Newton Emerson: DUP set to appoint a Sinn Féin first minister

Northern Ireland is still waiting for Edwin Poots to nominate a new DUP first minister but there seems little doubt the subsequent first minister will be nominated by Sinn Féin.

The unionist vote is now splitting across three unionist parties and Alliance, each polling between 11 and 16 per cent, with all trends clumping those figures closer together. Sinn Féin is steady on 25 per cent.

The next scheduled Assembly election is 11 months away, although one could be held as soon as September if DUP instability and Sinn Féin calculation brings down the Executive. A DUP recovery is implausible on this timescale. The party’s vote is only set to fragment further.

The post of first minister was seen as unionism’s by default under the Belfast Agreement, which granted it to the largest party in the Assembly’s largest community designation.

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St Andrews Agreement

The DUP changed that rule in the 2006 St Andrews Agreement, with the acquiescence of Sinn Féin and the British and Irish governments, so that the post went to the largest party overall, regardless of designation.

This made winning the totemic title a straight race between the DUP and Sinn Féin, levering their votes up together, as both certainly intended.

Their votes fell in tandem when the Alliance surge began two years ago. That Sinn Féin’s fall stopped while the DUP’s plummet continued suggests nationalists value taking the first minister’s post, while unionists are more concerned about addressing their internal problems and disagreements.

Amid the orange gloom, there is the sense of a new dawn around the UUP and also of relief at the decline of the DUP – always a strange vehicle to convey the views of the entire unionist community. It would be unhealthy for a party to have made so many mistakes and not be punished at the polls.

Maintaining the drumbeat of spurious arguments is the point: it is all about creating a sense of momentum and inevitability

Unionism should be having a revolution, and in theory it can risk the disruption. The largest unionist party should take the office of deputy first minister, of equal power despite its lesser title. The current holder, Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill, is still referring to herself as “joint head of government” – clever magnanimity as she anticipates becoming first minister.

In an Assembly election, held under PR-STV, the newly competitive choice of unionist parties should increase the total unionist vote. While unionism will not regain the majority it lost in 2017, it should remain the largest designation. The fact this would have delivered a unionist first minister before St Andrews is one more act of DUP negotiating genius for unionist voters to jeer.

There has often been speculation that the DUP would refuse to serve ‘under’ a Sinn Féin first minister. In reality, it has never seemed credible that the DUP would walk away from power on such an undemocratic pretext. It seems even less credible today, with the party on the receiving end of unionism’s rebellious mood. If the DUP collapsed Stormont because it could not bear being in second place, the election this would trigger would simply reduce the party to a size where the executive could return without it.

Meanwhile, the nationalist vote is not growing. It is polling at a total of 39 per cent, the same level as at the time the Belfast Agreement, when the SDLP was the largest party by first-preference votes.

Optimistic unionists might hope for rejuvenation while nationalism – being a flawed Sinn Féin monolith – stagnates.

Symbolic significance

Yet there remains enormous symbolic significance in Sinn Féin becoming the largest party and in nationalism holding the first minister’s post. For unionism to set this aside only shows the greater enormity of the challenges it faces.

Sinn Féin will certainly use its success to call for a border poll, which on paper changes nothing, as it has been calling for a poll on equally spurious grounds for almost a decade. However, maintaining the drumbeat of spurious arguments is the point: it is all about creating a sense of momentum and inevitability, for which the first minister’s office provides an excellent platform.

Throughout the peace process, Sinn Féin has promised its base that getting into power on both sides of the Border is a decisive step to unification. By the time of the next Irish general election in 2025, first minister O’Neill should be only half-way through her mandate. If she is joined by Mary Lou McDonald as taoiseach, as seems probable, the republican optics will be overwhelming.

McDonald has said that as taoiseach she would press London, Brussels and Washington for a Border poll and seek support for a unity vote. Legally, this is irrelevant to the Belfast Agreement, but the same is true of Brexit and nationalism has still convinced the world otherwise.

Sinn Féin used to tell American supporters it was the largest party in Northern Ireland, until it was caught out. Now it tells them a Border poll can be won. It sees such lies as merely truths yet to be – and becoming the largest party is a milestone to prove it.