Jeffrey Donaldson’s admission about direct rule reflects unionism’s tough choices

Time hasn’t been kind to political/electoral unionism. In the election to the first powersharing Assembly in June 1973, the unionist vote accounted for two-thirds of the overall vote and 50 of the 78 seats. Less than a year later, and a few months after Brian Faulkner’s wing of the UUP, along with the SDLP and Alliance, had signed the Sunningdale agreement, a thrown-together coalition of unionists and loyalist paramilitary groups combined to destroy the assembly and the agreement. Buoyant crowds at Stormont booed as Faulkner drove by, not knowing it was their last hurrah for old unionism.

Faulkner noted in his Memoirs of a Statesman: “It was hard to believe that something with so much to offer the people of NI could have been so wilfully destroyed. But I felt discouraged rather than bitter. I understood why so many determined Ulster folk has supported the general strike. The statue of Carson round which they gathered in front of Stormont symbolised their conviction that Ulster was going through another 1912. A plot was afoot, they believed, to deprive them of their British citizenship and push them by stages into an Irish Republic which they regarded as an alien and hostile state. So they rallied to the old slogans of No Surrender [because] they had been cruelly misled and conned by all the would-be Carsons into believing that the reactions of 1912 were all that was required in 1974.”

The days of tens of thousands of unionists on the streets demanding or rejecting are long gone

Almost 50 years later, in the assembly election in May 2022, the unionist vote accounted for about 42 per cent of the overall vote and 37 of the 90 seats. In a particularly crushing blow for the DUP, it came in second behind Sinn Féin: the first time in the history of an Northern Ireland Assembly/parliament that unionism found itself the minority in both votes and seats.

And it’s that sort of crushing reality which makes life so difficult for DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson right now. The days of tens of thousands of unionists on the streets demanding or rejecting are long gone. The would-be Carsons are still around, of course, but none has produced the viable or available alternative to what both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak – by way of whopping parliamentary majorities – foisted upon them with the Northern Ireland Protocol and the Windsor Framework.

Ask Owen Doyle: When should a rugby referee give a warning, and when should they give a penalty?

---

Taxation on investments: What changes might be on the way?

---

Gardaí to use undercover lorry to see into cars and HGVs and film distracted drivers

---

Radio: The 2 Johnnies set to leave 2FM next week, RTÉ confirms

---

[ Jeffrey Donaldson’s David Trimble moment is approaching ]

Within the next couple of weeks the DUP will be presented with the final draft of Sunak’s proposals to nudge it back into the Assembly and Executive – stuck in limbo for 20 months. Those proposals will not contain the ashes of the framework, nor the ‘hard guarantees’ that end Northern Ireland’s ongoing granny-flat status; not fully in the UK, nor fully in the European Union. And at that point the DUP has to make a call. There will be two things uppermost in Donaldson’s mind.

Unionism’s minority status in the Assembly (as well as in local councils and Westminster) doesn’t mean that there is a majority for Irish unity. But it does mean that there is a growing demography of what I describe as voters who are big U on the Union, but small u on electoral unionism. They are voters from a perceived unionist background who have shifted to Alliance (and some to the Green Party, too,) or just choose to stay at home. Political/electoral unionism needs to keep this demography on board in the event of a border poll, because evidence suggests (the growth of Alliance in particular) that it is pro-devolution. And the ‘harder’ electoral unionism is, the more its vote falls.

He’s telling them not to trust UK governments to protect and promote their interests

Donaldson also made reference to the dangers of direct rule in his conference speech on Saturday, October 14th: “To those who argue that direct rule is a better option I say this. Time and again, Westminster has imposed laws upon us that are not in tune with the needs or wishes of the people of Northern Ireland. You cannot on the one hand repeatedly condemn successive governments for letting us down and then argue with credibility that we are better off ruled directly by those who do not really understand what makes this place tick.”

That’s actually an extraordinary admission from the leader of the largest party of unionism. He’s telling them not to trust UK governments to protect and promote their interests. His message was also directed at some of his internal opponents (especially the Westminster MPs and peers), as well as a growing circle of external opponents and electoral rivals who clearly favour a rerun of what their ancestors did to Faulkner in 1974. It’s a circle which has many similarities to the unionist/loyalist coalition which destroyed Sunningdale and the Assembly; and, like that coalition – indeed, like a dog chasing a car – there is little evidence of what it will do if successful in replacing devolution with direct rule.

It has been clear for some time, as far back as October 2019, that with the protocol/framework likely to remain in place, the final choice for the DUP would come down to one question – what price it will pay for devolution versus what price would it pay for direct rule. Donaldson is clearly preparing his party for that question.

Devolution will not provide a miracle cure: it may even collapse anyway a year down the line, under the weight of its own internal hostilities. Direct rule, on the other hand, almost certainly means the imposition of laws, policies and frameworks, many of which unionism will find cold and uncomfortable. Given how unionism usually handles these debates I suspect it will be decided by a sophistry’s choice process, followed by another split.

Finally, unionism must accept that an alphabet spaghetti of parties, fringes, loyalists, loyal orders et al is, has been and always will be, a fundamentally stupid survival strategy.