Owen Polley: The election debate among unionists should not be reduced to accusations and counter-accusations of vote-splitting

Despite Farry’s emergence as a bugbear for grassroots unionists, a lot of attention in North Down has so far focussed on the rivalry between the area’s independent MLA, Alex Easton, and the UUP’s high-profile candidate, Tim Collins. For that reason, this contest encapsulates some of the broader themes that pro-Union voters are grappling with in this election.

The North Down constituency is traditionally unionist, and raw numbers suggest that a unionist should take it back, but strong competition between pro-Union candidates makes it potentially trickier for unionism.

There have been suggestions that Lagan Valley, where three unionists are competing for Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s old seat, could potentially see an Alliance win too. Meanwhile, in East Belfast, Naomi Long hopes that UUP and TUV candidates take enough votes from Gavin Robinson to grant her victory.

That difficult backdrop makes it tempting for campaigners to throw around accusations of vote splitting. Alex Easton, of course, is no longer in the DUP, but the party is supporting him in North Down. In Lagan Valley, the DUP is campaigning with posters that suggest its candidate, Jonathan Buckley, is the ‘only unionist’ who can win.

Unfortunately, thanks to the growth of the self-proclaimed ‘middle ground’, there is now a diminishing number of seats that unionism regards as ‘safe’. In ‘first past the post’ elections, the argument for pacts and ‘unity’ continue to carry particular power.

If that mentality prevails, though, how will unionism manage to regenerate itself, blood new talent and change for the better?

At Westminster, with a few exceptions, the performance of pro-Union MPs has been underwhelming for many decades. Our representatives have generally failed to build relationships UK-wide, participate constructively in national debates or make a sympathetic case that Northern Ireland is an important, integral part of the Union.

More frequently, their tactics, when they do have some leverage, are simply designed to extract more money from the Treasury. This mercantile approach, which was exhibited so flagrantly when the DUP negotiated its ‘confidence and supply’ deal with Theresa May’s government, only undermines the solidarity that we need to maintain our place in the United Kingdom.

The party, at that time, wielded huge power and influence, which it arguably frittered away. The Conservative Home journalist, Henry Hill, previously suggested in this paper in December 2019 that the DUP turned down a much ‘deeper and more comprehensive arrangement’ with the then government, alienating ministers in the process. He wrote that the DUP were then finding, in the Conservatives’ Northern Ireland Protocol deal with the EU, that “an army does not die on a hill for the sake of its mercenaries”. (Click here to read it: Henry Hill: ‘As a Tory unionist, I believe that the DUP could have done more to build bridges with the Conservatives’, December 27, 2019)

Those festering resentments no doubt played a role in the Tories’ subsequent acceptance of an Irish Sea border.

The DUP now acknowledges that its Safeguarding the Union deal with Rishi Sunak’s administration did not remove the Irish Sea border, or free this province from the burden of EU law. But it claims that it negotiated incremental changes to the protocol, while its rivals achieved nothing. To answer that case, the TUV points out that it opposed every iteration of the Irish Sea border consistently. In addition, it says it is countering parochialism by building a pan-UK coalition with Reform UK, though this argument was undermined last week by Nigel Farage’s endorsement of Ian Paisley and Sammy Wilson.

For their part, the Ulster Unionists argue that they warned that trade barriers were emerging, while the DUP on occasions played down their significance.

The differences between the pro-Union parties, in this election, remain real and meaningful. This is not a choice, as some people have suggested, between slightly contrasting shades of the same thing.

The DUP has again recast itself as an anti-sea border party, after claiming previously that it had removed that frontier. But at the same time, Gavin Robinson insists that power-sharing must be maintained. In contrast, the TUV believes that Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and his party wasted their leverage, by returning to Stormont under false pretences.

The UUP always opposed the DUP’s boycott, claiming that it was harmful to Northern Ireland. There are candidates in Doug Beattie’s party that speak forthrightly about the protocol and the Windsor Framework, but sometimes their representatives play down its significance, implying that other issues are more important.

There are clearly many points of agreement between the three main unionist parties, but their analysis of the current political situation, and their diagnoses of potential solutions, are quite distinct.

This election is certainly important, but so too are the issues that the candidates are addressing. Most of all, it’s vital that the pro-Union MPs we send to Westminster are effective at building alliances, explaining their case to a UK-wide audience and improving Northern Ireland’s reputation for playing a role in national politics.

In our local constituencies, just as on the mainland, voters may decide to vote tactically in the end. But the debate among unionists should not be reduced to accusations and counter-accusations of vote-splitting.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​