Unionism on the Ropes

Lee Casey
Ógra Shinn Féin
An Lorgain

The recent Westminster election results make for interesting viewing. While republicanism moves onwards and upwards unionism is in the middle of a crisis of its on creation

The leadership of unionism is in crisis. Peter Robinson lost his East Belfast seat by over 1500 votes adding to his already weakened and scandal-ridden leadership position. The DUP parliamentary party appeared to support their leader by making him out to be the ‘master strategist’ and the ‘undisputed leader of unionism’. This amounts to nothing more than patting him on the back in order to find the best place for their daggers.

The UUP Tory link up ended in disaster with Reg Empey failing to win a seat in South Antrim which ended his leadership of the party. They also failed to unseat their former party member Sylvia Hermon in North Down and Mike Nesbitt literally should have stuck to the day job again failing to make an impact in Strangford. The grand wizard of the TUV, Jim Alistair, also failed to make an impact in North Antrim, despite his sectarian venom and bitterness being on full display throughout the election campaign.

More recent developments have also kept unionism on the ropes. Dawn Purvis resigned as not only a leader but also a member of the PUP putting the future existence of the PUP in doubt. Yet another unionist party in crisis. The imposing boundary changes under the review of public administration in the six counties were thwarted by the DUP minister Edwin Poots, due to the threat of a loss of control of a number of councils, including Belfast City council. The monumental publication of the Saville report, not only vindicated the victims as innocent, it also exposed to the world the brutal, imperial and murderous intent of the British Army and its actions on Irish soil. Unionist pride in the british army looks all the more baseless and the response from unionism was silent, save for Gregory Campbell, with his revisionist twist on events and his bitterness exposed for all to see in subsequent media interviews.



All this has led to much talk about unionist unity, mostly from the elephant in the room, the orange order, which just like the elephant, is grey and reducing in number. The Orange order and Unionism in general like the idea of unionist unity. They say this is on the basis of good governance for the six counties, but this is a smokescreen for keeping Martin McGuiness from becoming the first minister, an idea many unionists dislike, despite the fact that republicans had to bear Trimble, Paisley and Robinson in this position.

The tide is turning on unionism. It’s not the end but the beginning of the end of unionist domination and supremacy, the future is about equality and sharing power. We must not get complacent either and think it’s done and dusted, far from it. There is still a lot of work to be done to convince every one, including unionists, of the merits of the socialist republic we are working to create.