One of the people I interviewed for my forthcoming book on the border and Brexit passed judgement on the DUP: “They’ve a very limited IQ.” I’ve no way of knowing this, although a few minutes of Edwin Poots or Jim Wells on radio does make George from the Shankill sound like a younger brother of Albert Einstein. But that’s just an impression: maybe Edwin and Jim are both members of Mensa for all I know. Politically, however, at least at the present moment, the DUP sound and act as though they’ve been hit on the head and are wandering around blundering into the scenery.
The most recent example of this was Arlene Foster, who yesterday told Leo Varadkar to tone down the dial and start making some compromises.
It’s hard to know where to start with something like this. Let’s try “Tone down the dial.” Within the past couple of days I read an article that suggested An Taoiseach’s comments and demeanour made him sound and look like the only adult in the room. As far as I know, he’s simply been repeating what EU leaders have been patiently saying for months: the Theresa May withdrawal bill took a couple of years to create, was deliberately shaped to accommodate all her red lines and that for their part, the EU were sticking with the former British prime minister’s deal. As to his manner of delivery, I would put Leo somewhere between flat and conversational. He doesn’t declaim, he speaks; he doesn’t yell, he observes. Besides, when I remember that this dial-down advice comes from the woman who invented the crocodile contempt line of argument, it’s hard not to roll around the floor holding your stomach and filling the neighbourhood with peals of laughter.
There are people who think, unlike my book interviewee, that the top brass of the DUP are seriously shrewd cookies. Not if you note their words and actions in recent days.
As you know, the British government has always presented itself as the even-handed administrator of our tight tormented corner. This gets hard to believe when the Tory Party have formed a deal where Tory life as a government is dependent on the DUP, and when the party spends an evening in the Culloden Hotel feeding their faces with the Tory blond bombshell. Arlene explained this away by splitting the b b in two: he was always a dedicated unionist, but apart from that he was totally neutral. And what was wrong with him having a dinner with the DUP? Other parties might have had to go down to the chippy but that didn’t mean the b b wasn’t totally fair-minded towards the fish-and-chips parties.
So is that evidence of the DUP being a bit dim? Well, we know that demographics here are rapidly moving towards a Catholic majority in this little stateen. That mightn’t mean that every Catholic would vote for a united Ireland, but equally Brexit doesn’t mean that every Protestant is going to vote for continued linkage with mad Mother Britain. To put it bluntly: if the DUP don’t succeed in converting sizeable chunks of the nationalist population, they the DUP are doomed. Does breezy talk urging the Taoiseach to cool it, or an evening of unionists chomping on Fillet of Irish beef (£36) or Seared Rump of Irish lamb (£28) in the company of the Tory b b – would that encourage Catholics/nationalists to think again and tie themselves to the mast of the good ship Britannia?
Rousing stuff for the Aghohill faithful, perhaps, but hardly Mensa minds (or mouths) in action.
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