On balance, theGood Friday Agreement was (forgive me) a Good Thing. It should be possible to welcome the Agreement yet recognise that it has not delivered everything it promised. Not the least of its troublesome consequences has been the manner in which the centre-ground of Northern Irish politics has been hollowed-out. Time passes, however, and the moment for a viable alternative to the Sinn Fein-DUP double-act cannot, surely, be delayed forever. At least that’s what Robin Wilson suggests in the Belfast Telegraph today. This, perhaps unexpectedly, is the time for a New Ulster Unionism:
[N]ow the UUP – otherwise on its political death-bed – has a huge choice to make. In a normal society, liberal, socialist and (environmentally) Green progressive parties face a significant centre-Right party, which makes a reasoned case for moderate conservatism.
Any UUP member not persuaded that that is how the party should redefine itself to survive has to ask two questions: are there more moderate conservatives than sectarian bigots in Northern Ireland? And are there some Catholics ones? It’s a no-brainer.
If the UUP can re-constitute itself as such a secular political force, it could yet play a role in moving the Northern Ireland political axis away from its meaningless ethnic polarity – now defined more by collusion to concentrate power between the DUP and SF than by competition between them – onto a typical Left-Right spectrum.
As ex-UUP adviser Alex Kane has repeatedly argued, in that context a strategic decision to go into Opposition in the Assembly – rather than maintaining a short-term, myopic hold on an irrelevant single Executive seat – is the way to go.
This, he argues, is the useful, even essential alternative to:
[Forever enduring] a conservative, communalist carve-up of power between authoritarian, monopoly parties of true believers – the current DUP-SF unholy alliance – which declining numbers of voter would be wheeled out periodically to endorse.
As he acknowledges, the structure of Northern Irish devolution any intra-communal realignment difficult. But the UUP’s alternative is death. Which is not an attractive option. Opposition can only be recommended in rare circumstances. Nevertheless, the UUP’s predicament is such that leaving the Executive could prove a liberating experience. It would, or rather should, prove intellectually invigorating, creating a space for a new kind of Unionism that’s practical and aspirational, offering an alternative to the laager politics that presently dominates Northern Ireland.
In other circumstances and other times this would be a risky endeavour. Despair is the mother of invention, however, and the UUP seem (at least to me) to have few more attractive options. If they are not quite irrelevant right now they are irrelevance’s neighbours. A modern, liberal Unionism just might in time offer voters scunnered or knackered by the status quo an alternative that, in time, could change Northern Irish politics and make good some of the promise of the Good Friday Agreement. It seems a risk worth taking, if only because it is one that would, done properly, deserve to succeed.
Being on the opposition benches should, in this case, be a mark of honour, not a proof of failure.
[Hat-tip: Ruth Dudley Edwards]
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