New monoliths in Northern Irish politics
Sydney Elliot, the leading psephologist, used to present the electoral history of Northern Ireland (NI) in three distinct phases. In the first stage, from NI’s formation until the outbreak of the Troubles, elections were dull affairs. On the unionist side there was one party, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), for whom all unionists dutifully voted, election after election. In power for fifty years, the party was the epitome of a monolith. No credible unionist alternative emerged in this period. It was seen either as unnecessary or dangerous to have more than one unionist party.
On the nationalist side there was also one party called, appropriately enough, the Nationalist Party (NP). Those who found the NP too weak and conciliatory employed the traditional republican tactic of abstentionism. Occasionally a third party like the Northern Ireland Labour Party would emerge to spice things up but generally elections were mundane sectarian head-counts. The UUP would sweep all before it, except in the few constituencies where nationalists could muster a majority.
With the start of the Troubles in 1969, things got more interesting as new parties emerged. The tumult of the conflict threw up a second unionist party, Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). By putting forward a more aggressive policy, Paisley gave unionist voters a real choice for the first time. On the nationalist side the anaemic NP gave way to the much more dynamic Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). Nationalists in this period were highly politicised but, thanks to continuing republican abstentionism, the SDLP had the electoral field to itself.
This pattern changed in 1981 with the emergence of Sinn Fein (SF) as a hard-line competitor to the SDLP. From then on both sets of voters had a choice between a hard-line and a moderate voice. Various smaller parties ebbed and flowed without seriously threatening the big four.
When I heard Sydney outline this model a few years ago, I naively assumed that the third stage represented some sort of Fukuyama-esque “end of history”. I thought that the current system was the natural state of affairs. It made sense really. On both sides, voters could choose between angry and not-so-angry as the fancy took them. Sometimes angry would win, sometimes not-so-angry, but the choice itself would remain the same.
It appears that I could have been wrong in this assumption. We could be entering, for want of a better phrase, a “new monolithism”. Last November’s assembly election confirmed the emergence of SF and the DUP as the larger parties in their respective communities. The fact that the hard-liners now hold the whip hand casts serious doubt on the long-term survival of their moderate rivals.
For both the SDLP and the UUP, much of their legitimacy was based on the fact that they spoke for the majority on their side. These two parties formed the central critical mass around which the power sharing government was based. They mattered because they were on top. Now that they’re no longer on top, do they still matter?
For the SDLP the challenge is daunting. When SF were playing second fiddle they always mattered because they had guns. If they didn’t like something then toys went out of prams and people got hurt. But who cares if the cuddly SDLP doesn’t like something? What’s more, the party has been unable to replace generation of remarkable leaders. Membership, enthusiasm and funding are low. The party is yet to convince the electorate that it has a role in post-agreement Ireland.
The UUP’s long-term future is also in doubt. Like the SDLP it confronts a younger, better-organised, hungrier opponent. Like the SDLP, morale is on the floor. Worse still, the UUP is beset by internal party divisions. It’s an iron law of democracy that divided parties never prosper. Now that the DUP are being more conciliatory, the two governments have shifted their focus from buttering-up Trimble to buttering-up Paisley. Again, who cares if the moderate party is unhappy?
It gets worse for the UUP and the SDLP. The electoral success of the hard-liners is self-perpetuating. SF and the DUP feed off the other’s gains. The more unionists vote DUP, the more nationalists get angry, thus the more nationalists vote SF, which angers unionists, thus more unionists vote DUP. And round and round it goes. It’s as though the two sets of voters are yelling “fuck you” across the divide, louder and louder.
Hence my talk of new monoliths. A single unionist party is a possibility once the divisive figures of Paisley and Trimble are gone. Some unionists see a single party as the most effective way to confront SF. Faced with such a possibility, some nationalists feel the need for a single party of their own. The SDLP, a dangerous complication in this new system, would be cast aside.