The Westminster revelations and tribal infighting have eroded traditional certainties in Northern elections, writes FIONNUALA O CONNOR
IT DOESN’T often happen that the outcome of a Northern Ireland election is a genuine puzzler. Dreary spires and all that, tribal certainties, eternal truths: donkeys wrapped in the colours of flags trotting confidently into the field to receive the support of the masses. But not this time, or at least not confidently.
There is almost equal uncertainty about next week’s vote in the separate worlds of “the two main traditions”. The biggest party has been spooked by outgoing MEP Jim Allister, who took his seat in the DUP’s name but has spent half his term denouncing them as traitors. The second-biggest party has its own “traitors” issue and will fret that republican supporters have lost faith until the ballot boxes are opened.
Allister will be damned for letting Sinn Féin top the poll if he siphons off sizeable DUP disillusionment. The SDLP’s Alban Maginness is struggling to exorcise the party’s disastrous performance in 2004. The Euro campaign has as little to do with Europe as it did on day one. But what politicians are saying has begun to reflect what potential voters are telling them on the doorsteps. Against a background of the daily exposure of naked greed at Westminster, the North’s politicians have been scurrying to get right with the people.
The most revealing has been Peter Robinson, though Martin McGuinness is not far behind. There was an initial phase when the First Minister sounded angry and dismissive of “Swish Family Robinson” jibes, and the “who ate all the pies” jokes when it emerged that with MP wife Iris he had claimed the maximum allowance for food.
It was easier to fob off questions about employing the family’s three children and the spouse of one. Who else could he trust as much, think of the threats and attacks. But constant jibes from Jim Allister, his own expenses online since January, have had their effect. With more than a touch of what sounds like panic, Robinson has offered one undertaking after another on double-jobbing.
All but one other figure in addition to himself, he said, would give up their Stormont posts in favour of exclusive devotion to Westminster. There is even a ghost of a suggestion that he might himself pack it in at Westminster. The implication that the party is suffering a backlash from the expenses scandal is awkwardly obvious. Dynasties have lost caste, even inside the famously reverent mini-world of the DUP. The Paisley family mislaid its lustre a while back.
Diane Dodds, married to deputy party leader Nigel, might not after all have been the smartest choice as Euro candidate. The DUP may well still top the poll, but the strains are telling. Meanwhile, McGuinness delivered an impassioned speech the other day on the need for the DUP to come to terms with equality. The tone represented a considerable shift from the pitch that republicans were above Diane Dodds, with her shameless promise to smash Sinn Féin, her party’s partner in the Stormont administration.
Bairbre de Brún preferred to talk about vision. It’s pretty clear Sinn Féin has since met more than a few customers upset and angry that the party has been stalemated in Stormont by triumphalist unionism.
It’s also clear, from repetitive references by McGuinness and de Brún to their “industrial wage”, that Sinn Féin is not immune from the Westminster fallout. Their voters may be impressed enough with the promise that Gerry Adams takes the same wage as his driver, with the rest plus expenses going straight to the party. But Westminster has never sat entirely easily with the party base. Some were bound to mutter about the party’s rent of London accommodation.
And what does it say about confidence in Stormont when – like most of the DUP MPs – even low-profile SDLP leader Mark Durkan makes it clear on double-jobbing that he opts for London: that the front rank in each party prefers irrelevance on Westminster backbenches to the job of governing, or at least administering, at home?
Ulster Unionists are spared such dilemmas, reduced as they were in 2005 to the humiliation of a single MP, North Down’s Sylvia Hermon, who did not stand for Stormont. The party now seems bent on self-destruction in the semi-merger with the Conservatives to form “Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force”. Lady Sylvia called UCUNF a “very silly name” amid noises off that suggested friction between Tories and many UUs about obscuring the unionist bit of the brand behind a spotlit “Conservatives”.
UCUNF in his nomination papers, “Conservatives and Unionists” in election leaflets, MEP Jim Nicholson needs Diane Dodds to knock Jim Allister out in the first count if he is to trail in on transfers as usual in third place. But yesterday campaign pressures produced a pledge to publish his expenses “imminently”. His promise had been that they would arrive post-election.