Tomorrow

  I watched Jeffrey Donaldson and I watched Michelle O’Neill on TV, in the lead-up up to tomorrow’s local elections.

Some commentator described Michelle as adopting a presidential style. That wasn’t far off the mark. She was shown talking to babies, shaking hands with working people, smiling in a joyous kind of way.  She has, of course, a lot to be joyous about. SinnFéin are doing so well in the south’s opinion polls, they’re almost out of sight. In the north, Michelle is waiting patiently to take her post as First Minister of Northern Ireland. Yes, Virginia, you heard aright. The state that was built in such a way,  it would be forever protected  from the perils of nationalism,  the Protestant parliament for the Protestant people, the unionism which loathed Sinn Féin so much at one point they wouldn’t sit in the same studio with them – this state and this parliament/Assembly is about to be headed by a Sinn Féin First Minister. There’s a pub in downtown Belfast with the sign ‘NO TOPLESS SUN-BATHING. ULSTER HAS SUFFERED ENOUGH’. Unionist politicians must long to cry out something similar about their suffering and the gratuitous cruelty of a Sinn Féin -led NEI. But they know they dare not, and besides, things can only get worse with the passage of time.

Jeffrey Donaldson, in contrast to Michelle, is looking more and more like Jim Molyneaux. Remember him?  As leader of the UUP he played Stan Laurel to leader of the DUP Ian Paisley playing Oliver Hardy. Molyneaux tried to present his diminutive figure with the quiet voice into a virtue, alongside Paisley’s guldering, but it didn’t really take in anyone. Remember Paisley’s famous “Never, never, never, never!” speech? I bet you can’t remember a word of what Molyneaux had to say at that time. Likewise Jeffrey’s mild-but-firm demeanour may suggest a steel fist under the velvet glove, but most people realise that as time has passed, Donaldson has looked and sounded more like a man whose glove is filled with blancmange.

Of course neither Michelle nor Jeffrey are running for a council office. But make no mistake about it: following on the Stormont success of Sinn Féin, a comparable success in the local elections would have the effect of crushing unionist spirits and  delivering a sickening sense that things are moving in one direction, that the End of Days for unionism as a political force won’t be long arriving. Some may even recall how, years back,  unionist politicians were urged to come to terms with republicans and nationalists while they still had some bargaining power, and failed to do so.  Now the best they can hope is that unionist voters will turn out en masse tomorrow and staunch the flow of blood, even temporarily.

If you quite like the idea of unionism running around in demented circles like that Orange band outside the Belfast Catholic Church, then tomorrow there is one way and one way only to bring that about: put on your shoes, take a deep breath, and make sure your mark shapes the local elections ballot paper the way you want it shaped.

Short of a border poll, your vote will never be more important than tomorrow. Be there.