vote (by 16 votes).

The election results shown in the graph above are for the constituency as it was configured at the times of the elections – boundary revisions mean that it is not always the same area, but the bulk of the constituency has remained largely unchanged.

In 2005, for the first time ever, South Belfast was won by a nationalist candidate – the SDLP's Alasdair McDonnell. Unionism, accustomed to 'owning' South Belfast, contorted itself in the hope of wresting it back in 2010, but ultimately failed when McDonnell was the only nationalist candidate.

There is little reason to expect a freezing, still less a reversal, of the greening of South Belfast. The older age-groups remain predominantly Protestant, and as they die they will be replaced in the electorate by a more mixed group. A majority of Northern Ireland's students, and thus its graduates, are Catholic and many will probably continue to settle in South Belfast.

Obviously turn-out can influence the outcome of future elections – if unionist turn-out is higher than nationalist turn-out they may again win a majority of the vote – but this appears to be a declining possibility. A 'unionist unity' candidate may still win South Belfast at the next Westminster election, unless the Sinn Féin abstention becomes a tradition. Finally, if the number of Westminster seats in Northern Ireland is reduced, this will obviously have an impact on South Belfast, perhaps leading to an entirely different constituency with more Protestant-majority districts, and thus a new unionist majority. But this is early days for such speculations.

At present, and in its current shape, South Belfast is a constituency that is visibly greening.

Unionist unity proves unionism is hypocritical

2010-05-17T21:43:00.002+01:00

The setbacks that unionism suffered in the recent Westminster elections (e.g. the failure of all three unionist party leaders to win a seat, and the continued decline in the unionist share of the vote) have given rise to increasingly open calls for ‘unionist unity’. Such calls are hardly new, of course – the Hatfield House talks that cost the UUP/Tory non-merger its Castle-Catholic members, and the Rodney Connor embarrassment, were recent attempts to forge some sort of ‘unionist front'.

The May 6 Massacre, however, has given rise to calls for unity even from the TUV – a sure sign of worry on the orange side of Northern Ireland’s divided political landscape.

Surely unionism considers Northern Ireland to be ‘part of the UK’, and thus subject to the ebb and flow of UK politics? Why should any party in Northern Ireland feel the need to call itself ‘unionist’? Surely a ‘British’ person in Northern Ireland would vote for his or her preferred political creed, and thus play a part in the political life of their country? Are ‘British’ people in Northern Ireland not socialists, liberals, greens or fascists just as in Britain? Do these creeds not oppose – even detest – each other?

The very fact that unionism exists is proof that Northern Ireland is not ‘British’. If unionists think that the UK is the best future for Northern Ireland, then there must be an ideological reason for this – either because it offers a superior social welfare system (but it doesn’t) or because it offers a better framework for entrepreneurship (but it doesn’t), or for some other objective reason. The complete absence of any ideological foundation for unionism – other than anti-Irish bigotry – is what allows unionists of all classes, ages and socio-economic backgrounds to come together.

If unionists were consistent to their ‘British’ beliefs there would be, at least, a ‘Unionist Social Democratic’ party, and a ‘Unionist Christian Democratic’ party. In fact, there is none of the first, and three of the second! But in truth, if unionists were consistent there would be no ‘unionist’ in the title of any of their parties – there would be parties based on economics, environmentalism or class. However, there aren’t. And the call for ‘unionist unity’ shows that unionists are actually thinking in the opposite direction!

A ‘unionist unity’ party can only be a counter-party to non-unionism (or anti-unionism). It cannot be an answer to socialism, capitalism, pollution or rural deprivation. Its only purpose is to thwart the desires of those who aspire to an Irish national identity – and yet the only time when such an identity could actually threaten the constitutional position of Northern Ireland is in a border poll. So the existence of unionism in normal, everyday politics is a nonsense – worse, it represents a narrow negative reactionary attitude, the precise antithesis of the ‘Britishness’ that unionism claims to belong to.

And while unionist parties (in the plural) are antithetical to ‘Britishness’, a single unified unionist party simply proves beyond any doubt that unionists are motivated only by negativity. Trades unionists, greens, middle-class property-owners, company directors, farmers and all the rest have no natural political commonality – if they combine in one single ‘unionist’ party – in the absence of any imminent border poll – they are simply proving the religious basis of unionism.

And, of course, as unionists would claim, religion is not what makes them unionists. How, then, can they explain the broad-based, but almost exclusively Protestant, nature of their proposed unionist unity project?

Any unionist who calls for, or supports, ‘unionist unity’ is no civic unionist, but rather a tribal, probably sectarian, unionist. Yet so many are flocking to the banner of unity …

Unionism can only become ‘British’ by losing its obsession with ‘the union’ – and by, for all extents and purposes, short of a border poll, ceasing to call themselves ‘unionist’. The continued fetish with the British flag, with attaching the adjective ‘unionist’ to anything that isn’t Teflon-coated, and the denial of valid political divisions, all prove time and time again that ‘unionism’ is merely a form of ethno-religious nationalism. As such it is limited to the adherents of a shrinking tribe, and will be overtaken by ‘the other’ tribe, the one that is growing faster and already has more adherents amongst the young.

Unionism can unite to its heart’s content – but as long as it remains a tribal-religious movement it is vulnerable to demographic (and not just democratic) defeat. ‘Unity’ simply hastens the day of its ultimate defeat.

Going, going, …

2010-05-17T13:20:00.004+01:00

The recent Westminster election saw the unionist share of the vote fall again – it achieved 50.5%, equal to its lowest score in a Westminster election ever. The graph below shows the combined unionist proportion of the vote in all Westminster elections since the end of the old Stormont regime:

Given that Protestants in Northern Ireland – unionism's main supporters – have an age profile that is older than that of Catholics, there can be little doubt that the downward trend will continue, probably bringing unionism below 50% in the next Westminster elections (unless the current British government crashes sooner than foreseen). Leaving aside the wobble in the 1992-1997 elections the graph is almost perfectly smooth – and downward.

The disgrace that was Stormont

2010-05-17T09:19:00.002+01:00

The Irish Times today reminds us of the disgrace that was the old Stormont regime. It reprints a David McKittrick article from 1980, from his Northern Notebook column, entitled Civil Service in North short on Catholics (bold added for emphasis):

The Civil Service has always been short on Catholics. When it was set up in 1921 there were quite a few in its ranks, recruited from the old Irish civil servants, but from the mid-20s on their numbers dropped sharply, as Patrick Buckland details in his book The Factory of Grievances.

In 1934 the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, Sir Wilfred Bliss Spender, estimated that Catholics made up 10 per cent of the service. More significantly, he reported that in the previous nine years no Catholics had entered the administrative ranks.

In 1943 an enquiry was launched by the then Prime Minister, Sir John Andrews, in response to allegations that Catholics were taking over the service. Sir John found he had no need to worry: of 633 people in the administrative class, only 37 were Catholic, representing 5.83 per cent and the holders of the top 55 jobs were all Protestants.

Senior Catholics in the Civil Service say that things loosened up a fair bit in the 1960s: nevertheless, official figures released in 1973 showed that Catholics made up only 15 per cent of the service. There is a general feeling that with the arrival of Willie Whitelaw and direct rule in 1972 a sort of “positive discrimination” was put into effect, with Catholics being given equal encouragement and help to make their way up the career ladder.

The Unionist argument has always been that Catholics did not join the Civil Service because of basic antipathy to the State of Northern Ireland, and that promotion did not come to them because of lower educational standards. Buckland’s researchers show, however, that that’s nowhere near the whole story.

Sir James Craig once considered reserving a quarter of Civil Service places for the minority, but as time went on he became ever more receptive to recurring Loyalist complaints that Catholics were getting jobs at the expense of loyal citizens.

In 1924, the chief civil servant at the Home Affairs Ministry, one S. Whatt, assured the Cabinet Secretary that there were only four Catholics in his ministry and that they “are not in any way employed on confidential work”.

The Minister of Home Affairs Sir Dawson Bates, advocated a complete ban on Catholics in the Civil Service.

The Cabinet minutes show that large chunks of Cabinet meetings were devoted to discussion of the religion of civil servants. The question of the loyalty of a senior man in the Ministry of Finance whose wife was a Catholic was discussed at a series of Cabinet meetings throughout the 1930s before the head of the Civil Service, Sir Wilfred Spender, investigated the matter fully and was able to assure ministers that the woman, though Catholic, was extremely loyal.

Disgraceful bigotry – and a useful reminder of why those unionists, be they from the TUV, the DUP, or even the UUP, who seek to turn back the clock must be resisted and defeated.

Castlereagh East – not forgotten

2010-05-16T14:55:00.006+01:00

As this blog expected, the result of the Castlereagh East by-election – to replace the disgraced (and now rarely mentioned) Iris Robinson – which took place on the same day as the Westminster election, has barely been mentioned in the media.

As anticipated, the DUP won the seat with its photogenic but loyalist-paramilitary-linked candidate. Their share of the vote, though, dropped considerably: from 59.2% in 2005 to 39.2% this year. Admittedly a lot of the 2005 vote was Iris Robinson’s personal vote – on her own she got over 27% of the vote.

The threat from the TUV evaporated in Castlereagh, as it did elsewhere in the Westminster election. In Castlereagh they got 8.2% of the vote – barely more than the UDA-linked Frankie Gallagher got in 2005 (7.1%). Maybe they were the same voters? In fact the TUV got fewer votes than even the Green candidate – and came bottom of the poll.

The ever-hopeful, but clearly hopeless, Hazel Legge managed to shrink the UUP vote, from 18.9% in 2005 to 15.9% this year. Legge is/was a full-time party worker and clearly someone in the UUP likes her, but that doesn’t really appear to carry much weight with the voters.

The big winner in Castlereagh East was Alliance. The Alliance candidate won 26.1% of the vote, up from only 12.4% in 2005. The council by-election covered part of the East Belfast Westminster constituency where, of course, Alliance candidate Naomi Long defeated Peter Robinson. Clearly the same swing – on a lesser scale – was evident in Castlereagh East, but not enough to win the seat. If the Alliance vote stays stable, though, it should pick up at least one additional council seat (if the next council elections are to the existing councils, as seems increasingly likely).

Even the Greens did well in Castlereagh East, winning 10.5% of the vote. With a little help (i.e. transfers) from other candidates they could be in the running for a seat here too next time.

The turnout this year was almost identical to that in 2005 – 55.1% this year, 55.5% in 2005 – so the changes cannot really be ascribed to that. It seems that a lot of the unionist vote that went to the DUP simply deserted the party - but not to go to the dead-enders of the TUV, or even to the 'new force' of the UUP. Bizarrely, the ‘extremists’ of the DUP shifted their allegiances to parties that most would see as the antithesis of DUP hard-line unionism. Most observers would have expected a protest against the ‘swish family Robinson’ to lead to a swing to the right, or at least to stay within the unionist block. For the ‘centre’ block to benefit so dramatically – from 12.4% in 2005 to 36.6% this year – is almost unheard of in Northern Irish politics.

This result, minor and forgettable as it is, points towards some seismic changes in political allegiances in Northern Ireland. It will be necessary to wait until next year to see if the changes are a once-off protest or a structural change. It leaves the outcome of next year’s elections quite open.

Proportional representation

2010-05-11T16:24:00.001+01:00

One of the unexpected outcomes of last week’s Westminster election in Northern Ireland was that the result was extremely proportional. In general the first-past-the-post system does not lend itself well to proportionality, but by chance the results last week were very close to what would be achieved by a PR system – as far as the major blocks are concerned, at any rate.

Unionism won 50.5% of the vote, and won 50% of the seats.
Nationalism won 42.0% of the vote, and won 44.4% of the seats.
The Alliance party won 6.3% of the vote, and won 5.6% of the seats.

Within the blocks there was some proportionality too – Sinn Féin, with 60% of the nationalist vote, won 62.5% of the nationalist seats – the SDLP with 40% of the nationalist vote won 37.5% of the nationalist seats.

Only within unionism was there a distinct lack of proportionality. The DUP, with 50% of the unionist vote, won 8 out of its 9 seats (89%). The UCUNF, with 30% of the unionist vote, won precisely nothing. The ninth unionist seat was won, of course, by Sylvia Hermon, who won 6.2% of the unionist vote – but this was concentrated in one constituency.

The lesson appears to be that chance can also lead to a proportional outcome, but will not necessarily do so.

Did Alliance have a good election?

2010-05-11T16:21:00.001+01:00

The celebrations amongst Alliance party supporters last Friday must have been legendary – to have won a Westminster seat at all was nigh-on unthinkable, but to take the seat of the King of Unionism himself, Peter Robinson, made the victory all the more dramatic.

Overall Alliance won 6.3% of the vote – respectable, but not earth-shattering. And most of their votes were won in only a few constituencies: East Belfast alone accounted for over 30% of its total. Seven seats of the greater Belfast area – East and South Belfast, East and South Antrim, North Down, Lagan Valley and Strangford – accounted for almost 77% of the party’s vote – and were the only seats in which Alliance actually retained its deposit. In the seats in the west and south of Northern Ireland – Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Foyle, Mid Ulster, Newry and Armagh, South Down and West Tyrone – Alliance won a total of 3,021 votes (7.1% of its total), and, of course, lost its deposit in each of these seats.

The election showed that Alliance is a sub-regional party. Where some parties limit themselves to the small pond of Northern Ireland (the DUP and the SDLP), and others are by historical fact wider in scope (Sinn Féin), or try to be (the UUP), all of these four are, at least, represented in all corners of Northern Ireland. The Alliance Party, though, is a party of only a part of Northern Ireland – a region within a region. Its existence outside Greater Belfast is paltry, and even its candidates in some ‘southern and western’ constituencies were blow-ins from Alliance’s East Ulster heartland.

Alliance is a party of a particular group – middle-class and suburban, both Protestant and Catholic, in the Greater Belfast area. Its failure to appeal either to working class people in Belfast or elsewhere, or to rural and small-town people, is an indication of its own limitations. As a party of the Belfast middle-class – probably primarily those employed in the public sector – it cannot truly understand the needs or wants of those who are not well-employed, pensionable, educated and urbane. In a large country such a self-limiting party may carve out a niche, but in a small region like Northern Ireland – and restricted to an even smaller part of that region by its own lack of appeal – the party will have to struggle to remain relevant.

Euphoria over Naomi Long’s historic victory in East Belfast should not blind the Alliance Party to its extremely marginal existence. It is a single-city party, and such narrow political vehicles do not often last long. It lost its deposit in 11 of the 18 seats! A failure to build upon Long’s success – by geographical and political broadening – may consign Alliance to history’s dustbin just when its members think that they’re finally arrived.

The TUV in 2011

2010-05-11T16:19:00.002+01:00

In June 2009 Jim Allister revealed his cunning plan for world domination – well, Assembly domination anyway, but to flat-earth unionists the world probably only extends to six counties anyway.

Allister revealed that:

“... he hopes to topple power-sharing by using a boycott plan that would likely see a nationalist majority in a Sinn Fein-led Executive. This would be intolerable to most unionists, and might scupper the prospect of republican-led rule of the Province”.

Depending on how many MLAs Mr Allister enters Stormont with, any boycott by him could mean unionists are in the minority at the Cabinet table.

He said “his party would field candidates in every seat at the 2011 Assembly election, hoping to take enough seats to qualify for at least one Executive seat”.

In a situation where Martin McGuinness would probably be First Minister and unionists a minority in the Executive, Allister hopes that the entire Executive would "implode" because it would be unrepresentative of unionism.

Cunning, no?

However, Allister’s hopes for Executive implosion in 2011 may have taken a small knock last week. His party stood in 10 seats, and received less than an Assembly quota in nine of them. Only Allister himself in North Antrim would have been elected for certain if last week’s election had been an Assembly election. Obviously transfers are important, but since the TUV are sworn enemies of the DUP, and hardly best buddies with the UUP, it is hard to see where their transfers might come from.

The TUV would have an outside chance of taking Assembly seats in East Derry and Lagan Valley, but beyond these three seats, their chances are remote. Even with three Assembly seats Allister and the TUV would neither win an Executive seat nor be able to ‘implode’ the Executive. 2010 showed quite clearly that his appeal to unionists is limited, and he is increasingly only picking up support from unionism’s extremist fringe – the hoped-for defections from the DUP simply haven’t happened, and the DUP (apart from Robinson) came out of the Westminster election in fairly good shape, so a melt-down between now and the Assembly election is unlikely.

As the Assembly election approaches, and as it becomes clearer that the TUV is only a fringe party, its appeal may diminish further, perhaps leaving Allister all alone in opposition in the Assembly.

Borrowed seats

2010-05-11T16:17:00.001+01:00

One of the things that annoyed unionists about Alasdair McDonnell’s victory in South Belfast in the 2005 Westminster election was that they felt that he did not deserve to have won the seat, as the total nationalist vote (41.3% of the votes cast) was less than the total unionist vote (51.1%). McDonnell has ‘stolen’ a unionist seat, in the minds of unionists. Well last week they were forced to admit that he did actually have a right to the seat, and that it is no longer a ‘unionist’ seat. McDonnell – the sole nationalist candidate – won 41.0% of the vote, which was almost the same as the combined unionist vote, but actually exceeded it by 16 votes. In South Belfast now nationalists outnumber unionists.

In East Belfast, though, Naomi Long’s shock defeat of Peter Robinson was more of a theft in unionist terms. Although Long got 37.2% of the vote, the combined unionist vote was 59.3% - but it was split three ways and Long slipped in through the middle. There can be little doubt, though, that East Belfast is a majority-unionist seat, and the Alliance Party has just borrowed it. They will have an incumbency advantage next time, but if unionism gets its act together it will get East Belfast back.

No other seats were ‘borrowed’ last week – though Fermanagh and South Tyrone came close. The defeat of unionist-unity candidate Rodney Connor, and continuing demographic changes, make it unlikely that unionism will ever feel that this is a seat that they can steal again, and it may become more like West Tyrone or Mid Ulster, where several unionist parties compete half-heartedly in the knowledge that none of them will actually win. Last Thursday may have represented the end of any unionist hopes west of the Bann.

North Belfast in Sinn Féin’s sights

2010-05-11T16:10:00.004+01:00

After Thursday’s Westminster election it is clear that Sinn Féin’s N° 1 target next time must be North Belfast. This blog remarked, almost 18 months ago that:

“Dodds [… ] could lose his seat, if not at the next election, then at the one that follows it”

Thursday was the ‘next election’ and Dodds held his seat, but not easily. True, he received 14,812 votes (40.0%) to Gerry Kelly’s 12,588 (34.0%). But the gap between the two ‘blocks’ – unionist and nationalist – narrowed to little more than a margin of error:

It appears that Dodds had been kept afloat in 2001 and 2005 by the absence (actual in 2001, virtual in 2005) of the Alliance Party. But now that they have returned to life in the constituency unionism’s decline has become clearer. With only 47.7% of the vote unionism is perilously close to being overtaken by nationalism, which is now on 46.3%. Although Fermanagh and South Tyrone is a poor role model for urban North Belfast, the ability of nationalists to unite around a single candidate if they feel that a seat should be theirs should not be underestimated.

Unionism’s problem in North Belfast – and thus Dodds’ problem – is that the Protestant population is older, and thus prone to higher ‘natural decrease’ (i.e. deaths) than the Catholic population. As this blog has pointed out before, in North Belfast (as it was in 2001, before the boundary changes) over 70% of old people were Protestant, whereas that religious group falls to around 40% amongst young people. Amongst the young – who are now starting to vote – Catholics comprise over 50% of the cohort.

The turnout rate increased significantly in 2010, to 56.5%, from the 45.6% recorded on 2005. Both blocks benefited – but nationalism benefited far more than unionism, adding 3,435 votes while unionism added only 1,560. Whether this implies a greater surge of enthusiasm amongst nationalists than amongst unionists, or simply a relatively greater number of potential nationalist voters, we cannot yet say. Perhaps unionists were also motivated, but too many of their habitual voters were simply dead. Or perhaps the nationalist parties – in particular Sinn Féin – were simply more determined to get their voters registered and get them to the polling booths.

If the votes received by the two blocks are looked at as proportions of the electorate, we can see the following:

Apart from in 2005, when turnout appears to have been abnormally high, the pattern is one of nationalist stability, with the two parties receiving a vote equivalent to around 23-26% of the electorate. The (linear) trend is going up, however. But for unionism, if 2001 is excluded as well, the trend is clearly downward, and at a fast rate.

Unionism is still slightly ahead in North Belfast, but on the basis of the demographic profile of the constituency, and the trends in voting patterns, 2010 represents probably the last time it will be ahead. In another 4 or 5 years this will be a nationalist plurality seat (if not an outright majority seat). Whether nationalism comes together successfully, as in FST, to claim its prize we will have to wait and see. Next year’s Assembly elections will give another opportunity to examine the evolution in this constituency.

No Robinson, No Connor, No UCUNF

2010-05-07T15:38:00.000+01:00

All in all, today has been quite a positive one for northern nationalism.

Peter Robinson, leader of the DUP and successor to Paisley, has been defeated in the constituency that he virtually owned for over 30 years.

Rodney Connor, the 'non sectarian' unionist unity candidate in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, has been defeated despite a split nationalist vote.

UCUNF, the bastard child of the English Tories and their UUP lap-dogs, has been left bereft of seats, and with a very uncertain future.

Nationalism made no seat gains – and none were realistic – but thanks to 4 votes in Fermanagh and South Tyrone it has not lost any seats either.

Unionism, on the other hand, lost one seat, dropping from 10 to 9. For the first time ever, only half of Northern Ireland's MPs are unionists.

The proportion of the vote that went to nationalist candidates remained virtually unchanged – 42% against 41.8% five years ago. Despite the habitual hostility of the media, Sinn Féin's share of the vote has again increased, from 24.3% in 2005 to 25.5% in 2010 – making Sinn Féin Northern Ireland's largest party again.

Unionism's share dropped by 1.4%, though, from 51.9% to 50.5%. One more election, perhaps, and unionism will be only a plurality.

This election has been a stressful one, and one with many unknown elements. But at the end of the day nationalism has emerged unscathed, while unionism in all of its guises – DUP, UUP/UCUNF, TUV and independent unionist, has emerged battered and diminished. Good.

UCUNF, you go …

2010-05-07T13:53:00.003+01:00

In the Westminster elections in 2005 the two parties that make up UCUNF received 130,032 votes – 18.1% of the total.

In 2010 the vote for combined entity of UCUNF dropped to 102,361 votes – or 16.3% of the total.

Of course, the 2005 total includes both Sylvia Hermon in North Down and Tom Elliott in Fermanagh and South Tyrone – neither of whom counted towards UCUNF's total this time around.

However, UCUNF did have a candidate in North Down yesterday – the awful Ian Parsley – and campaigned vigorously against Hermon, so they cannot exclude that constituency from a comparison.

If FST is removed from the 2005 figures, the combined UUP/Tory vote was 121,163 – 16.9% of the total poll.

So it seems that the non-merger of the UUP and the Tories – even at a time of Tory advance in Britain, and distaste with the DUP's Robinson family – has actually gone backwards in both absolute and relative terms; from 121,163 votes (16.9%) in 2005 to 102,361 votes (16.3%) in 2010.

What a failure! The inability of UCUNF to win any seats is perhaps indicative of the whole project. It managed to lose its sole MP, and despite shackling itself to an ascendant British party it managed to lose votes. It proclaimed non-sectarianism and then entered a nakedly sectarian pact in Fermanagh and South Tyrone – thereby losing the support of some of its most capable supporters.

It's time to quietly drop the whole project. UCUNF is a dead party walking.

Tactical voting – Part 2 – South Down

2010-05-07T13:27:00.002+01:00

Continuing the theme of tactical voting: South Down.

If the share of the vote that the unionists and the SDLP received in 2007 were applied to the voting turnout of 2010, unionism should have got 13,326 votes (or 31.8% of the votes cast) – but yesterday it got only 8,244. The SDLP, on the other hand, should have got 13,358 (or 31.4% of the total) – but they actually got 20,648 votes (48.5%).

So the unionist total decreased by 5,282, and the SDLP total increased by 7,290. It seems likely that over 5,000 of the SDLP's extra votes were unionists trying to thwart a Sinn Féin victory.

But who were the other 2,000 votes that the SDLP received over its 'natural' vote? Well, a few hundred may have been people who had voted Green in 2007, but it seems likely that even some Sinn Féin voters switched to the SDLP. The Sinn Féin vote yesterday was actually 1,898 votes lower than in 2007. So South Down may have seen a strange combination – unionists, ex-Greens and ex-Sinn Féin voters combining to thwart Caitriona Ruane - this may be a report-card from the voters on Ruane's performance as Minister of Education.

Tactical voting – Part 1 – Foyle

2010-05-07T13:22:00.002+01:00

If the results of yesterday's Westminster election are compared with the most recent Assembly election in 2007, it is possible to estimate the scale of tactical voting. In 2007 it is unlikely that many voters voted tactically with their first preferences, as in a PR-STV election this is unnecessary. So the 2007 results can be seen as a close approximation to the voters' 'true' political adherence. In 2010, though, because of the 'winner-takes-all' nature of the voting system used, there is greater incentive on voters to vote tactically where they know their preferred candidate has no hope, and where they have a strong preference (positive or negative) between the candidates with a realistic chance.

This blog will look at several of the constituencies where tactical voting probably happened, to estimate its extent. Firstly, Foyle.

In 2007, on a 62.7% turnout, unionism got 8,788 votes (21.4%).

In 2010, on a 57.5% turnout, unionism got 5,710 votes (15.1%). If the 2007 turnout had been repeated, this would have been 6,222, so 512 unionists failed to vote due to apathy or demographic decline. But another 2,566 disappeared from the 2007 unionist total (8788-6222) – where did they go?

The clear beneficiary seems to have been the SDLP. In 2007 it got 15,182 votes (37.0%), on a turnout of 62.7%, equivalent to 13,930 votes on a turnout of 57.5% as yesterday.

But the SDLP actually received 16,922 votes (44.7%) yesterday – almost 3,000 more than the 2007 experience would have led us to expect. The electorate in Foyle has slightly increased (though this was slowed down by the loss, due to boundary changes, of some territory to East Derry). The absence of Green and independent candidates yesterday may have slightly boosted the SDLP's total, but the inescapable conclusion is that, not for the first time, a large number of voters (around 2,500) who are unionists in local and Assembly elections voted tactically for Durkan yesterday.

Ní beidh a leithéid arís ann

2010-05-06T08:16:00.003+01:00

Today marks a sad day in Northern Ireland's electoral history. No, not the unpleasantness in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, or even the disappointments elsewhere.

Today marks the end of a long and unpretentious tradition in Northern Ireland, probably dating back a hundred years. For today is the very last district council by-election that Northern Ireland will ever enjoy – Castlereagh East.

In March the law changed to allow the parties to nominate a replacement for any seat that becomes 'casually vacant', but the Notice of Election for Iris Robinson's seat on Castlereagh Borough Council was published just a few days before the law changed, and thus the election will go ahead. Treasure it, though, because it will be the last.

So while 99% of the voters in Northern Ireland will be faced with a single ballot paper today, the lucky – and historic – few in Castlereagh East (all 14,000 or so of them) will be faced with two.

Almost definitely the DUP will win this small victory, but equally certainly the world will not notice. Other events will overshadow the sadness of Castlereagh East. The world will be a slightly emptier place, and a slightly less democratic one, without the sporadic fun of a district council by-election.

The parties may not mourn your passing – after all it will save them money, effort and uncertainty. The District Councils blessed with casual vacancies will save around £25,000 each time, to the rate-payers relief. The Electoral Office too will enjoy the longer periods of quiet between the major elections – and may even be able to save the tax-payer some money too.

So slip away into the night, dear district council by-election – you will not be entirely forgotten – in the hearts of Northern Ireland's small band of psephologists you will always be remembered with nostalgia.

Preferences, not predictions

2010-05-05T10:18:00.003+01:00

This blog does not intend to try to predict the outcome of the Westminster election. Although in some constituencies the outcome seems almost certain, in others it is too close to call, or complicated by too many unknowns.

Instead, this blog will simply list the outcomes it would prefer – despite the obvious improbability of some of them. Where there is simply no chance of a nationalist victory, a choice must be made amongst the unionist candidates – the reasons for the choice will be explained below:

Belfast East: Peter Robinson (DUP) – this blog sees less danger in the DUP than in UCUNF. The DUP as 'Ulster nationalists' are devolutionists, whereas UCUNF are increasingly integrationist.
Belfast North: Gerry Kelly (Sinn Féin)
Belfast South: Alasdair McDonnell (SDLP)
Belfast West: Gerry Adams (Sinn Féin)
East Antrim: Sammy Wilson (DUP), as above.
East Derry: Gregory Campbell (DUP) is more likely, but a victory by Cathal O hOisin (Sinn Féin) would be nice if the unionist vote splits three ways.
Fermanagh and South Tyrone: Michelle Gildernew (Sinn Féin)
Foyle: Martina Anderson (Sinn Féin)
Lagan Valley: Jeffrey Donaldson (DUP), as above.
Mid Ulster: Martin McGuinness (Sinn Féin)
Newry and Armagh: Conor Murphy (Sinn Féin)
North Antrim: Jim Allister (TUV) – this blog has a soft spot for Allister – he has done a lot for nationalism, and if elected he would be a great help.
North Down: Sylvia Hermon (Independent Unionist)
South Antrim: This is a really tough one. This blog wants both main unionist challengers to lose. On balance, though, McCrea (DUP), extremist as he is, is a better friend of nationalism.
South Down: Caitriona Ruane (Sinn Féin)
Strangford: Jim Shannon (DUP), as above.
Upper Bann: John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin)
West Tyrone: Pat Doherty (Sinn Féin)

So, if this blog had its way, May 7 would see nine Sinn Féin MPs abstaining from Westminster – an almost impossible outcome, but one that would blow open the debate on Northern Ireland's constitutional future. The UCUNF, astute readers may have noticed, get not one seat in this blog's fantasy outcome – the sooner that non-party withers away the better.

Although the TUV is as far to the right within unionism as it is currently possible to go, this blog wishes them some limited success. Partly because they are useful splitters of the unionist vote, and partly because they would advertise to the world just how backward, bigoted and odd unionism can be. A TUV MP would show the world outside Northern Ireland just how strange unionism is, and drive a nice wedge between unionism and the metropolitan political elite in London.

The reality, of course, will be different to the list above – and this blog will be disappointed. There may be only four Sinn Féin MPs, there may be three SDLP MPs, there may be one or more UCUNF poodles sitting on Tory laps, and there may be no rabid TUV MP to scare the horses. But this blog will not be disheartened – the future is long and change comes dropping slow (apologies to WB Yeats).

A modern sophisticated society

2010-05-05T09:15:00.001+01:00

Yesterday Kenneth Clarke, the shadow (or 'Tory party') business secretary, warning of the dangers of a hung parliament, told politics.co.uk:

"There would be really quite appalling consequences for this country if we are not able to produce a credible plan for dealing with the deficit and the debt. And that involves some very difficult decisions.

If I have to sit and talk to three or four other groups... in the end you can always do a deal with an Ulsterman, but it's not the way to run a modern sophisticated society in the grips of an economic crisis which weak government under Gordon Brown has already caused."

That pretty much sums up how the DUP and the UUP are seen by the British political elite.

Colonials, not 'us', not really British, and neither modern nor sophisticated.

Will nobody think of the children?

2010-05-05T08:24:00.002+01:00

Well, Save the Children will, of course. On Monday they published their 11th annual 'Mothers' Index', which ranks the best and worst places to be a mother. Unsurprisingly, Afghanistan ranked at the bottom of the list of 160 countries – well done to Bush and Blair for helping it to get there!

A lot of attention is given to the 'Top 10': Norway ranks first, followed by Australia, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

But who is that just under the radar, at number 11? Yes, it is Ireland – the country that is almost Scandinavian, but just not quite.

And the UK? The place that unionists think is a better place than Ireland. Well, it's not too bad, at number 14, but it still isn't as good.

For the good of all of our children, it seems that a united Ireland is better than a United Kingdom – but unionism, for its bigoted reasons, insists on locking a quarter of our country into a backward state. It must be defeated, for the good of all of us, including our children.

That Belfast Telegraph poll

2010-05-04T15:11:00.004+01:00

The Belfast Telegraph has put its flawed poll on the web. The poll, published today, but based on interviews conducted between 22-29 April, is out of date and thus quite pointless. Additionally the sample size was small – 3,200 people across Northern Ireland but less than 200 per constituency.

For what it's worth, though, the poll has the following 'results':

Overall – DUP 26%, Sinn Féin 25%, SDLP 17%, UCUNF 13%, Alliance 7%, independents 6%, TUV 5%, 1%.

Fermanagh and South Tyrone:

The Belfast Telegraph has Michelle Gildernew (44%) slightly ahead of Rodney Connor (43%).

Upper Bann:

John O'Dowd is within 4% of David Simpson.

South Down: Margaret Ritchie (43%) is well ahead of Caitriona Ruane (26%).

East Belfast: an easy win for Peter Robinson (42%) ahead of second-placed Ringland (26%).

North Antrim: Paisley 39%, Allister 31% …

South Antrim: McCrea 36%, Empey 30% …

North Down: an easy win for Sylvia Hermon.

The rest of the seats are reckoned to stay with their incumbents, without any shocks. In fact, if this poll is correct, all the seats will remain in their current party hands. However, to repeat – this is a week-old poll, and based on fairly loose methodology, so its resemblance to reality on Thursday is not likely to be perfect. It disagrees with the evidence of the bookies – who may also not be correct, but their 'results' are what people are prepared to stake their own money on!

Paddy Power shows opinion changes

2010-05-03T20:17:00.004+01:00

Since last week Paddy Power has recorded some changes in the odds offered in a number of Northern Irish constituencies.

In North Antrim: last week the odds were DUP 4/11, and TUV 15/8; but today they are DUP 1/3 and TUV 2/1. This shows a slight swing in the mind of the punter further towards the DUP.

In South Antrim the odds have completely changed: last week the odds were DUP 5/6 and UCUNF 5/6. Now the odds are UCUNF 4/6 and DUP 11/10. In other words the punter now thinks that Reg Empey will win.

In North Belfast last week the punter thought that Nigel Dodds was a dead cert: the DUP was at 1/4, and Sinn Féin at 11/4. Now, although Dodds is still ahead, the odds have moved slightly towards Sinn Féin – the DUP are on 2/7, and Sinn Féin are on 5/2.

In South Down Margaret Ritchie has weaked a little: last week she was on 1/9, but now she is on 1/7. Caitriona Ruane has shortened from 5/1 to 4/1. It still leaves the SDLP are clear favourites, of course.

In Fermanagh and South Tyrone last week Rodney Connor was on 8/11, and Sinn Féin’s Michelle Gildernew was on evens. Today it’s Rodney Connor on 8/13 and
Michelle Gildernew on 6/5. That represents a strengthening of Connor’s position.

East Derry shows a different type of swing. A week ago the DUP was on 1/6, and the TUV on 10/1 (UCUNF was on 6/1). Today, though, the DUP has slipped to 2/9, and the TUV has strengthened to 7/1 (UCUNF remain on 6/1). So although Gregory Campbell is still very much the favourite, Willie Ross is catching up – but not fast enough.

In Strangford the DUP was on 4/7 a week ago, UCUNF was on 5/4 and the TUV was on 20/1. Today, though, the DUP is on 2/5, UCUNF is on 7/4, and the TUV is on 25/1. So the DUP is increasing its lead here.

Lastly, in Upper Bann, a week ago the DUP was on 4/7, UCUNF was on 9/4, and Sinn Féin was on 8/1. Now the DUP’s odds have slightly shortened to 8/13, UCUNF’s have shortened to 2/1, and Sinn Féin’s have shortened to 7/1. So although the DUP remain favourite to win, all three major parties see their odds improve slightly.

What does it all mean? In short, most seats will remain in their current hands, except for:

South Antrim – Empey to win
FST – Connor to win

But several other constituencies become closer and thus more interesting to watch – including North Belfast, South Down, East Derry and Upper Bann. If there are to be surprises, they should be in one or other of these constituencies.

Swings and roundabouts (the punters' opinion, part 4)

2010-05-03T13:36:00.003+01:00

In the absence of reliable opinion polls, the bookies odds have become an invaluable way of gauging voter sentiment in Northern Ireland. Not an infallible way, of course – only betters' opinions are counted, and it's quite likely that few fundamentalist Christians ever darken the doors of a betting shop.

Nonetheless, it’s the only tool available, so for what it's worth, here are some of the small swings that the odds have shown so far:

In South Antrim, William Hill is now showing a slight UCUNF advantage – 8/11, with the DUP on evens. Last week both parties were level-pegged at 5/6.
In contrast to that, though, William Hill is showing shorter odds for the DUP in Strangford (i.e. they reckon the chance of the DUP winning is better than it was). Last week Jim Shannon was on 8/13, but today that is 1/2. The chances for the UCUNF candidate, Mike Nesbitt, have lengthened from 6/5 to 6/4.
In Fermanagh and South Tyrone, William Hill now have Rodney Connor on 8/11, a slight dis-improvement (but a relative improvement) from last week's 5/6. Michelle Gildernew, who was also on 5/6 last week, has slipped back to evens.

Apart from these three constituencies, the odds quoted by William Hill appear unchanged. Tomorrow this blog will look at how Paddy Power sees things evolving.

No more local by-elections

2010-05-03T11:26:00.002+01:00

The Electoral Office has announced, in minimalist terms, that:

Douglas Bain, the Chief Electoral Officer today declared the return of the new councillors to fill the vacancies that arose from the resignation of Nigel Dodds MLA OBE and Diane Dodds MEP.

Sarah Lydia Patterson has been returned in the Castle District Electoral Area whilst Brian Lambert Kingston has been returned in the Court District Electoral Area.

The councillors were returned under the new law that allows the nominating officer for the relevant party to nominate a person to fill a vacancy in a seat previously held by a member of that party.

And thus ends the long and interesting tradition of the local government by-election in Northern Ireland.

The Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1962 (Amendment) Order 2010 sets out detailed rules for the filling of 'casual vacancies' in district councils – the essential part of which, however, is as follows:

As soon as practicable after receiving the notice of the vacancy the Chief Electoral Officer must ask the nominating officer of that registered party to nominate in writing, within 28 days from the date of the Chief Electoral Officer's request, a person ( “P”) to fill the vacancy.

In other words, when a Councillor resigns or dies, his or her party get to nominate a replacement – and this is the party in whose name he/she stood when last elected, so defected seats return to their original owner. There are other rules for independent Councillors, who can give the Chief Electoral Officer a list of substitutes, from whom the replacement is taken (they are ordered according to preference by the Councillor, and offered the seat in that order).

Where a party no longer exists at the time of the casual vacancy arising, an election can take place, but this will be extremely rare. For the most part, local by-elections are now consigned to history, and with them dies one of the small pleasures of the psephologist.

David Norris for President

2010-05-03T08:36:00.001+01:00

The Irish Times has kicked off next year's presidential election by providing a list of the possible candidates, and this blog is pleased to note that the current front-runner is Senator David Norris.

David Norris represents everything that the President should be – a decent, civilised and intelligent man, political but not party political, and with a strong streak of compassion. But he is more than that – much more. He is Ireland's foremost gay rights campaigner, one of the world's leading Joycian scholars, and an active member of the Church of Ireland.

Born in the then Belgian Congo, Norris has been associated with Trinity College for much of his career, and is a well-known figure around Dublin. As such he will struggle to attract the votes of rural Ireland – but in the opinion of this blog, he represents modern Ireland better than any of the has-been politicians that the other parties will propose.

Hopefully Norris will stand, and hopefully modern Ireland will be big enough and tolerant enough to elect not a gay President, not a(nother) Protestant President, but a President that represents the full diversity of the nation.

Norris for President in 2011.

When is a Tory not a Tory?

2010-04-30T08:41:00.002Z

When his name is Rodney Connor, apparently.

On Monday night, when FST 'colourful' independent candidate John Stevenson asked Rodney Connor "Are you a Tory or not, yes or no?", Connor replied "I'm not a Tory and I'm not a member of any party. I will always make my decision on what I believe to be the best for the people of the constituency."

But according to Connor himself, he 'is prepared to accept the Conservative whip'.

So what's it to be – Tory or not? If you take the Tory whip, are you not to all extents and purposes a Tory? If you permit yourself to pick and chose whether or not to support the Tories, then you are clearly not a Tory.

'Colourful' Mr Stevenson followed up by stating the word 'Tory' means 'bandit' in Irish and received cheers and a rapturous applause from the audience. He finished by offering this message to David Cameron, "Go back to England and keep your dirty nose out of Northern Ireland politics!"

This blog is starting to like Mr Stevenson more and more!

Is a 12.5% Corporation Tax rate possible in Northern Ireland?

2010-04-29T14:02:00.003Z

Northern Ireland's political parties are almost unanimous in supporting a reduction in the Corporation Tax rate to 12.5% – for Northern Ireland only. The south has a 12.5% rate, of course, and the belief appears to be that this low tax rate above all other factors is what has helped the south to overtake the north economically. Ironically, even unionists support north-south harmonisation in this regard.

Would it be possible for a new British government to change the corporation tax rate in Northern Ireland only?

There are two factors that would come into play: political considerations, and legal considerations.

Politically, it would be extremely difficult for any British administration to make a specific case for Northern Ireland – and not for disadvantaged areas of Britain. While Northern Irish producers might claim that they are competing against southern producers, this is really only true on the island of Ireland, and even then they are only a small part of the competition. Why, for example, should Scottish producers trying to sell into Ireland be disadvantaged vis-à-vis Northern Irish producers? Why, indeed, should Northern Irish producers be given a clear tax advantage when they sell into Scotland? Ditto for Wales, and the north of England.

Any advantage given to Northern Ireland only would be extremely unpopular in other parts of the UK, and would be seen as unfair and discriminatory. Any British government that introduced such a measure would be handing a political weapon to the SNP, Plaid Cymru – and if it was done by a Tory government – to Labour. And there is no reason why Northern Ireland uniquely should be given such a leg-up – it is a backward region, of course, but not dramatically more backward than many others.

Legally, the situation is fuzzy. Corporation taxation is a national responsibility, but the EU is trying to move towards a consensus on the harmonisation of tax rates. In particular the EU is trying to stop 'harmful tax competition', which includes "tax measures (legislative, regulatory and administrative) which have, or may have, a significant impact on the location of business in the Union". The criteria for identifying potentially harmful measures include "an effective level of taxation which is significantly lower than the general level of taxation in the country concerned".

Although no binding rules are in place, all the EU Member States – including the UK – signed a Code of Conduct for Business Taxation in 1997 in which they undertook;

"… not to introduce new tax measures which are harmful within the meaning of this code. Member States will therefore respect the principles underlying the code when determining future policy … "

Given the clear Tory distain for 'Europe', it is not excluded that they would ignore mere 'codes of practice', but a corporation tax rate that applied only to Northern Ireland would be clearly designed to damage the economy of another EU Member State – the south. As a Member State the south has clout – and plenty of latent support in the EU (such is the advantage of having been a good member for 37 years). The Commission would support the south, the European Court would take a very dim view, and at political level (European Parliament, Council) the UK would be in the dog-house for blatantly breaking a code of conduct it signed up to.

And why would the UK want that amount of hassle? To suit whom? A small number of Northern Irish business owners who see an opportunity to make more profit?

There is little doubt why the Tories, in their election manifesto, promised only to "produce a government paper examining the mechanism for changing the corporation tax rate in Northern Ireland" – because that is as far as they intend to actually go, and any commitment beyond that would be a lie.

There will be no 12.5% corporation tax rate – certainly not presented as simply as that. There might be a fudge that allows other regions to benefit, and that, at the end of the day, does not provide much stimulus in Northern Ireland.

The only future for Northern Ireland is either continued welfare dependency (almost 70%!) or severe cuts in public spending that restore the profitability of the private sector by bringing wage costs down sharply. Northern Irish firms will only compete successfully when their costs are lower than their competitors – in the south, in Britain, in Europe – and as long as the public sector provides a better-paid option to private sector hard work this will not happen. The Tories know it, and in their hearts, so do all the Northern Irish parties.

There's a cold wind coming

2010-04-29T07:52:00.003Z

Despite the unanimity of the Northern Irish parties – and Gerry Adams call for unity to counter them – there will be significant cuts in public spending following the Westminster election.

Economic commentator Will Hutton, quoted by the BBC, 'has warned that the NI public sector will face cuts irrespective of who wins the election':

' … in the past 15 years taxes raised in a "bubble economy" in the south east of England had been redistributed to other parts of the UK, including Northern Ireland, through a growth in public sector jobs.'

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) warned that the UK faces the deepest spending cuts since the late 1970s if the three main parties are to meet their budget commitments. The years between 2011 and 2015 must see the largest cuts since 1976-80, according to the IFS.

What will it mean for Northern Ireland, and particularly for the 'constitutional question'?

Firstly, of course, it will remove the safety net that Northern Ireland has enjoyed since the start of the global economic crisis. Many commentators had remarked that the size of the public sector in Northern Ireland would cushion it from the worst of the effects – and so it appeared to be. Unemployment in Northern Ireland did not rise as fast or as far as in the south. But now, when the rest of the world appears to be coming out of crisis, Northern Ireland may be heading into one of its own.

Although unemployment rates in Northern Ireland are relatively low, recently they have started to increase rapidly. There are only two Northern Irish constituencies in the 'top 25' in the UK in terms of their unemployment rate (West Belfast and Foyle); but in the 'top 25' of unemployment increases during the period February 2009 to February 2010 there are fully eleven Northern Irish constituencies – with East Belfast at number 2, with an increase in unemployment of 51.6% in one year. So unemployment is already racing upwards, and that will increase. At the same time, benefits will probably be frozen or restricted.

This will not provide much support for the unionist mantra that 'Northern Ireland is better off in the UK'. If the cuts come fast and deep (i.e. if the Tories win in Britain) then the effects will be clear in time for next year's Assembly (and local?) elections. Any hopes the UUP may have had of increasing their Assembly presence would probably be dashed, and their hopes of attracting Catholic votes would remain still-born.

In a situation of increasing unemployment and with London appearing to cut back its subsidy to Northern Ireland, the perception of marginality will increase – unionists will increasingly feel let down, and nationalists vindicated. If the south is coming out of recession at the same time (and it is expected to do so in 2011) then nationalists in the north will be reinforced in their belief that the north would be better off in a re-united Ireland – and unionists would have few counter-arguments.

The reaction to the inevitable cuts in Northern Ireland will combine with a period of increasing interest in Northern Ireland's creation (the decade of centenaries), and a narrowing of the gap between unionism and nationalism in the polls – and between Protestants and Catholics in the census.

All of these factors will keep alive – and probably reinvigorate – the constitutional question, just at the time when unionism is hoping to bury it.

A week too long

2010-04-28T12:34:00.000Z

The Westminster election campaign is a week too long. Polling is not until next Thursday, but already there is nothing left to say.

We know who is standing (and who is not). We know what they stand for. We have read as many of their campaign promises as we can stomach. We know they aren't telling the truth, and know that they'll never be caught out. We know who we are going to vote for.

So what are we waiting for?

Another week of this phoney war is not going to change anyone's mind. Politicians and their supporters will simply spend another week repeating the same mantras, harassing innocent householders on their doorsteps and polluting the environment with their posters. For nothing. Because an election tomorrow will give the same result as one next week.

Even the 'big news' in Britain – the LibDem surge – is not likely to change much, so it is unlikely that Britain needs the extra week either. All that is likely is voter-fatigue brought on by yet another stage-managed panel discussion or yet another slick party election broadcast. At best, and this is unlikely, the extra week will provide enough time for someone – anyone – to slip up and say or do something newsworthy. But politics is so controlled and marketed nowadays that a true 'game-changer' is not likely to happen. In its absence the campaign is becoming boring.

As far as 'persuading' the voters is concerned, the extra week is pointless – Northern Ireland's voters knew who they would vote for several months ago – many knew years ago.

The most charitable explanation for the over-long election timetable is that the Electoral Office needs the time to print and distribute the ballot papers. If so, patience is required, but another week of this will test the patience of even the most enthusiastic.

The punters' opinion (part 3)

2010-04-27T13:37:00.003Z

In addition to Paddy Power and William Hill, also Ladbrokes offer odds on the outcome of the Westminster election in each constituency.

The main difference compared with the others is that Ladbrokes see UCUNF taking South Antrim (8/11, while the DUP is evens).

Ladbrokes have taken the trouble to identify the independent candidates (unlike William Hill, who call them all ('TUV').

So all three main bookies (or rather their customers) share a consensus on most of the constituencies:

The DUP will retain North Antrim, East Antrim, East Belfast, North Belfast, Lagan Valley, East Derry, Strangford and Upper Bann.
Sinn Féin will retain West Belfast, Mid Ulster, Newry and Armagh and West Tyrone.
The SDLP will retain all three of their current seats.
Sylvia Hermon will easily retain North Down.
South Antrim and Fermanagh and South Tyrone will be close – there are no clear favourites yet.

The whole election in Northern Ireland, at this point, and according to the combined wisdom of the betting class, is thus really about two seats. In South Antrim UCUNF faces its Waterloo – failure to win will consign them to the dustbin of history. A narrow victory will see them clinging on, alive but not thriving. In FST the UCUNF project lost a wheel, but if Connor wins the seat for the Protestants (sorry, that should be "for the unionists") then UCUNF will claim it as a victory. But at present Connor is not a shoe-in.

Unless the odds change, May 7 could see all 18 of Northern Ireland's constituencies in exactly the same hands as they are in today. At the most, probably only two constituencies will change hands.

The punters' opinion (part 2)

2010-04-27T13:01:00.002Z

Paddy Power is not the only bookie offering odds on the Westminster election results. William Hill also does so, and shows some different odds to Paddy Power.

William Hill, for example:

Offers 25/1 on the TUV winning North Belfast – which is a bit odd since the TUV aren't even standing there,
Puts Gerry Adams at only 1/500 in West Belfast (as against Paddy Power's 1/750),
Has Sinn Féin and Rodney Connor level-pegging in FST (at 5/6 apiece) – and offers 50/1 against the TUV taking the seat – again, though, the TUV aren't actually standing!
This is getting repetitive – TUV at 100/1 in Foyle, but, you guessed it … they aren't actually standing there! (Maybe William Hill sees every independent candidate as a TUV candidate?
Newry and Armagh – yes, that's right, Willie Frazer is probably the mystery 'TUV' candidate on 50/1 (still better odds than the Alliance candidate, though)
Ciaran McClean is probably the 'TUV' candidate in West Tyrone (on 100/1), but who is the mystery 16/1 'TUV' outsider in Upper Bann (whose odds are better than the SDLP's, even though he or she doesn't actually exist. How embarrassing for Dolores Kelly.)

Apart from the single serious difference – FST – William Hill has the odds much the same, certainly in terms of the favourites, as Paddy Power. William Hill would have the DUP retaining 8 out of its 9 seats, the SDLP all three of theirs, SF 4 out of 5, and Hermon keeping North Down. Only in South Antrim and FST does William Hill see uuncertainty, and in both of these it has the two main contenders on the same odds.

Bypassing the heart of the union

2010-04-26T15:49:00.001Z

The UUP like to pretend that their link-up with the English Tories will put Northern Ireland at the 'heart of the UK'. There are clearly neither geographers not anatomists in UCUNF.

But the UCUNF manifesto (basically the Tory manifesto with a few additional words) makes clear that not only will Northern Ireland not be 'at the heart of the union', it will be practically a heart bypass:

"Conservatives and Unionists will therefore look at turning Northern Ireland into an economic enterprise zone. A Conservative and Unionist Government will produce a government paper examining the mechanism for changing the corporation tax rate in Northern Ireland, in order to attract significant new investment."

Regional policy in any country can, of course, lead to variations in government support, but to actually designate Northern Ireland as an economic enterprise zone would definitely mark it out as different, a place apart, and quite dis-united from Britain. The fact that the overt intention is to align Northern Ireland with "a country that has a significantly lower rate of corporation tax" (i.e. the south) simply emphasises the gap between Northern Ireland and Britain, and its proximity in geographic as well as economy terms, with the rest of Ireland!

The Tories are preparing Northern Ireland for full participation in the all-Ireland economy by proposing an alignment of its tax rates with those of the south, rather than 'uniting' them with those of Britain.

There is, of course, no more logical reason why Northern Ireland should mimic the south's corporation tax rate any more than Wales, Scotland or Cornwall should. Mere geographic proximity is irrelevant when both jurisdictions are trading in global markets. If UK corporation tax rates are too high, then they're too high for all – if they are 'correct', then Northern Ireland's problems lie elsewhere, either in its cost structures or in its peripherality. And other regions share those problems.

The reality is that this is just an election gimmick – nothing concrete will come of it – because if Northern Ireland was to become an economic enterprise zone with a specially low corporation tax rate then the Tories would have just ripped up their Act of Union with Scotland, and probably handed Plaid Cymru a massive boost as well.

So while the Tories will "look at turning Northern Ireland into an economic enterprise zone" they will not do it. There are only two real options for getting Northern Ireland out of its economic doldrums – old-fashioned hard work and enterprise or reunification with the south. This blog supports both.

USSR

2010-04-26T11:13:00.002Z

That's 'Ulster Soviet Socialist Republic', of course – one of the last remaining examples of state control of the economy in the world. And it's getting worse rather than better:

The public sector in Northern Ireland will account for 69.2 % of total GDP in 2010-11. Even in communist Cuba the state accounts for only around 60 %. Northern Ireland is probably second only to North Korea worldwide in terms of state control of the economy.

David Cameron is right – the state share of the economy is too big – but he is too timid. The state share in Northern Ireland is grossly too big, and shows Northern Ireland to be an economic basket case of colossal proportions. Frazer Nelson, writing in The Spectator, has created a graph that shows how far off the scale of 'normality' the Northern Irish economy is:

The question is not whether there are cuts coming, because there are – but rather what people in Northern Ireland are going to do to get out of this hole of dependency. It is a disgraceful situation for any people to be in, and anyone who argues that this is 'normal' or 'justified' or even 'acceptable' is irresponsible.

2011 – a political census

2010-04-26T10:17:00.002Z

Next year will be a big year politically – there will be elections for the Assembly, and probably also for the district councils (though it is still uncertain which councils). But 2011 will be significant also demographically, because it will see the next decennial census, on Sunday 27 March 2011.

The census, although nominally apolitical, is a highly political exercise in Northern Ireland – and next year will take the level of politicisation to higher levels.

The 2001 census added to the usual question on religion one on 'religion or religion brought up in', in an attempt to label those who claimed no current religion. This nuance seemed to add considerably to the picture of Northern Ireland's population (though NISRA used some slightly questionable methodologies to 'allocate' those who resisted allocation). The question on 'religion or religion brought up in' will be retained in 2011, allowing demographers to draw some very broad conclusions – and of particular interest will be the 'evolution' of the very young, who had a high rate of non-declaration on the religious question, despite a lower rate amongst their parents (who actually filled in the forms on their behalf!). It will be interesting to see if the 7.4 % of 0-4 year-olds in 2001 with no 'religion or religion brought up in' have grown up to be an equally irreligious group of 10-14 year-olds.

The Proposals for the 2011 Census of Population in Northern Ireland, published in March by NISRA, add several novelties that were not included in 2001, including questions on:

Citizenship
National identity
Main language
Ability in English
Ability in Irish and Ulster Scots

While these questions may have rational justifications in terms of service provision by government departments, there is no question that in the Northern Irish context they are political questions.

The question on 'national identity' is separate to that on citizenship, and is thus a wholly political question, designed to show what proportion of the population considers themselves 'Irish' or 'British'. It is not clear yet what permutations of answers will be allowed, or if it will be a free-text field. The possibilities include, of course, Irish, British, Northern Irish, 'Ulster', or any combination of these (not counting those people who identify with countries further afield). The results of this question will, of course, be argued over for years – with unionists claiming that 'only X % of the population identify themselves as Irish, and therefore Irish unity is a non-starter', etc. Others may point out the the 'Irish' identity outnumbers the 'British' identity west of the Bann and that re-partition should be considered. Still others will look at the evolution of identities across age groups – if more of the young see themselves as 'Irish' than 'British' then the future if Northern Ireland comes into question.

The questions on ability in Irish and/or Ulster Scots will, no doubt, be used to provide unionists with a weapon to use against an Irish Language Act, and probably also to argue against funding for Irish in general. The 'main language' of 99.8 % of the indigenous population will turn out to be English, and this will, of course, be used against any 'concessions' to the Irish language.

Censuses do not give up their results overnight like elections, of course, and thus while 2011 may provide political shocks at Assembly and Council levels, the census will dribble out its results over a longer period, and influence political discourse for a number of years. It will provide enormous amounts of data for politicians and demographers to pore over, and to argue over. But at the end of the day the most important factor in political decision-making remains election results. No matter what the census tells us about national identity, if a majority of voters vote for nationalist parties, this trumps the census. For that reason, while the political census next year is interesting, the elections will be vital.

Where does Connor stand?

2010-04-25T20:15:00.001Z

David Cameron’s announcement that public spending in Northern Ireland is going to be squeezed must be causing some concern for his best buddy in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Rodney Connor, the man who won’t join his party but will submit to his authority!

“Connor said that he is prepared to accept the Conservative whip, but, on matters concerning Northern Ireland, he will vote on basis of what he believes is in the best interests of his constituents.”

Given that the pain will come long before the reward, in FST as elsewhere, where does Connor stand? Will he “accept the Conservative whip” when the knife starts to cut, or will he “vote on basis of what he believes is in the best interests of his constituents” (in the short-term, at any rate)?

How does Cameron’s announcement of pain-to-come play out on the doorsteps? What does Connor say when the point is raised? Or is it simply enough that he has wrapped a British flag around himself?

It might be interesting for the voters of FST to know where Connor stands on this issue – which seems to signal a glaring discrepancy between the two ends of one of his sentences.

Or is it all really just meaningless gibberish designed to dress up his sectarian campaign in fancy clothes?

From May 7 it’s the Assembly that counts

2010-04-25T19:06:00.003Z

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

That walking shadow today is the Westminster election. Last year it was the European election. Tales full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. And why do they signify nothing? Because the representatives from Northern Ireland have no power – none whatsoever in Europe, and none in Westminster unless a perfect combination of circumstances gives them, and only them, the balance of power – for which the probability is close to zero.

Governmental power in Northern Ireland is split between three bodies – the European institutions, Westminster and Stormont. In Europe Northern Ireland practically does not exist – it has no Commissioner, no members of the Court of Justice or the Court of Auditors, and a paltry three MEPs who are members of irrelevant groupings. Yet, as many people complain, most of our laws come from Europe! Northern Ireland’s power to influence them is zero – Northern Ireland is a vassal state.

Westminster, still the source of some laws – but not many – is almost as devoid of Northern Irish influence. Forget the hubris – even if the Tories win on May 6, Northern Ireland will remain irrelevant and Reg Empey will never have a significant cabinet position.

The only body here Northern Irish people exert some control overt their own lives is Stormont. Stormont is the real prize, and the more representation that the parties have there the more real power they can exert. The Westminster elections are just a taster – winning or losing a seat makes no difference whatsoever, except as an indicator of strength in a constituency. The real contest is for vote-share, not seats in Westminster. Sinn Féin, who do not – and will not, despite the fantasies of some unionists – take up their seats in Westminster, still contest the elections, simply to put down a marker for next year. The TUV is presumably doing the same, because their chances of winning any seats on May 6 are remote – but it may invigorate them for 2011. All the parties are competing this year with an eye on next year, when the real division of power will be decided for another four years.

After the sound and fury dies down on May 7 the petty pace of Northern Irish politics will creep onwards, from day to day, until the Assembly elections next year. Then real politics and real competition will break out. And after that? Well, to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow will keep coming.

The punters’ opinion (part 1)

2010-04-25T16:20:00.002Z

With less than two weeks to go until the Westminster election, it is time to start looking at what the bookies can tell us. Because, regardless of what they might want the outcome to be, it would be a rare punter who would place a bet for political reasons rather than the hope to win a few pounds.

Paddy Power, as usual, is offering odds on the result in each of the 18 constituencies.

His punters see the outcome as largely a victory for the status quo.

The DUP – according to the punters – will retain 8 of its 9 seats. In the ninth, South Antrim, the DUP are level-pegged with UCUNF (both are on 5/6 against). The SDLP are favourites to retain all three of their seats (including South Belfast), and Sinn Féin are favourites to retain 4 of their 5. The fifth, of course, is Fermanagh and South Tyrone where Rodney Connor, the unionist unity candidate, is marginally favourite to win. Sylvia Hermon is the bookies favourite in North Down.

So in 16 seats the punters expect no change. Only South Antrim and FST are exceptions. The odds may change slightly in the run-up to the election, and this blog will keep an eye on them to see if the ordinary (wo)man in the street changes his or her mind.

Some anomalies are visible in the odds – for example, despite the boosting by her supporters, the punter sees Naomi Long (Alliance) as having no real chance in East Belfast – at 40/1 against she has longer odds even than the TUV candidate. In North Belfast, embarrassingly, Alliance has longer odds even than the joke candidate Martin McAuley, and in FST it has longer odds than the independent John Stevenson. Gerry Adams in West Belfast has the shortest odds the Western World has probably ever seen in a contested election – 1/750.

Et tu, Fionnuala?

2010-04-24T18:06:00.001Z

In Fionnuala O’Connor’s Constituency Profile on South Belfast in today’s Irish Times:

“The last census showed South Belfast still had a unionist majority …”

Focal sa chluais, a Fhionnuala – the census does not measure political persuasion. In fact there are no ‘political’ questions whatsoever in it. What it measured was religious persuasion. What you wished to say, no doubt, was that the census showed that South Belfast had a Protestant majority (around 52%). In polite company it is normal to pretend that there is no direct correlation between religion and politics – but privately many people know there is.

And clearly so does Fionnuala O’Connor and the Irish Times.

Rebalancing the economy

2010-04-24T16:04:00.005Z

It seems that this blog is not alone in worrying about the size of the public sector in Northern Ireland. By coincidence, yesterday David Cameron, in an interview with the BBC’s Jeremy Paxman, said that:

“... in some parts of the UK the "state accounts for a bigger share of the economy than it did in the communist countries of the old eastern bloc - it is clearly unsustainable".

Asked which part of the UK he was referring to, Cameron said: "I think the first one I would pick out is Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland it is quite clear, almost every party, I think, accepts that the size of the state has got too big, we need a bigger private sector".

He added that "almost any party leader sitting in this chair" would say that over the next parliament there needed to be a "faster growing private sector" and a "rebalancing of the economy".

This will come as an embarrassment to UCUNF, and particularly the UUP wing of that flightless bird. How will UCUNF candidates explain on the doorsteps that ‘their leader’ intends to ‘rebalance the economy’ – especially since the only way to do that is to shrink the public sector and reduce the incentive for people to seek their jobs and their future there?

Those who questioned whether UCUNF could really satisfy the broad base of the UUP, which has traditionally included many working class voters, now have their answer – it cannot. The low-paid public sector workers who make up a significant share of the northern electorate will be less than enthused by Cameron’s comments, and may chose to take their votes elsewhere.

In one sense this is a pity, because a smaller public sector and a larger private sector is actually in the interests of all, working class as well as middle class. But for those who have no intention of providing for themselves, and who really think that ‘society’ (i.e. other people) ‘owe’ them something, the Tory position is less than attractive. No doubt, despite the fundamental error of the dependency-junkies, there will be others more than willing to promise them something for nothing in return for their votes. The DUP in particular will certainly jump in to promise all sorts of state-funded goodies that they know they have no way of delivering - and even if they could, it would not be Northern Irish taxpayers who would foot the bill:

[Map taken from Conservative Manifesto 2010, p. 22]

A long time ago this blog asked whether unionism was a cargo cult. The current obsession with trying to extract unearned 'cargo' out of nowhere tends towards the conclusion that unionists do not really see themselves as 'British', but just see Britain (mostly London, as shown above) as a source of material wealth beyond what they can provide for themselves.

David Cameron may well stop the 'cargo' - and that may kill the cult.

John Stevenson, Independent candidate in FST

2010-04-23T11:41:00.002Z

For those who do not read the Impartial Observer (and there must be a few people left out there who don't), here is some background information on one of the three (real) independent candidates in the May 6 Westminster election – John Stevenson, who is standing in Fermanagh and South Tyrone:

John Stevenson, from Enniskillen, says he is not backed by any party or by anyone with vested interests. He vows to stand at every future Westminster and Assembly election, and says "fair play to the DUP and Sinn Fein for bringing us out of the past so we can enjoy this most beautiful part of Ireland".

He says no to factory closures in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, that Quinn Insurance will be secured, that there will be even and fair distribution of all public servants pay to negate the budget deficit, and that there will be a joint Labour and Liberal Democrat government.

Stevenson was born in Derry in 1948 into a Presbyterian family, was educated at Campbell College, Belfast; in 1972 became a member of the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester; in 1975 was made a member of the Royal Humane Society; in 1981 began a welding business in Fermanagh; and in 2003 established Titanic Rebuilt 2012 Ltd, engaged in the manufacture of builders' carpentry and metalwork.

All in all, therefore, quite an eclectic mix, without any discernable platform at all. Perhaps he expresses it better than the Impartial Observer recorded it.

His chances of winning? Well, the words 'snowball' and 'hell' come to mind.

The IRA destroyed the north's economy

2010-04-23T10:27:00.002Z

Yes, they did – but not by bombs and bullets, those were just pin-pricks in comparison to the real destruction.

Yesterday's Northern Ireland 'Leaders Debate' on UTV confirmed that all the main parties agree that the economy is in a poor state, and all four agree that it is too highly dependent on the public sector – which provides around 50% of all jobs, according to Ritchie.

Why is this the case? Surely Northern Ireland had a tradition of ship-building, linen, engineering, agriculture, and so on – all 'serious' businesses that should have provided skills and infrastructure for growth. And yet, when these old sunset industries died out, nothing replaced them. Why not?

The unionist argument is that the IRA destroyed the economy by its bombs – but the IRA almost never touched the industrial sector. Harland and Wolff, Mackies, and all the rest – the linen mills, the animal feed mills, etc – were killed by simple technical progress and globalisation. The IRA never bombed an industry out of existence. When a town centre was destroyed by a bomb it was shops that were destroyed, but they bounced back. There is no shortage whatsoever of retail space in the north now. What is missing is creative industry – software, innovative technology, pharmaceuticals, leading R+D, and so on. Of course much of this can be 'bought' off-the-shelf if you have a low corporate tax like the south, but there is wealth creation in the south of England even with the same high rate of corporate tax as in Northern Ireland.

So why does the north lack a real private sector? Is it geographic isolation? No, because it shares the island with the successful southern economy (still a major exporter, despite budgetary problems), and is geographically privileged compared with Israel, one of the world's high-tech hotspots despite its isolation.

The real reason why the north lacks a private sector – and this was also alluded to in yesterday's Leaders Debate – is that the public sector crowds it out. The public sector – all those thousands of nice well-paid 9-to-5 jobs, often with inflated titles (and salaries), are simply too tempting. Why take risks, why spend years working 80-hour weeks with only a chance of making it, when for half the effort you can get a guaranteed regular income courtesy of the tax-payer?

So did the IRA's bombs really kill the private sector? The answer is a categorical no – Germany, completely flattened by the Second World War, with ruined cities, a lost generation of men, and its infrastructure destroyed, rebounded in less than 15 years to become a Wirtschaftswunder.

However, the IRA's campaign drew a whole generation of young Protestants into the public sector – often via the RUC and UDR, and led the British, in an attempt to smother discontent, to throw money at the problem, spawning what is probably Western Europe's most public-sector dependent economy. Jobs in the civil service, in quangos, and in all sorts of community organisations multiplied. For those who couldn't (or wouldn't) work, there was social welfare and public housing. And thus a whole generation found that it was possible to live relatively well without actually needing to create anything.

In its two-pronged approach to the IRA's war – military and welfare – the British government successfully killed entrepreneurship in Northern Ireland. There was no need to try, because London would always subsidise the place. Even 'loyal' unionists feel that the block grant is their 'right' – regardless of whether there are cuts in Britain. Disloyal nationalists have nothing concrete whatsoever to say about entrepreneurship beyond a hope that somehow they could persuade the British to grant the north a lower corporate tax rate.

The relationship between Northern Ireland and London is increasingly becoming like that between a junkie and his pusher – what matters most is the next hit, either through the block grant, or through the £800 million for devolving policing and justice, or through compensation for the PMS savers. Almost all of the parties, thought paying lip service to the need to 'grow the economy', are still more fixated on how much they can get out of London to pay for more and more public sector goodies – building a multi-sports stadium, building more social housing, investing in hospital construction, building new schools, and on, and on, and on.

But politicians – and certainly not those without fiscal powers – are not those who drive entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship comes from individual greed, and the desire to become rich. And in economic terms greed is good – if it leads to people setting up businesses and working hard to make them successful. These businesses employ people and buy things, leading to a virtuous circle of wealth creation.

But in the north it remains so much easier to enrich yourself – in real terms – by getting a nice comfortable public sector job. When private enterprise either pays less than the public sector, or when public sector jobs are easier to get, or simply more comfortable, many people will be tempted into the public sector.

So the IRA did destroy the north's economy, but not directly. Its campaign encouraged the British government to increase the medication, in the hope of sedating the patient. And it worked, except that now Northern Ireland is a junkie-economy addicted to public money.

The only solution for Northern Ireland, as for all junkies, is cold turkey. In good times the cure could be put off – indeed it was put off for half a generation – but the good times are over. Regardless of who wins on May 6 the flow of money from London to Northern Ireland is going to slow down. Peter Robinson last night admitted that around £200 million a year was going to be cut – but it could be more. But until there is a systematic reduction in the public sector in Northern Ireland, and not just a short-term response to the budget deficit, Northern Ireland will remain addicted. Until the rewards of private sector enterprise, hard work and self-reliance become visibly better than the 'rewards' of public dependency, the north's economy will remain poor.

Let the cuts begin. It's for our own good.

Carpet-baggers

2010-04-22T12:17:00.005Z

The publication of the names of the candidates for the Westminster election on May 6 also contains an indication of where they live (either their address, or the constituency in which they live). Since the basis of the semi-democratic single-seat First-Past-The-Post electoral is that MPs are elected by and for the electors of a defined area, this information allows us to see whether the prospective MPs do actually have much of an identification with their constituencies.

Using the highly scientific method of giving a score of 0 to those candidates who live within their constituencies, a score of 1 to those who live in a neighbouring constituency, and a score of 2 to those who live in a non-neighbouring constituency, the following can be observed:

67 candidates live in the constituency they hope to represent (62%)
24 candidates live in a neighbouring constituency to that that they hope to represent (22%)
17 candidates live quite far away from the constituency they hope to represent (16%)

In terms of parties, the Greens score an impressive 0.0 - all of their 4 candidates are 'in constituency'; the SDLP is second best on 0.52; the Alliance Party third on an average score of 0.53; Sinn Féin, the TUV and UCUNF are all on 0.54; and the 'least-local' award goes to the DUP with a score of 0.55.

The constituencies most 'at risk' of carpet-baggery are South Antrim and South Belfast, each with an average score of 1.0. The most 'local' constituencies are, conversely, the neighbouring ones of Strangford and Lagan Valley. Perhaps this indicates the areas where the political class prefers to live?
The prize for biggest carpet-bagger of them all must go to the TUV's Sammy Morrison who gives an address in Fermanagh and South Tyrone but hopes to represent East Antrim! Runners up include East Belfast-based SDLP candidate Fearghal McKinney who hopes to represent Fermanagh and South Tyrone, and Belfast-based Alliance candidate Keith McGrellis who hopes to respresent Foyle. At least McKinney and McGrellis are natives of their chosen constituencies.

The Alliance Party seem to have trouble finding candidates west of the Bann – their West Tyrone candidate lives in North Down, as does their Newry and Armagh candidate. Is the Alliance Party hoping to bring civilisation to the savages?

First thoughts on the Westminster candidates

2010-04-21T07:41:00.005Z

There are too many candidates, and too many of them are well known, for a comprehensive list to be useful – so here are a few thoughts on some of the surprises or lesser-known names amongst them.

Firstly, those who are missing:

Alex Maskey – a surprise pull-out by Sinn Féin in South Belfast. Clearly Maskey was never going to win the seat, but Sinn Féin have obviously decided that it could be to their advantage to be on the side of the angels. Plus, of course, the fact that this makes a McDonnell victory more likely, and conversely a win for either the DUP or the UCUNF non-party less likely. McDonnell is still, of course, far from home and dry.

The TUV candidate in Upper Bann – despite his strong disapproval of David Simpson, Jim Allister decided not to stand a candidate against him, but rather gave a strange and illogical semi-endorsement of the UUP's 'celebrity' candidate.

Adrian Watson in South Antrim. This blog had high hopes that this multiple-bigot would split the unionist vote and shake the race up. But in the end his Westminster aspirations just fizzled out.

Then those who are odd:

Martin McAuley in North Belfast pretends that he is a serious candidate. He isn't – he's a joke. He is like Blackadder's Pitt the (even) younger, as has been cruelly suggested elsewhere.

Lyle Cubitt, an old UKUP candidate is standing in North Antrim, but without any party identification. Given that the constituency enjoys a wealth of unionist hopefuls, from the UUP though the DUP to the TUV, it is hard to understand what market segment Cubitt is aiming at. Some of his supporters have a UKUP history, but since most people of 'that persuasion' will vote for Allister, Cubitt will fail badly.

And those without a hope:

The Alliance Party everywhere and the Green Party in the few places they are standing (Strangford, North Down, South Down, South Belfast). A lost deposit costs £500, so why throw it away when history tells you that you haven't a hope of getting elected. Concentrate on local or Assembly elections first.

Eamonn McCann. Why bother? Honestly? Surely the pen is mightier than the ballot box (when you always lose)?

John Stevenson in Fermanagh and South Tyrone. Who on earth is he? And why is he standing? He has no political history known to this blog, and nor do his supporters. What is their platform, and why do they think people would vote for them? His supporters are apparently drawn from the Protestant/unionist community in the constituency, but it is doubtful if they will draw many votes away from the 'unionist unity' candidate.

Ciaran McClean in West Tyrone – the return of the hopeless leftie! McClean's last outing was in 1996 when he stood for Democratic Left (DL) in the Forum elections. DL were one of the splinters of the old Workers Party, and eventually merged with the Labour Party. Is McClean standing as a Labour proxy? This blog will keep an eye on West Tyrone to see what McClean is wasting his £500 on.

Willie Frazer, the unbalanced 'victims' campaigner is standing in Newry and Armagh. He will take his few votes from the unionist pool only, thus increasing Conor Murphy's majority. One wonders who's side he is actually on.

And lastly those who could really upset an apple-cart or two (though probably won't):

William Ross in East Derry. The man Gregory Campbell beat to take the seat in 2001 now returns on behalf of the TUV to try to turn the tables, at an age when most politicians have long since retired. Ross would probably be the oldest MP if elected.

Michelle Gildernew. If she beats the unionist ganging-up and holds the seat the cheering will be audible as far away as Albertbridge Road and Dundela Avenue.

Caitriona Ruane has an outside chance of defeating Margaret Ritchie – and the more Ritchie opens her mouth the greater Ruane's chances get.

Parsely ... !

2010-04-20T19:04:00.003Z

Either the UCUNF candidate in North Down can't spell his own name, or his hardwriting is poor, or he is simply so little-known that the Electoral Office didn't know how to spell his name.

Either way, on the Statement of Persons Nominated for North Down he is shown as Parsely, Ian James - instead of Parsley, Ian James.

An inauspicious start.

Update (21 April): The EONI have corrected their Statement of Persons Nominated for North Down. But quietly, as if hoping that no-one had noticed. Parsely is now Parsley.

However, in South Down, poor Cadogan Enright is still spelled Cadwgan Enright. Time for another quiet correction?

Public Assemblies, Parades and Protests

2010-04-20T18:55:00.001Z

The OFMDFM has published its Consultation Paper on the parading issue – a Code of Conduct and draft legislation. This is one of the products that was promised as part of the Hillsborough Agreement of 5 February 2010.

The Consultation Paper is a densely interwoven 67 page document and will take some time to work through. No doubt it is carefully balanced to give something to both sides.

But on first reading the paper looks extremely unfriendly to the Orange Order and its loyalist friends. Almost all of the issues that others (mostly nationalists) have been complaining about for years are strictly circumscribed, and almost all of the positions that the Orange Order has adopted are implicitly dismissed by the paper.

Nowhere, for example, is there any mention of an unfettered ‘right to march’. Nor of ‘the Queen’s highway’. On the other hand, there is copious protection of residents from sectarian harassment, a requirement that organisers take account of the local context and of any sensitive locations, an ban on alcohol consumption at or near marches, a requirement for organisers to enter dialogue, and so on. The proposal is, if anything, even less ‘orange-friendly’ than the hated Parades Commission. The kinds of abuses that every summer sees will become illegal and the penalties are severe.

In short, it seems as if the future is not orange.

The proposals are not agreed, of course, but it is hard to see how anything could be watered down – these are already the joint proposals of the two main parties. It seems as if even the DUP has tired of the annual disruption and hate-mongering that the marching season creates. These proposals, if adopted, should see the end of the orange supremacist tradition, in practical terms, if not immediately in the minds of the participants. It is likely that a clear and unambiguous set of rules that is robustly policed will quickly become accepted by all – marchers, residents and the silent majority. In a few years marches may no longer be controversial at all.

This is one more step towards ‘normality’ and should be widely supported.

Help from afar for the SDLP?

2010-04-20T08:02:00.007Z

Margaret Ritchie set out her strong preference for the Labour Party as the SDLP's southern bestest friend. Right said some, wrong said others (this blog included).

But in purely practical terms, the fit is hard to see. The map below, taken from the NUIM Geography's Eye on the World blog (and cited in today's Irish Times) shows that the Labour Party in the south is, well, definitely in the south. It is weakest precisely at the points closest to the SDLP heartlands of Derry and South Down. In fact, it is almost nonexistent in all of the constituencies around the border.

This means that if Ritchie expects her new friends to canvass for her she might get a surprise. Because they simply aren't close enough to do so. Very few are going to come from Kildare, let alone Cork, to help out. The constituencies within an easy commute of the SDLP's target constituencies have virtually no Labour presence and thus no hands and feet to offer.

More evidence of Ritchie's poor judgement?

A curtain-raiser for the 2011 Assembly election

2010-04-19T11:06:00.001Z

With the transfer of policing and justice powers to Stormont, the question arises whether the Westminster election on May 6 is really that important in itself, or whether its importance lies in its function as a curtain-raiser for next year's Assembly election.

Considerable effort is expended contesting the 18 Westminster seats, despite the fact that the 13 or 14 Northern Irish MPs who will actually go to Westminster afterwards have effectively no power. No British government will tolerate dependency on a small group of Northern Irish MPs (despite the DUP's 'hung parliament' blackmail fantasies), and regardless of whether David Trimble gets his moment in the sun under David Cameron, the largest block that Northern Ireland is likely to be able to field will still be miniscule in comparison to the overall number of MPs. So Northern Ireland will have almost no power in a parliament that does not even legislate for many issues, as these have been devolved.

But the Assembly, where actual day-to-day administration is carried out, is elected using the same 18 constituencies as Westminster, and an Assembly election is due barely one year later than the Westminster election. So are the parties fighting the May 6 election partly in order to position themselves, and test the waters, before the Assembly election?

The outcome of the Westminster election will allow the parties to judge where they will need to invest more heavily in order to capture (or avoid losing) Assembly seats. It will allow everybody to assess the likely strengths in the next Assembly – and, of course, crucially to see whether the next First Minister will be Martin McGuinness!

The absence of the DUP from North Down, and all three unionist parties from Fermanagh and South Tyrone, will complicate matters, of course. FST is probably easier to calculate though – as long as unionism scores around 45% of the vote it will get 3 out of the 6 Assembly seats, though the breakdown between the parties can only be extrapolated from results elsewhere. Neither the DUP not the UUP will be able accurately to assess their strengths in North Down because neither is really standing there – the UCUNF candidate cannot be seen as representative of UUP strength there, as many of Hermon's votes may return to the UUP in 2011 when she is not standing.

Amongst the nationalist parties, the Westminster election is definitely a curtain-raiser for next year. There is no chance whatsoever of Fearghal McKinney being elected on May 6 so either the SDLP is trying to spoil things for Sinn Féin (not out of the question), or they are trying to establish a beach-head in FST for 2011. Likewise in several other constituencies where a nationalist victory in 2010 is impossible (East Antrim, East Belfast, Strangford, etc) the parties may simply be testing the waters to see what their chances next year will be.

Behind the crowing triumphalism (from either side) after May 6, a small army of number-crunchers will be going to work for all of the parties to calculate the likely effects of the vote on the outcome of the next Assembly election. Because that, ultimately, affects things in the north more than having a semi-retired TV personality snoozing on the green leather in Westminster. The election campaign for 2011 will start on May 7 2010.

Loyal to the (Half-)Crown

2010-04-19T10:12:00.001Z

Proof again that Northern Ireland's unionists are loyal less to the crown that to the half-crown came with the news that the DUP "has indicated that it would demand a continuation of the £9.5 billion (€10.8 billion) block grant to Northern Ireland in return for its support in a hung parliament after the British general election."

Apparently the English Tories would like to replace the long-established and much criticised Barnett Formula, that sets the level of the block grant, with one based on need.

So all the fine words about being part of the 'British family' were hollow. At the end of the day the DUP – and by extension most unionists – simply see the British connection as a source of unearned cash.

A 'loyal' or 'patriotic' unionist would call upon his or her fellow-citizens to make sacrifices for the good of their country. Faced with excruciating budgetary difficulties to come, a 'loyal British citizen' would call for belt-tightening, selfless solidarity and a return of the 'Dunkirk spirit'.

But not the DUP. Their approach is: who cares whether the English, Scottish or Welsh have to cut back, we want a guarantee of no cut-backs for Northern Ireland. So, rather than everyone having to give up, say, 3% of their income, we want to give up zero and have the others give up more than 3%. To hell with 'need' as a criterion for public sector expenditure – the DUP want to use their short-lived political clout (if they get it) to extract money over and above any consideration of need. Is this blackmail? Is this prostitution? Is this moral? Is this 'British'?

That such a demand could even be made by a party that calls itself 'unionist' is amazing. The effect it will have on the British parties will, however, be obvious – they will see Northern Ireland's unionists clearly for what they are – fair-weather friends and spongers, content to blackmail the British for regional gains, and definitely not an integral part of a 'British nation'.

The fact that such blackmail by the DUP will harden the attitudes of the British against them almost makes this blog hope that they will hold the balance of power on May 7, because nobody likes being blackmailed, and as soon as they can, the victim gets revenge on the blackmailers.

SDLP-Fianna Fáil merger – not on Ritchie’s watch

2010-04-18T16:01:00.003Z

Margaret Ritchie, SDLP leader, announced at the Labour Party conference in Galway yesterday that the mooted merger of the SDLP and Fianna Fáil would not be happening on her watch:
“There has been talk of us joining with Fianna Fáil and there are some in the SDLP who like such a proposition. But let me make our position clear.

Merger with Fianna Fail? - not on my watch.”

Given the audience – a hopeful anti-Fianna Fáil opposition party – it is hardly surprising that Ritchie took such a strong position against Fianna Fáil. And the SDLP, after all, is supposedly a socialist party, so closer links with Labour would make apparent sense.

But is the SDLP really a ‘socialist party’? And, equally importantly, if it thinks it is, should it really be one? After all, it is more than anything else the party that is supported by the conservative Catholic section of the north’s population – farmers, professionals, civil servants, and so on. The more radical side of northern nationalism is catered for by Sinn Féin.

And does northern nationalism really need two ‘socialist’ parties, and no other real choice? What of nationalist conservatives, Christian Democrats, capitalists, etc? Who are they expected to vote for, if one of the two nationalist parties “shares a special bond with Irish Labour” (according to Ritchie), and the other sees its allies in national liberation movements worldwide?

Northern nationalism needs more than a statist labour party and a ‘revolutionary’ party. These two positions occupy only a part of the political spectrum – though in welfare-dependent Northern Ireland this may be less obvious than in real countries. If the north is to have any hope of building a real economy, and a real society, then it must have parties that represent the full spectrum of opinion.

For that reason Ritchie was wrong to nail her colours to the Labour mast. Labour represents a statist approach, directed by the needs of the large public sector unions. It is economically naïve and intervenionist, and lacks the skills to develop the economy and thus bring prosperity to everyone. Ritchie should have maintained the SDLP’s policy of neutrality between the southern parties – accepting support from each. By identifying too closely with one minor party, Ritchie risks cutting the SDLP off from the largest and (still) most successful party – Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fáil would make a much better fit for the SDLP – as a populist party, including business, labour, urban and rural interests. Fianna Fáil is a genuinely broad church – although it is very close to business it also has overseen the longest and most successful era of industrial peace with the trades unions.

With Fianna Fáil the SDLP could have developed as a wider, more inclusive and populist party. With Labour the SDLP is backing into a statist cul-de-sac, and is leaving sections of its potential support uncatered for. Where they can turn is hard to see – certainly not to the right-wing unionist parties.

Ritchie’s closer identification with Labour may end up creating more space for Fianna Fáil to enter northern politics in its own right, offering a Christian Democratic electoral platform that would eat into the SDLP’s core support. With Sinn Féin to their left, the SDLP would then find itself squeezed – and those who know politics in the south know that Fianna Fáil is a professional and determined party. If it sets out to attract the centrist and right-of-centre Catholic vote, it will do so without mercy, and, thanks to Ritchie, the SDLP could be extinguished.

Ritchie’s loss of southern neutrality could end up killing off her party entirely. Her watch may turn out to be the last watch.

Cobain’s lack of interest in justice

2010-04-18T12:17:00.001Z

The UUP (sorry, “UCUNF”) candidate for North Belfast, Fred Cobain, has demonstrated again why unionism is such a dysfunctional creed.

In response to the new Justice Minister’s first steps in office, Cobain focussed on the fact that Ford had held talks with his southern counterpart.

As Cobain put it:

"David Ford has barely warmed his Executive seat, and already he is latching on to the mantra of working across Ireland 'both North and South'. "We can thank the DUP for gerrymandering in a Minister who is, by his own admission, 'agnostic' on the Union.

The Justice Ministry - probably the most sensitive post in the Executive - has been handed on a silver platter to a man who made a monumental gaffe over Bloody Sunday, only to turn tail and cower the minute he was challenged. Now we have proof positive of Minister Ford's priorities, given that 'on-going cross-border police co-operation' and a meeting with the Republic's Justice Minister and Garda Commissioner was his primary concern on his anointment.”

So Cobain thinks that the primary issue should be whether the Minister is a unionist? Rather than a Minister who seeks to cooperate closely with the adjacent jurisdiction?

Do you have to be a ‘unionist’ to pursue justice? Only a fool would believe that – but it seems that Cobain does.

And what on earth has he against “on-going cross-border police co-operation” and meetings with the Republic's Justice Minister and Garda Commissioner? If they help to improve cross-border cooperation again, for example, dissident republican violence? Would he prefer the violence to the cooperation? What a bizarre point of view!

Cobain simply demonstrates (yet again) that unionism is a sick and diseased belief system, that gives higher value to ‘unionism’ than to cooperation, neighbourliness, efficiency, common sense, peace and security.

Has Cobain ever looked at a map? Has he no idea that what happens in the north and south are inextricably linked? Crime and dissident activity respect no artificial borders, and we all share a small island – if Ford did not seek immediate cooperation with his southern counterpart, then he would be failing in his job – but to Mr Cobain such failure, and the deaths, destruction, crime and insecurity that such a failure might lead to is less important than whether Ford is a unionist. Cobain is pathetic, but unfortunately all too typical of unionism. Until his ill creed is defeated no-one in Ireland, north or south, will be certain of getting the efficient governance that we all need.

Watson will not stand

2010-04-18T11:51:00.003Z

What a pity. The News Letter reports that:

"THE UUP Mayor of Antrim - who lost out on being the Conservative and Unionists candidate in South Antrim - has come out in support of Sir Reg Empey in his attempt to take the seat.
Adrian Watson, who in recent weeks publicly vented his anger at the party for not selecting him to take on sitting DUP MP William McCrea, yesterday accompanied Sir Reg to the Electoral Office where he submitted his nomination as the Conservatives and Unionists' candidate.

Highlighting the Rev McCrea's Westminster expense claims and multiple political jobs, Mr Watson told the News Letter that he believed the UUP leader would take the seat."

This blog was unashamedly looking forward to seeing how the outcome would be affected by a wildcard independent unionist candidate - i.e. Watson. But now it seems that this will not happen. South Antrim remains an intriguing contest, but not as fascinating as it could have been.

The Adrian Watson Show, which promised so much entertainment, has fizzled out.

Upper Bann is a marginal seat

2010-04-16T18:34:00.002Z

That, at least, is the opinion of Jim Allister. He said that the TUV “will not fight any of the marginal seats. It will fight only in eight safe unionist seats and two safe nationalist seats.” The two ‘safe’ nationalist seats are South Down and Mid Ulster.

But if the TUV are not fighting Upper Bann, then they must consider it marginal. Because, of course, last September Jim Allister himself said:

"I look forward to the Westminster election and the verdict on the betrayers of Traditional Unionism. In politics you expect most from those who know the truth and brag of their steadfastness. That is why one of the men who disappointed me the most is the outgoing MP for Upper Bann. He won his seat by opposing the betrayal of Trimble. Now, he deserves to lose it for operating the very Belfast Agreement system which Trimble bequeathed us. I have to say, with a heavy heart, there was as much honesty and maybe less deceit in the politics of those who spawned the Belfast Agreement than in those who having blasted Trimble then gave us Martin McGuinness as our Joint First Minister."

So last year Allister was determined to bring David Simpson down, but this year he is not even going to stand a candidate against him – for fear of Upper Bann being won by Sinn Féin if the unionist vote splits.

It seems that his disappointment with Simpson was not really so great. He ended his climb-down from opposing Simpson with a rather weak and pathetic near-endorsement of the UUP:

“It is not for me to prescribe how TUV supporters should vote in each constituency where TUV is not standing, but I’m sure they will weigh the circumstances and opportunities of each. Likewise, while there is little to choose between the two pro-Belfast Agreement parties, each of which support terrorists in government, I expect many will have regard to the recent gifting to Sinn Fein, by the DUP, of its strategic goal on policing and justice. At least the UUP did the right thing in voting against transferring such powers to the terrorist-inclusive Executive at Stormont.”

Imagine the headlines: “TUV endorses UUP”. Poor Allister is turning in figures-of-eight – he hates the DUP (and especially Simpson … well, last year anyway), but can’t stand against him in case the real baddies get ahead, so he half-endorses the party of David Trimble. Is he confused, or just losing the plot?

The Schoolteachers, Doctors and Lawyers Party

2010-04-16T15:21:00.001Z

One of the jibes that is often thrown at the SDLP is that its initials stand for Schoolteachers, Doctors and Lawyers Party.

A glance at their candidates for the Westminster election shows how accurate this jibe might actually be. They are standing 18 candidates – one in each constituency – probably the only party to do so. Of these 18:

Five are (or were) teachers: McCamphill, Muldoon, Bradley, Joe Byrne and O'Loan.

Three work(ed) in the medical sector, though only one is actually a doctor: Logan, McDonnell and Kelly.

Two are lawyers: Maginness and Attwood.

That makes 10 – more than half of the total. To these can be added the professional politicians, who appear not to have worked outside the political bubble at all: Durkan, Michelle Byrne and Ritchie.

Only five of the SDLP's candidates come from outside the narrow confines of Schoolteachers, Doctors and Lawyers, and the Party. None – not one – appears to work in industry or as a private sector employee. How effectively the party can represent those who are trying to actually create wealth, rather than spend it, is uncertain. The party seems to be composed almost entirely – at the level of its candidates – by people who live off the public purse. This is hardly a rarity in the north, of course, but it bodes ill for their ability to ever be able to manage a market economy, if that day should ever come.

Now, of course, another of the jibes (from unionists only, this time) is that SDLP stands for the South Down and Londonderry Party. After May 6 we'll see if this turns out to be accurate – if Ritchie and Durkan are the only (re)-elected SDLP MPs.

The last of the jibes – from Sinn Féin supporters only – is that SDLP stands for the Stoop Down Low Party (aka the 'Stoops'). This blog does not subscribe to that point of view, despite regrettable lapses by the SDLP in the past. In recent months the SDLP seems to have been trying to show a bit of backbone – only time will tell whether this came too late.

Local government reorganisation delayed?

2010-04-16T09:29:00.001Z

There are reports circulating that the planned reorganisation of the local government in the north – including the reduction in the number of councils from 26 to 11 – may not, in fact, take place in time for next year's planned local elections.

In fact, the local government elections should have taken place last year (they run on a four year cycle, and the last were in 2005), but were delayed to allow the reorganisation to take place.

But if the delays are as severe as reported, there may be no alternative but to hold elections next year for the existing 26 councils, and then reorganise before the following elections.

It's still all about Irish unity

2010-04-16T08:15:00.004Z

Just in case some unionists have gotten the wrong end of the stick – particularly about John Hume's 'post nationalist' nonsense – or have actually believed their own propaganda about Sinn Féin having 'surrendered' – the two nationalist parties have just reminded them that, for both Sinn Féin and the SDLP, the ultimate goal remains Irish unity.

Margaret Ritchie, launching the SDLP election campaign said:

"So let me spell it out loud and clear: Our job is nowhere near completed:

Yes we secured Civil Rights and Equality; We got the IRA to see the futility of its campaign and yes we got everyone to see that a powersharing devolved Government was essential. All basic SDLP objectives – all delivered.

But we are now targeting the next set of fundamentals which affect peoples lives. We are going to set the political agenda for the next generation by focusing on creating prosperity, building a Shared Future and planning, credibly, for Irish Unity"

"The SDLP believes in a United Ireland. Unambiguously.

We will work every day to lay the foundations upon which a United Ireland can be built – mutual trust, respect and protection for minorities.

We will take our unique ideas for achieving unity to the heart of decision-making in Dublin and London. We will press every party in Westminster to engage around the SDLP’s radical thinking on unity and our work will present people with the first detailed view of what Unity would look like - ever produced.

Further, we will not promise something unrealistic like Irish Unity by 2016, simply because it is the anniversary of the Easter Rising! Unlike others, we will be credible on Irish Unity."

Gerry Adams, also launching his party's election campaign yesterday, said:

"Sinn Féin is the united Ireland party. The all-Ireland party. The party with elected representatives in every forum on this island. From Cork to Derry, from Kerry to Down people vote Sinn Féin.

We are in the business of nation building. As Irish republicans we have put the issue of Irish re-unification onto the political agenda in London, Dublin, Washington and Belfast. We have engaged the Diaspora across the world in the campaign for a united Ireland.

We are also engaging with unionists on this issue at civic and community, as well as political level, and on social and economic, on bread and butter issues, as well as on the constitutional question.

Our vision for a united Ireland is unique amongst the parties in this election."

So when the votes are counted, on May 7 unionism should look closely at the combined nationalist score – because this represents the proportion of the electorate who 'unambiguously' support Irish reunification. If the proportion of the electorate that supports the two nationalist parties has increased from that of 2005 (41.8%, though without Kieran Deeny this would have been at least 1% higher) or 2001 (42.7%), then it is time to start worrying.

The nationalist proportion of the vote in Westminster elections has been increasing fairly steadily for a generation, and is getting closer to parity with unionism. Unionism, so long the 'majority community' is very close to simply having a plurality – and ultimately a minority. As the elderly – predominantly Protestant – die, and as the young – majority Catholic – start to vote, the gap will continue to close.

So, unionism – read their lips. It's all about Irish unity. And it's getting closer.

Poster wars

2010-04-15T11:22:00.003Z

Elections bring out the worst in the political class - smears, allegations, innuendo, ad hominem attacks, lies, deceptions, dishonesty, and so on - but at least they provide an opportunity for those of a creative nature to put their skills into practice.

The now famous case of 'Kristen' has inspired others to create (or search for) posters attacking or ridiculing their opponents.

The 'Don't Vote Tory' set are fun, and seem to have been created by someone in Northern Ireland, since half of them deal with northern politicos. Here are two of my favourites - regular readers will recognise why:

"None. Out. None. Absolutely none whatsoever"

2010-04-14T11:49:00.001Z

Strong words? Pretty definite, no?

Well actually, they were the exact words of David Cameron when asked last year if his party would stand aside in any Northern Ireland constituency.

Asked whether his party would stand aside in any Ulster constituency, he said: "None. Out. None. Absolutely none whatsover.

We're a United Kingdom party. I don't stand aside in Glasgow because it might help the Liberals. I don't stand aside in East London because it might help the Greens."

Less than a year later, though, his cumbersome contraption, UCUNF, has … um … stood aside in Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

Would you buy a used car off someone like Cameron?

A hung parliament may make voting pacts obsolete

2010-04-14T10:50:00.001Z

One of the highlights of the current Westminster election campaign so far has been its focus on voting pacts – largely on the unionist side, but more recently also on the nationalist side. There is no doubt that the existence of voting pacts can (and probably will) influence the overall outcome of the election in Northern Ireland.

However, in Britain the media attention is focussed more on the possibility of a hung parliament, and on what the outcome of such a situation might be.

One very obvious outcome is that one or other smaller party may hold the balance of power, and thus be in a position to extract benefits from its position. The DUP have hopes in that direction, as do the SNP. But the most obvious candidate for 'king-maker' is the Liberal Democrats (LibDems).

Today the LibDems published their election manifesto, and although it barely mentions Northern Ireland (and why would it, the LibDems are an exclusively British party), buried deep within its 112 pages is a commitment that may turn out to be highly significant to Northern Ireland's electoral future, should the LibDems be in a strong bargaining position after May 6.

On page 87 the LibDems return to an issue that has motivated them for years, but which they have never yet had the power to change – the inherent unfairness of the First-Past-The-Post electoral system. This is the system which famously gave the overwhelmingly nationalist voters of West Tyrone a unionist MP in 1997, gave the marginally unionist-majority South Belfast an SDLP MP in 2005, and may well give the marginally nationalist Fermanagh and South Tyrone an 'independent' (but Conservative affiliated) unionist on May 6.

The LibDem manifesto states that:

Liberal Democrats will:
• Change politics and abolish safe seats by introducing a fair, more proportional voting system for MPs. Our preferred Single Transferable Vote system gives people the choice between candidates as well as parties. Under the new system, we will be able to reduce the number of MPs by 150.

This promise also forms part of the LibDems headline '4 steps to a fairer Britain'.

Leaving aside for the time being the issue of reducing the number of MPS (though this is interesting in itself), the possibility of introducing STV proportional representation (PR-STV) in Westminster elections would revolutionise them in Northern Ireland. PR-STV would mean that voters can vote for whatever first preference candidate they want, knowing that if s/he is not elected, their vote will transfer to their second preference, and so on.

Voting pacts would be obsolete, as would calls for 'unionist unity' or 'nationalist unity'. Two, three or ten unionist or nationalist candidates could contest each seat, and as long as their votes transferred within their own blocks, the outcome would be fairly proportional to the votes. If, as would be logical, the PR-STV system was used in multi-member constituencies (as is the case in all other elections in Northern Ireland), then the outcome would tend to represent the share of the overall vote received by the parties or blocks.

In the currently controversial case of Fermanagh and South Tyrone, the LibDems proposal, if taken to its logical conclusion, would see the seat as merely one of, say, three in the west of Northern Ireland (e.g. FST, West Tyrone and Mid Ulster combined into a single three-seater). In such a constituency the outcome would be two nationalists and one unionist, which is close to the actual share of the vote in that area.

If the number of seats is reduced, perhaps to 15, the whole of Northern Ireland could be divided into four constituencies; three 4-seaters and a 3-seater. Depending on the shape of these constituencies the outcome would vary, but it would certainly be fairer than the current outcome (in Belfast, for instance, where nationalists and unionists are almost equal in number, May 7 might see three unionists and only one nationalist – or the reverse. Under PR-STV that would be a fairer 2-2 split).

At this stage, of course, the LibDems promise is merely a promise – they may not get to hold the balance of power, and even if they do, they may not be able to force the main governing party to accept their plans for PR-STV. But it certainly would make more of a long-term impact on Northern Ireland than the tired old arguments about voting pacts. This is an issue worth watching.

Unionist unity, nationalist unity

2010-04-14T08:21:00.002Z

Yesterday this blog suggested that nationalists should copy the unionists, who have selected a 'unity' candidate for Fermanagh and South Tyrone – and thereby beat them.

It seems that this blog was not alone in that line of thinking. It was revealed that Sinn Féin had suggested voting pacts to the SDLP and were shot down. Margaret Ritchie, SDLP leader, called such pacts 'sectarian'. She may be right, or she may also be mistaking constitutional preference for religious affiliation.

While the lack of affection between Sinn Féin and the SDLP is evident, the fact remains that they are closer to each other than either is to any other party, and both compete for the nationalist vote. How the nationalist voters will react to the loss of FST, thanks to the SDLP's hopeless candidacy, will not be seen until the next Assembly election.

It is clear, though, that if unionism is to coalesce around 'unity candidates' in sensitive constituencies, a divided nationalism will suffer. It is true, of course, that such 'suffering' is fairly limited since Westminster has less and less direct control over people's lives as time goes on, but the psychological impact of unionist gloating should not be underestimated. Even if Westminster is of marginal importance – and the power of Northern Irish MPs is negligible – the mere fact of seeing a proportionate number of nationalist MPs elected is important. The proportion of MPs that are nationalist is a sign of the proportion of Northern Ireland's people who are nationalist. When nationalism has 8 MPs and unionism has 10 MPs, it is difficult for unionism to pretent that it is the 'voice of Northern Ireland'. If both blocks had 9 apiece, the impact would be enormous. But if the current unionist scheming bears fruit, May 7 could dawn with 12 unionists and only 6 nationalists – leading unionism to claim, incorrectly, that they represent a large majority of Northern Irish opinion.

This blog is not beholden to any one party, and sees them as mere vehicles towards an end – the reunification and independence of our country. So if one, or both, of the current nationalist parties disappears, this blog will not shed a tear. However, reality demonstrates that nationalists are a diverse people – some are socialists, some capitalists, some big farmers, some unemployed, some students, some Catholics, some Protestants, many atheists … As such, no single party could reflect their diversity, and so the need for different parties remains – Sinn Féin for the more radical, the SDLP for the more conservative. But these parties, as long as they still exist, should recognise that the possession of Westminster seats is symbolic – not just for them as parties, but for nationalism as a whole. Where seats are clearly marginal, they should be able to come together to agree a common position, and the weaker party in each constituency should stand aside. This, if agreed amicably in advance, should not be seen as weakness, but as a way of ensuring strength. The Assembly election results should be the guide to whether such 'standing aside' is necessary, and to which party should stand aside. As such, Assembly elections should be fought without fear or favour, and both parties should compete against each other.

In such a way nationalist confidence can be maintained, and the result of all elections, local, Assembly, Westminster and European, could reflect real nationalist strength. Pacts between nationalist parties are not 'sectarian', but political, as their goal is not related to any religious objective, but to a clearly political one.

This blog has frequently remarked that unionist disunity is nationalism's friend – the TUV being a particularly close friend – but the corollary of that is that nationalist disunity is unionism's friend. This election may show up the cost of nationalist disunity – but it is to be hoped that the two nationalist parties will survey the damage after May 6 and come to their senses.

Connor poses a long-term risk for nationalism

2010-04-13T09:22:00.006Z

The agreement by the DUP and UCUNF to withdraw their candidates in Fermanagh and South Tyrone in favour of a 'unionist unity' candidate poses long-term challenges for nationalists in the constituency.

Unionists in the constituency, despite having proved that David Cameron is a liar, will be ecstatic about the outcome, which is an almost certain win for them. The Tories, despite having to mumble half-excuses about how "Fermanagh and South Tyrone has characteristics that are unique within the UK" will, at the end of the day, probably have another vote to count on in Westminster – and that is all they really care about. The DUP have eaten the most humble pie, though. Despite being the largest unionist party in the constituency in recent elections, they have had to stand aside for a man who will lend his support to their opponents. Whether the 'recapture' of the seat for unionism as a result of their pressure for a pact will adequately compensate them, we may have to wait another year to see.

The 'unionist unity' candidate, Rodney Connor, is himself part of the problem for nationalism. He is apparently a decent man and quite well thought of by nationalists in the area. How strong his unionism is, is open to question – the unionist parties think that he is 'one of theirs', but he has joined neither party, and insists that he will act in the interests of the whole constituency. Given that that constituency is majority nationalist, it will be interesting to see how he does that.

But potentially more damaging for nationalism will be the loss of the constituency. History shows us that when the seat is held by a nationalist – especially a 'nationalist unity' individual like Frank Maguire (MP from 1974-1981) – the nationalist vote is high, but when a unionist wins the seat – usually as a result of a split nationalist vote – it seems that some nationalists withdraw from voting. After Ken Maginnis won the seat in 1983 thanks to the decision by the SDLP to stand again, the number of nationalist votes tumbled. Maginnis retained the seat thanks to his role as 'unionist unity' candidate in 1986, 1987, 1992 and 1997. In all of these elections both Sinn Féin and the SDLP stood, and nationalists knew that they could not win the seat. The nationalist vote dropped as a significant proportion simply didn't bother to turn out.

Although the constituency lost the heavily nationalist Coalisland area to Mid Ulster in the 1995 boundary revision, and FST became a more evenly split constituency, it remained winnable for nationalism. The result in 2001, when Sinn Féin finally took the seat, thanks to a split in unionism – proved that there were more latent nationalist votes in the constituency than unionist votes. They had just failed to turn out between 1986 and 1997.

And therein lies the problem for nationalism. Faced with a 'unionist unity' candidate and a nationalist split, many voters may again fail to turn out. If Connor wins, subsequent Westminster elections may see the effects of nationalist demoralisation in the constituency, and this could last a decade or more. FST contains a significant number of hard-line republicans who are probably less inclined towards 'constitutional politics' than others, and they are more likely to withdraw from active participation if they feel that it is a waste of time, with a 'unionist unity' victory inevitable.

So Connor has the possibility of not just taking the seat in 2010, but retaining it with increasing majorities for years to come. Only when nationalism senses that it has a good chance of winning, either through a 'nationalist unity' candidate, or a unionist split, will it return to the ballot box in force. The lessons that unionism will draw from the Connor experience are that they must never again split their vote in FST, so nationalism has only three possible hopes in the constituency: either a unity candidate in the short term, or the decimation of one of the nationalist parties, or the slow option of waiting for demography to whittle away the unionist numbers.

The first option – a unity candidate, is not likely in 2010, and barely likely even at the next election. The mutual dislike between Sinn Féin and the SDLP is such that neither would happily give way to the other. The best option in this case would be a 'non-political' unity candidate – someone popular through sport or the media, for example. Fearghal McKinney may have been such a man, but he was seduced by the SDLP's pointless lure.

The second option – the decimation of the SDLP – seemed quite likely in recent years, but the SDLP has made efforts to revive itself, and certainly is not out of the race yet. If it fails badly on May 6, either in terms of votes or seats, its days may be numbered – but that will be too late for FST this time.

The last option - demographics - though slow, is more certain. The graph above shows the number of actual votes received by unionism and nationalism in Westminster elections in FST since 1970. The nationalist number is quite volatile, and includes a decade of demoralised underperformance. The unionist number, however, is less volatile and more consistent. And it is consistently declining – the trend is clearly downward, reflecting Protestant demographics in the constituency. In brief, Protestants are a declining proportion of the constituency's population – from over 50% of the population amongst those aged over 60 (in the 2001 Census) (on the right hand side of the graph), to below 40% of those aged 25 and younger (in the 2001 Census) (on the left hand side of the graph):

So it is likely that demographics will return FST to nationalism in the future, if Connor takes it in 2010. But a quicker and better route would be for nationalism to play unionism at their own game – unity – and beat them.

About that other election

2010-04-12T13:14:00.002Z

Forgotten in the excitement and clamour over the May 6 Westminster election is the other election – the May 6 by-election to replace Iris Robinson on Castlereagh Council.

The names of the candidates in the Castlereagh East by-election were published last week:

Alliance – Jonathan Simpson
DUP – Sharon Skillen
Green Party – Martin Gregg
TUV – Ann Cooper
UUP – Hazel Legge

So, unsurprisingly, the nationalist vote will be zero – as it always is, since no nationalist has stood in the area recently (if ever).

The candidates themselves are, to be kind to them, of very mediocre stature – two, the UUP's Hazel Legge and Alliance's Jonathan Simpson are both full-time workers for their parties, and two others are political virgins – the TUV's Ann Cooper and the DUP's Sharon Skillen. The fifth candidate is a Green, Martin Gregg, who stood as an independent – and in opposition to the Green party candidate – in Strangford in the 2007 Assembly election, but got barely 1.8% of the first-preference votes.

The result of the election will barely be noticed – it will be a mere footnote to the larger Westminster story. But while the result is an almost certain DUP win, the size of the TUV and UUP inroads into that victory will be interesting. With 59% in 2005, the DUP appears unassailable. The UUP in 2005 got less than a third of the DUP's total, and the TUV did not even exist. If the TUV take 40% of the combined DUP-TUV total (as they have done in the very few occasions when the two parties have gone head to head), then the DUP will still win handsomely. It will then have a young councillor with unexplained personal links to the UDA to explain.

The BBC just aren't trying

2010-04-07T10:06:00.003Z

Yesterday this blog noted that the BBC's Election 2010 website takes for granted that religion is a political factor in Northern Ireland. Fair enough – this is something that is taken for granted by everyone in Northern Ireland – but it runs entirely counter to the polite pretence that it is not so. And this is a pretence that the 'liberal media', including the BBC, have been promoting for years.

But a closer look at the BBC's Election 2010 website reveals that its admission of the politico-religious fault line in Northern Ireland may not have been a deliberate change of policy – it may simply be because whoever is responsible for the site is not very clever.

Take, for example, the candidates that the site lists for each constituency;

In South Down the list (of two) includes Eddie McGrady, despite the fact that he has publicly announced that he will not re-stand – a fact that is, incidentally, reported on a different BBC site!

In West Tyrone the BBC's Election 2010 website ignores the formal announcement by UCUNF that Ross Hussey will stand there, and lists only Pat Doherty.

Fermanagh and South Tyrone lists Tom Elliott as a candidate, but not Arlene Foster, despite both having been announced by their parties.

And on it goes in a similar vein – no Paisley in North Antrim, no Overend in Mid Ulster …

If the BBC wants to be seen as a reliable reference tool for this election, it needs to up its game.

Poor start by UCUNF

2010-04-06T19:25:00.002Z

Straight out of the starting blocks the ‘joint leaders’ of the UUP-Tory party alliance, UCUNF, have released a statement redolent of the tired old clap-trap that connoisseurs of ‘old politics’ are so used to:

“This election will be about change and the demand for something better for the people of Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom as a whole.”

Meaningless platitude.

“It will also be about restoring trust in politicians and in our entire political process.”

How? Is this an example of your ‘new politics’? How pathetic!

“In Northern Ireland we are offering people a clear choice.”

As does every single election.

“Five more years of the same, tired old politics in Northern Ireland or a change of direction to a new optimism with the Conservatives and Unionists.”

And selecting a bunch of the same old UUP politicians, plus a couple of ‘celebrity candidates’ is the way to do that? How stupid do you think the electorate is?

“Five more years of Northern Ireland stuck on the margins of UK politics with the local parties or back into the mainstream of UK politics with a Conservative and Unionist Government.”

Um, the UUP are a ‘local party’, and they got most of the UCUNF candidacies. The rare Tories are in no-hoper seats. Mind you, so are the UUPers.

“Five more years of Gordon Brown's discredited Labour Government and its neutrality on the Union, or change with a Conservative and Unionist Government that supports the Union and wants to govern for the whole of the United Kingdom.”

Every government governs the whole UK. Either you’re being stupid or you think the voters are stupid. Not good in either sense.

“This really is the most important election in a generation. The outcome will affect every single person in Northern Ireland.”

Every election ‘affects every single person in Northern Ireland’. See previous comment.

“For the first time in decades people in Northern Ireland can help decide who will enter No 10 Downing Street on the morning after 6 May.”

If there is a hung parliament this is true. But it has been true in every other election since democracy started (around 1918, despite the propaganda that claims otherwise).

“But they can't do it by backing any of the other local parties.”

Untrue. If the DUP hold the balance of power then they will decide. Ditto the SDLP, for that matter.

“Sinn Fein, the DUP and SDLP have one thing in common. None of them can form the government at Westminster, or have ministers in the UK government.”

What a silly statement – trying to pretend that Sinn Féin are a ‘normal’ party which would ever wish to play a role in ‘British’ politics. And if the DUP hold the balance of power, who knows what role they might exercise?

“The alliance between the Ulster Unionists and the Conservatives offers us the chance to end Northern Ireland's semi detached political status.”

Yes, by ensuring that it becomes fully detached.

“It gives us the opportunity to realise one of unionisms most cherished objectives - equal citizenship for all the people of Northern Ireland.”

Are you now admitting that Northern Irish people have been denied ‘equal citizenship’? Would you care to expand on that? Compare and contrast previous Tory administrations.

“At this election, it is only by backing the Conservatives and Unionists that you can vote to put Northern Ireland at the heart of the Union.”

At the heart? You’re joking, right? A marginal overseas possession with fewer seats than east London? You still think Northern Irish voters are stupid, don’t you, Cameron? After all, they’re just thick paddies, right? Some of them so thick that they’ll buy into your nonsense. But not enough, thankfully.

Electoral Office malfunction

2010-04-06T12:31:00.004Z

Trusting the running of an election to a body that cannot tell the time is worrying, to say the least. Below is a screen-shot of the Electoral Office's web site, taken today:

Just above where it tells us that the Westminster election will take place on May 6, it also tells us that "All Electoral Offices will be closed for Easter on Monday 5 and Tuesday 6 May and will re-open at 9.00am on Wednesday 7 May. The Electoral Office Helpline (0800 4320 712) will be open on Monday 5 and Tuesday 6 May".

So the Electoral Office thinks that the Westminster election will take place during Easter? Despite the fact that Easter is, ... well, already over!

Hopefully they can count ballots better than they can read a calendar.

Update (7 April):

The Electoral Office have now corrected their calendar malfunction.