Alliance Party and the Unionists

Last week there were two events that highlighted what unionists care about or, more accurately, what they fear. First, the leader of the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), a loyalist paramilitary party linked to the Ulster Volunteer Front (UVF), Billy Hutchinson, gave an interview in which he said that he did not regret the two murders for which he was convicted and served time in prison because they helped prevent a united Ireland. The murders were of two Catholic teenagers, picked out at random and killed for being Catholic. Both the UVF and its smaller satellite Red Hand Commandos and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) had a strategy of killing random Catholics as reprisals for republican terrorist and guerrilla actions on the theory that this would put pressure on ordinary Catholics to not cooperate with republican paramilitaries. Here is some nationalist reaction to the interview.

A few days later Anna Lo, the Alliance member of the Assembly for South Belfast and its candidate in the upcoming European Parliament elections, gave an interview in which she said she was in favor of a united Ireland and that she saw Northern Ireland as an "artificial colonial entity." Guess which of these two interviews was more upsetting to unionists?

Alex Kane on the New Party

Veteran unionist political commentator Alex Kane, who is affiliated with the Ulster Unionists and writes a regular column for The Newsletter, seems to be tentatively predisposed towards the new Basil McCrea/John McCallister pro-Union party. In his latest column he raises some of the same issues that I raised in a previous post a week ago, but in a friendly manner. This was very different from the way he attacked Alliance in a previous column mocking its new motto of Alliance for Everyone. So he seems to be trying to run interference for the new party by making it plain that its main competitor, Alliance, is a party of the past that has failed. From the way he starts out the attack it is clear that he is attacking Alliance for not being clearly a unionist party. Maybe he thinks it should call itself the Alliance Unionist Party?  

The main question is for whom Kane was serving as an attack dog--for the new party or for his Ulster Unionists? That will only become clear over time as the party makes a formal launch and either operates in accordance with what Kane demands or goes on to disappoint him. But if he is going to mock Alliance's new campaign, maybe he should take another look at the name of his own party. The Ulster Unionists don't even have branches in three counties of Ulster--Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan--and are steadily losing members and support in the six counties that they do have branches in. Alliance for the first time in thirty-two years now has a member of parliament at Westminster while the UUP lacks one. And Alliance's leader is not the object of ridicule by the province's press.

A new unionist party in Northern Ireland?

There have been very interesting developments in Northern Ireland in the last week. The Ulster Unionists decided to go ahead with a joint candidate for the mid-Ulster parliamentary seat that Martin McGuinness is resigning from. They have chosen a candidate,  Nigel Lutton, who is the son of a man whom the Sinn Fein candidate allegedly helped to murder years ago. Judging from the results in the 2010 election when the Sinn Fein polled twice as many votes as all the unionist candidates combined, the seat is unwinnable by a unionist candidate.  This decision by Mike Nesbitt led both former Deputy Leader John McCallister and MLA Basil McCrea to resign from the party. There is now speculation that the two intend to form a new liberal unionist party.

The Union is Secure, so why are unionists insecure?

A recent public opinion poll in Northern Ireland established that only 17 percent of the voting-age public is in favor of a united Ireland (UI), compared to 65 percent in favor of continuing the union with Great Britain--the United Kingdom. That total goes up to 79 percent of committed voters and a majority of Catholics in favor of NI remaining part of Northern Ireland.

So why have working-class unionists been protesting and rioting for the last ten weeks across the province? Ostensibly they are protesting the decision taken on December 3, 2012 to limit the flying of the Union Flag (commonly known here as the Union Jack) to 17 or 18 designated days (public holidays) instead of everyday.  It makes little difference to the protesters that this is in fact the policy in Britain and until recently was the declared policy of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). This involved the two nationalist parties, the SDLP and Sinn Fein, voting for British official guidelines as a compromise. So what is really going on here? 

2013 Predictions

When I was younger I used to love watching the pundits on ABC'S Nightline have their predictions read to them from the previous year with the obligatory buzzer sound signalling that the prediction had failed to pan out. It confirmed my opinion of the punditocracy as being composed of a bunch of pompose windbags who did not really know very much. So now I'll risk the buzzer by going public with my predictions in the world of international politics for 2013.

1) The Syrian civil war will continue for several months until Assad is finally driven from power. Then fighting will break out among the contending factions over who will inherit power. This will take several months to sort out.

2) Benjamin Netanyahu will be reelected as prime minister in Israel later this month. His third term will be as vacuous as his second term. He will not attack Iran.  His coalition will be another coalition of the Right consisting of Likud Beitenu, Jewish Home, Shas, and possibly Yesh Atid to balance off the religious parties.

3) Obama will reach an agreement with Iran limiting the level of refinement of uranium and opening up Iranian nuclear facilities for international inspection. Iran will attempt to cheat on the agreement in 2014, but will be caught.

4) The UUP and SDLP will continue to stumble in Northern Ireland as they continue to lose public support to the DUP and Sinn Fein. 

5) Alliance will come out of the flag protests marginally stronger as middle class unionists and nationalists give it votes for having stood up to the loyalists.

6) Muhammad Morsi will continue to grab for power when he can and retreat when he is faced with a strong backlash from liberals. Morsi will attempt to mobilize anti-Copt sentiment to increase his power.

7) Obama will continue with his plan to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014. Ultimately little will come out of all of the blood, treasure, and prestige invested by the United States in Afghanistan.

8) The Benghazi hearings will reveal little of substance--no smoking gun. But the GOP will continue to criticize the Obama administration as weak and vacillating. Americans will continue to ignore the GOP attacks on foreign policy and foreign policy in general.

9) Bahrain will be the next crisis of the Arab Spring. The U.S. will be faced with a decision to either back the regime, thereby losing credibility in the rest of the Arab world and risking our future if the Sunni majority comes to power or backing the Sunni opposition and risking that it will betray the U.S. when it comes to power. I don't know how Obama will come down on this.

10) The ANC will begin to lose some support in South Africa as Jacob Zuma is exposed as incompetent and corrupt.  

Will Sinn Fein and the DUP slim away a few UUP MLAs?

Liam Clarke reported on a study done by the Belfast Telegraph in which present voting trends were projected on to a future Stormont assembly with only five or four seats per Westminster constituency rather than the present six. He reported that the UUP would be the biggest loser--reduced to only nine seats from its present 16. This is only one seat ahead of Alliance at present. If the UUP drops down to nine seats it will lose its second minister and be reduced to a single minister on the Executive like Alliance and the SDLP.

Alliance would not lose any seats because its members are all among the top four in each of its Greater Belfast constituencies. All the other parties would lose, but none to the same extent as the UUP.  The big loss would occur in the reduction from six to five seats and not from five to four. This is because the party now has many marginal seats scattered around the province, as opposed to Alliance, the SDLP and Sinn Fein who have their seats concentrated in a few geographic areas. The UUP has multiple seats--two each--in only two constituencies: Strangford and Upper Bann (David Trimble's old seat).

Alliance is concentrated in a "donut" around Belfast taking in Strangford, East Antrim, South Antrim and North Down. The SDLP is concentrated in Foyle, the former constituency of both John Hume and Mark Durkan; South Down, the former constituency of Eddy McGrady and Brid Rodgers; and in South Belfast.  The DUP is spread around the country but most concentrated in Co. Londonderry, Co. Antrim, and in Lagan Valley. Sinn Fein is most concentrated in the southwest of the province--west of the River Bann that splits the province in two and south of Co. Londonderry--and  in West Belfast. 

This would give the DUP incentive to reduce the number of seats per constituency, ostensibly as an economy measure. Sinn Fein could probably be talked into going along because of the marginal improvement it would give it over its rival, the SDLP. And Alliance could be counted to go along. The UUP and SDLP would not be strong enough by themselves to block such a reduction and there is a very good case to be made that the Stormont assembly is indeed much too large compared to other regional parliaments in the UK.  This is all the more reason why the two former leading parties should go into opposition. The Northern Ireland Office might be more opposed to weakening the official opposition than to weakening a few superfluous parties in the Executive.

David McNarry's Exodus

Former Ulster Unionist MLA for Strongford David McNarry announced yesterday that he was "bringing national politics to Northern Ireland" by joining the fringe United Kingdom Independence Party. The UKIP is known for opposition to Britain's membership in the European Union and is opposed to Britain's open immigration policy. It has seats mostly at the local council level on the British mainland. UKIP claims to be the only British party to openly contest seats in Northern Ireland. Most parties in Northern Ireland are unique to that province and are not organized in either Britain or the Republic of Ireland, the notable exception being Sinn Fein. Although many have links to British parties and attend their party conferences and vise versa.