Well, that was reasonably interesting. It didn’t have the colour and wit of the 2017 crocodile election, or the all-hands-on-deck tension of the Westminster election shortly thereafter. But it did provide food for thought.
For republicans, the most striking thing about these local elections was that Sinn Féin didn’t make any notable advance, and at the time of writing looks as though it may produce around the same level of success as in 2014, or maybe a little less. Why? Because as that most shrewd of local commentators Chris Donnelly pointed out, nationalists and republicans now feel they can vote for other parties than Sinn Féin without contributing to the success of the DUP. In short, a lot of parties who would at least claim to be non-unionist are now available. Which quite a few nationalist/republican voters have turned to. Is this good? Not if you’re a Sinn Féin supporter.
In some ways, Sinn Féin are in a position comparable with that of the British Labour Party. Just as one would have expected some fairly dramatic benefits for Labour as the Tories stumbled and fumbled and failed with Brexit, so you would have thought the DUP’s stand on Brexit, the RHI fiasco, the refusal of an Irish Language Act would have rebounded to the benefit of Sinn Féin. But Labour didn’t benefit and Sinn Féin didn’t benefit. Somethin’ ain’t right.
The story of the election – at least so far – is the Alliance Party. Their crocodile moment was the UUP suggestion that they were tied in with the IRA because they voted on some issues alongside Sinn Féin. The layers of inaccuracy and stupidity in such a statement would leave you calling for oxygen, quick.
Naomi Long and other Alliance people were emphatic about the way the party was making advances west of the Bann as well as east of it. Gimme a break. I’m old enough to remember when the Alliance party was invented and there was much talk about Omagh that the Alliance Party was what decent people would vote for. Decades later, they’re as thin on the west-of-the-Bann ground as corncrakes. So the Alliance solutions to our political woes – let’s be nice to one another – isn’t going to go anywhere beyond its present level of inflation.
In fact if there’s a party that might well have a future here – and in Britain – it’s the Green Party. The Extinction Rebellion demonstrators in London and elsewhere caught the public imagination, and when they said that their concern was a lot, lot bigger than even Brexit, they spoke the truth. There is a sense that something truly radical has to happen very very quickly in politics if our grandchildren are going to have a planet to live on. You can’t get much more urgent or honest than that. Granted, they’ll never get Sammy Wilson to vote for them, as he’ll still be shouting “There’s no such thing as man-made cli – glugglugglug…” as the waters close over his rosy-cheeked head. That said, one-issue parties tend not to make permanent inroads in politics, and public sympathy may not be enough to make them a political force to be reckoned with on a permanent basis.
The one flash of colour in the election (yes, Virginia, I DO know that Green is a colour) was the election of Alison Bennington, a gay candidate for the DUP. It was positively rib-cracking to watch Gavin Robinson trying to argue that there was no contradiction between the DUP stand on homosexuality and their gay candidate’s success. But it went beyond colour. Watch as the DUP scramble madly to position themselves somewhere near the middle ground in the hope of converting all those Catholics who have an inner DUP vote, so that the terminal dangers of a border poll are avoided.
To quote one of the people I interviewed for my Brexit/Border book : “It’s too late now. They had their chance, they had their chance.”
Footnote: hands up if, like me, you cheered to hear that Barry McElduff soared to electoral success once more? Right. Failte romhat ar ais aris, Barry – Welcome back.
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