Newton Emerson: Unionist variety beats unionist unity

War in Europe brings perspective, reducing other stories to light relief. Maybe this will happen, to some extent, to the Northern Ireland protocol. It has always been absurd that the fate of the UK and Ireland hangs on inspecting packets of ham at Larne.

In the meantime there is amusement to be found in news that DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson had talks last June on defecting to the UUP.

When the BBC broke the story last week, initial reaction was that it had been overblown. Donaldson, who had lost a leadership contest to Edwin Poots, was invited for a chat by Doug Beattie, who had just become leader of the UUP. Naturally Beattie mentioned his party's door was open, and of course Donaldson politely declined. That was all there was to it, according to DUP statements.

Liberalism is relative: at anti-protocol rallies over the past month the DUP has faced condemnation from the TUV and loyalists for going soft on the protocol

But the tale has turned out to have legs. There was a comic cloak and dagger aspect to the meeting, which the UUP says lasted 90 minutes and took place at an army barracks to maintain secrecy, at Donaldson’s request.

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Further leaks to the media last week claim Donaldson considered taking a large number of colleagues with him, either to the UUP or to a new party – the Donaldson Unionist Party, perhaps.

This tallies with the chaos inside the DUP at the time. Poots led a small, traditional faction, and secured his brief leadership through a divisive campaign. His predecessor, Arlene Foster, had been ousted in part by a letter from councillors demanding a return to "Christian values" and "Ulster conservatism" – in effect, to shrink the DUP down to an evangelical pressure group. A split was in the air, until Poots' leadership unravelled so quickly his rivals were able to seize back control.

Protocol

The punchline is that Donaldson claims he only attended the talks to discuss "unionist unity". He has been mentioning unionist unity since supplanting Poots, and is still urging it today, as is the Traditional Unionist Voice and many figures in loyalism.

By unity they do not mean a single unionist party or even necessarily an electoral pact – in any case pacts are counterproductive in PR-STV assembly elections. They mean unionists should unite around their shared opposition to the protocol.

However, as with all calls for unionist unity, this appears to mean liberals shutting up and falling into line.

On Monday Beattie led a UUP delegation to Brussels to “engage” with the EU on protocol solutions. The DUP and TUV would never have joined this expedition and some in both parties condemned it.

Liberalism is relative: at anti-protocol rallies over the past month the DUP has faced condemnation from the TUV and loyalists for going soft on the protocol. Unionist unity is a demand that always leans to the right. Yet the closest unionism may have come in a generation to coalescing around a single party would have involved Donaldson heading left, back to the UUP, which he quit in 2003.

This is absolutely priceless and should provoke some general questions. Where is the political centre of unionism? Who decides where it is? Why is there a debate over unionist unity but not a debate over unionist variety?

Unionism has failings of insecurity and extremism unique to Northern Ireland, plus more common problems in politics of seeking authenticity in the wrong places. Its weakness for protests and loud voices would be familiar to any British Labour MP, although all would be horrified by the comparison.

Social classes

Unionism has an endless, tedious conversation with itself on internal co-operation. It crops up in every crisis – real, engineered or imagined.

For the first century of its distinct 150-year history in Ulster, observers marvelled at unionism’s ability to encompass people from all social classes and backgrounds. Some hark back to this, consciously or unconsciously, as an ideal. But unionism under a single party ended up both stultified and still riven by feuding. It acquired a state, mismanaged it, then could not cope with the obvious reforms even it knew were essential.

There is a parallel, hopefully less ominous, with its Brexit predicament.

Although nearly every unionist opposes the protocol they do so from a wide range of positions, with pragmatism looking very much like the centre of gravity. The UUP and an estimated 40 per cent of unionist voters backed Remain in the Brexit referendum and the protocol appears to have been a minor issue in the election that took place after it was signed.

The best way for unionism to have a debate with itself is to have a meaningful choice of parties. That is also the best way to maintain its support, as choice brings out voters who transfer down the ballot. A party containing Beattie and Donaldson would not be helpful – at least not until or unless the debate produces a way forward.

Unionism’s divisions may be a joke, but sometimes they can also be its strength.