Irish News, May 26, 2005
DUP's unionist domination will not happen
by Jim Gibney
Ian Paisley senior is 79 this year. His birthday present from the unionist
electorate was the leadership of the unionist people – a goal he has sought
for the last 30 years.
The scale of his victory is considerable. He might well have dealt the UUP a
fatal blow.
To get a sense of how far the DUP have travelled it is worth comparing the
recent election results to the local government elections in 1973.
Then the DUP polled 28,811. They had 21 councillors. The Unionist Party
polled 255,187. They had 194 councillors.
A few weeks ago the DUP received 241,856 votes electing nine MPs and 182
Councillors. The UUP vote came in at 127,314. This gave them one MP and 115
councillors.
The DUP for the time being has replaced the party who founded this state; a
party which dominated political life here since partition.
The arrival of the DUP as the lead unionist party is far from meteoric. It
has been a bitter, decades-long, battle with their rivals.
Along the way they will have learned the hard lesson of politics – the
democratic will of the people is changeable.
There are many reasons why the DUP attracted new unionist voters.
However, it is highly unlikely the votes cast were for Paisley's
fundamentalist beliefs.
At most Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church has a membership of 12,000.
A considerable number who voted for the DUP are members of the Presbyterian
Church, the Unionist Party at prayer, as they have been described.
It is unlikely the pews of Paisley's church will be graced by such people.
This observation is only important in the context of trying to read the
minds of the converts and the DUP's intentions.
Can the DUP afford to take this additional support for granted and sit on
their hands or more precisely sit on their rear ends on the benches at
Westminster instead of the benches at a Stormont Assembly?
The DUP of today is publicly a different party from the DUP of just a few
years ago and therein, in part, is an explanation for their success.
Not so long ago the DUP's most favoured word was 'No' and their slogan 'No
Surrender'.
Not so today.
They shifted away from such absolutist positions during the Assembly
election of 2003.
Their campaign slogan was 'Fair Deal' not 'no' deal or 'smash' Sinn Féin.
They might hanker after the days of unionist domination but they are
intelligent enough to know that it will not happen.
Last December they participated in a prolonged negotiation involving the two
governments and Sinn Féin.
That negotiation was firmly rooted in the Good Friday Agreement.
They faced the same reality David Trimble faced when he had to cross over
the power sharing Rubicon with republicans.
At the last minute the DUP walked away. Maybe they lost their nerve in the
mouth of an election.
The UUP would have crucified them for sitting in an executive with Sinn Féin.
They couldn't take the risk.
Maybe their involvement in negotiations and their grandstanding at the end
of these has been no more than a cynical exercise to achieve dominance. They
are practising a huge con trick.
Time will tell.
It could be argued the rise of the DUP represents a swing to the right by
unionists.
This suggests David Trimble was a liberal. He wasn't.
He bought into the Good Friday agreement and secured majority support from
unionists in the 1998 referendum.
He then set about destroying that support. He tried to hollow out those
provisions which guaranteed equality and human rights.
He campaigned against replacing the RUC with a new police service and
opposed the release of political prisoners.
When republicans made ground-breaking moves to help anchor the peace process
Trimble failed to respond positively thus undermining the gestures among his
own people.
Trimble deepened the crisis inside unionism by feeding the fear frenzy
generated by the DUP and rejectionists in his own party.
To a large extent he was the author of his own downfall.
He learned, as will the DUP, power brings responsibility, responsibility
brings reality, reality's price – difficult decisions.
Trimble couldn't make them.
Can Paisley?
