Paisley Captures Unionism
A stern Reverend Ian Paisley preached his latest warning to Downing Street last Saturday as the Assembly’s election confirmed him as the undisputed leader of Unionism, “A majority of unionist voters are sure to consign the Belfast Agreement to the annals of history”.
His deafening roar comes as the Ulster Unionists flounder after an election campaign marked more by its internal dissent than by its ability to capture the electorate, with Jeffrey Donaldson issuing a counter manifesto renting his spleen beyond the crack of the chief whip. Donaldson has prepared himself for a more explicit challenge, pressuring Trimble to realign the party in accordance with his anti-Agreement stance, “the vast majority of Unionists have lost confidence in the one sided implementation of the Agreement” he stated immediately prior to the polls.
Trimble’s response to both Donaldson and the DUP’s demands remains characteristically clipped, lambasting Paisley as promising “a false bill of goods” whilst indicating the burden of an undermined leader, “this is not the time to abandon one’s post and one’s responsibilities and to put one’s own personal preferences ahead of the public interest”. Trimble’s obvious fatigue comes as scepticism to his strategy resonates throughout the unionist community as it crowns Dr Paisley as its most unequivocal flag bearer.
The DUP’s ascendancy places the party and the Blair government in a quandary. Westminster will now have to address negotiations to a party that has placed a serious revision of the Good Friday Agreement at the heart of its overwhelmingly endorsed manifesto, “Mr Blair will deal with the DUP because he has to if he is serious about a lasting political settlement for Northern Ireland,” stated DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson. Its own stance of refusing to work with Sinn Fein has smothered the possibility of Stormont being filled, as the offices of First Minister and Deputy would be occupied by Paisley and Gerry Adams respectively after the republicans outclassed the nationalist SDLP.
While the Assembly’s coma remains indefinite, the radicalization at the heart of this election is likely to have repercussions beyond the political elite. The unionist electorate which in many instances embraced the DUP for the first time expects results not rhetoric. At the flashpoint of North Belfast, where the Catholic pupils of Holy Cross Primary School became the focus of loyalist wrath, and an otherwise quiet summer in Northern Ireland was marked with nightly riots, the DUP come face to face with republicanism, and can only guarantee a lasting security in an area which the Agreement has passed by through engaging with Sinn Fein, who have an equal representation in the constituency, both parties leaving the centre trailing in their wake.
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