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“We are colleagues, we travelled on the plane yesterday and we shared a bag of Haribo, if you’re interested”. Gavin Robinson’s attempt to paint a sunny picture of the DUP family – on the BBC’s The View – convinced nobody. The sweet-sharing colleague in question was Upper Bann MP Carla Lockhart, who dramatically resigned from the party only 11 days later.
But the political friction extended far beyond the DUP’s inner circle. The terse studio exchange that followed – between DUP leader Gavin Robinson, UUP leader Jon Burrows, and TUV leader Jim Allister – was lightyears away from the “happy world of Haribo”.
Allister accused Robinson of being “rattled”; Robinson pointedly highlighted Burrows’s absence in Taiwan; and Burrows suggested Allister wanted to gift Sinn Féin a victory. For anyone watching at home, the fractures running through the three main blocs of political unionism were blindingly obvious.
This was more than the usual cut and thrust of party-political debate. This was a raw therapy session, publicly exploring – and exposing – political unionism’s internal psyche.
Who leads unionism?
Robinson only grew tetchier when host Mark Carruthers probed whether it was wise to afford the loyalist blogger – and legal adviser to the Portadown district – Jamie Bryson “so much influence over the future direction of unionism”.
Robinson snapped that Bryson was “not leading unionism”, before self-characterising himself as “the leader of unionism”. Notably, not just the leader of the DUP – but of unionism in its entirety.
To be fair to Robinson, he does enjoy an electoral mandate, and he does lead the largest unionist party. Bryson, most certainly, has no mandate and is not even a member of a political party.
And yet, if Robinson is the de jure leader of unionism, the obvious question is how much authority does his leadership carry? Because, from the outside, it is rapidly disintegrating.
Writing exclusively for the Belfast News Letter this past Saturday, the DUP’s Jonathan Buckley wrote to the three leaders of political unionism – including his own party leader – proposing formal negotiations for greater cooperation.
While this overture received a distinctly lukewarm reception from Burrows and outright hostility from Allister, it – and previous appeals for “unionist unity” – exposes an uncomfortable truth about the upcoming contest.
Six months out from the polls, unionism’s political representatives have dropped all hope of expanding their base. The strategy has entirely shrunk to carving up the existing bloc more efficiently.
Because, make no mistake, no matter how viciously they tear lumps out of each other on the airwaves, they are in absolute lockstep on one single front: ejecting Michelle O’Neill from the First Minister’s office.
The DUP’s Paul Givan gave the game away when he appeared on BBC Radio Ulster, the morning after The View’s studio brawl. “Ultimately, the way in which I want to remove Michelle O’Neill as First Minister is at the ballot box”, the education minister said. “What we need to have is a coalescing within unionism and what we need is a strong unionist party. We have twenty-six seats; Sinn Féin have twenty-seven.”
It is a strategy entirely lacking in ambition or hope and serves as a fitting illustration of political unionism’s revertere worldview.
When the IRA called its ceasefire in 1994, the Ulster Unionist leader James Molyneaux famously characterised it as “the most destabilising thing to happen to unionism since partition”.
While some commentators rushed to say that his words had been misconstrued, there can be little denying that – looking back over the subsequent 32 years – political unionism has never quite recovered its footing.
Molyneaux’s anxiety exposed a central truth of political unionism’s structural design: it was only ever equipped for unchallenged political dominance.
Indeed, for the first half-century that followed partition, the very architecture of the northern statelet was constructed around the simple maths of a permanent, monolithic, Unionist Party wielding a commanding majority.
The peace process did more than just rewrite the political rulebook; it changed the entire game. By forcing a shift from majoritarian rule to power-sharing, it demanded a contest of strategic political chess that unionism simply lacked the muscle memory to play.
Historically, while the old Unionist Party had occasionally faced challenges from organised labour or fringe loyalist extremists, overall, its authority had been unassailable. It had never acquired the skills for political survival on a modern board: dynamic gambits, the sacrifice of immediate position for subsequent advantage, and the close study of one’s opponent.
In this new arena, adaptability became advantageous, just as rigid, brittle dogma became a fatal flaw.
Cry of the Lundy
Unversed in the essential skills of coalition building, soft power cultivation and strategic compromise, the UUP, DUP and subsequently the TUV have collectively conducted a zero-sum politics of retention and maintenance, trapped in a permanent defensive crouch and treating every concession – no matter how minor or symbolic – as a fatal breach of the Union’s fortress walls.
Consequently, any pragmatic or unavoidable compromise triggers severe backlash. The toxic cry of “Lundyism” carries with it a Mark of Cain that no unionist leader dare risk. This vicious cycle – which once enabled the DUP to outflank the UUP – is now seeing the UUP and TUV nip at the DUP’s heels.
Such siege mentality, however, carries with it a heavy cost. As Brexit proved, it can often succeed in alienating those more moderate, middle-ground voters that would – strategically speaking – be essential to securing the Union’s future.
These are ordinary voters who can see that the “Never, Never, Never” politics simply does not deliver for the public. The most heartening development of recent months was that – during the Garvaghy Road parading dispute – over 1,000 people from a Protestant background signed an open letter explicitly supporting the residents.
Since the 1990s, political unionism has been – more often than not – navigating events rather than shaping them. Responding to history rather than making it.
While there have been temporary wins, these have always appeared to be – from the outside – short-term tactical manoeuvres rather than steps forward in an overarching strategy. While the Brexit victory and the Westminster confidence-and-supply agreement were highly celebrated, neither could be said to have materially advanced or secured the core goals of unionism.
The resulting institutional volatility is stark. During the first 75 years of the northern statelet’s existence, the Ulster Unionist Party went through nine leaders; in the 28 years since the Good Friday Agreement, it has already matched that number (even if Mike Nesbitt did take two turns at the wheel).
Equally, just as Ian Paisley’s – once insurmountable – authority evaporated following his historic working relationship with Martin McGuinness, the DUP has been on a roller-coaster of leadership instability ever since. The turbulent tenures of Peter Robinson and Arlene Foster, the chaotic Poots interregnum, and the shocking exposure of Jeffrey Donaldson’s heinous crimes have all left the party rudderless and unsure of itself.
Carla Lockhart’s resignation strips the DUP of its most popular MP and leaves its Westminster ranks at their lowest ebb in a quarter of a century. It is a stark drop for a once-dominant behemoth to now command just 22% of the North’s MPs.
Them’ums
In contrast, Irish republicanism has proven itself considerably adept at playing this new political game. It has taken bold risks and made strategic compromise, without ever losing sight of its ultimate horizon.
As the former Sinn Féin vice-president Pat Doherty said at the time of the Good Friday Agreement, “We need to be sophisticated enough, clever enough and even devious enough to take whatever decisions we decide to take”.
Republicanism has proven itself capable of stretching its base without fracturing it. Rather than being forced from a reluctant leadership, acts of reconciliation have been intentional steps designed to strengthen the foundation of the peace and build greater cooperation.
Such initiatives demonstrate a self-confidence and generosity of spirit within republicanism that is consistently absent from political unionism. It is driven by sincerity, not cynicism. But something can be entirely sincere while also being good political strategy. At present, political unionism appears incapable of exercising either sincerity or strategy.
Ultimately, in modern politics, it is a simple reality that only those who feel insecure in their own position consider such outreach to be a threat.
Prisoners of history
Political unionism has struggled to come to terms with the democratic outworkings of the peace process. This underlying unease was verbalised last week by Jon Burrows, who openly conceded, “I find the entire fact that Sinn Féin gets so many votes deeply uncomfortable”.
Locked in its own supremacist history, political unionism has failed to articulate a compelling, forward-looking case for ‘the Union’. Invariably ceding the ground of change to its constitutional opponents.
It is noteworthy that – on the same day Carla Lockhart resigned from the DUP – another northern MP, Sinn Féin’s Órfhlaith Begley, announced her intention to contest the next Assembly election. She joins three of her MP colleagues – Chris Hazzard, Pat Cullen and Paul Maskey – as the party seeks to grow its support base in next May’s contest. This strategic move highlights Sinn Féin’s confidence and determination. It is not without risk, but those who want change cannot afford to stand still.
The juxtaposition of these two events frames the present political dichotomy: an ambitious, offensive strategy on one side and defensive splintering on the other.
Unfortunately for unionism, nostalgia is not strategy. Lockhart’s cry of “O’Neill Must Go!” is a pale imitation of Paisley’s original crusade against the North’s prime minister, Terence O’Neill, in the late 1960s.
Such revanchism explains the strategic blunder of re-opening the Garvaghy Road dispute after 28 years. Ironically, while the mid-1990s Drumcree stand-offs momentarily united unionism – immortalised by the triumphant clasped hands of David Trimble and Ian Paisley outside Carleton Street Orange Hall – its modern incarnation has only underlined contemporary unionism’s fragmentation.
All of this recalls Napoleon’s tactical maxim: “never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”. However, as a wisdom, it assumes an opponent capable of self-reflection – one who might eventually spot their blunder and pivot.
As history teaches, there are no mirrors in the big house of unionism. It is a political creed unwilling to adapt and unable to grow. Blind to its own faultlines, it continues to mistake the noise of the echo chamber for the pulse of the wider public.
By reducing political strategy to a defensive, uninspired carve-up of a shrinking electorate, unionism’s leaders – be they Gavin, Jon, Jim, Carla, or even Jamie – are not just committing a fatal mistake; they are confidently accelerating it.
And long may they continue.
Since July 2016, Joe Dwyer has worked as the London office manager and senior researcher for a series of Sinn Féin abstentionist MPs. He contributes regularly to Sinn Féin’s An Phoblacht and Éire Nua publications. He is a member of Unite the Union.