The events of the last fortnight have marked the end of an era in more ways than the obvious one.
Yes, it seems universally agreed in Britain that the style of monarchy portrayed in the extravagant flummery on recent display will never be seen again. It was a celebration of the past, a time gone by. The monarchy will slim down in all visible respects except its vast wealth exhibited in palaces and official and semi-official homes on enormous estates of thousands of acres.
However, the events mark the end of an era here too. It’s been a long time coming. The DUP’s boycott of Stormont has served to conceal from public view the extent of the change because the absence of an executive hid the impact of Sinn Féin’s victory in May’s assembly elections. The ceremonies at Hillsborough and St Anne’s cathedral allowed it to be on public view for the first time.
You might say it was a lucky coincidence that it was Sinn Féin’s Belfast lord mayor Tina Black and MP for North Belfast John Finucane (St Anne’s is in his constituency) who officially welcomed guests at the cathedral. However, there’s been such a political sea change flowing along in recent years that few people notice there’s now only one unionist MP in Belfast and he’s almost invisible.
Naomi Long is a unionist, but very much with a small ‘u’ not of the ‘Ulster is British’ variety who run the parties with ‘unionist’ in their titles. Furthermore, given the political breakdown in Belfast with SF the biggest party in the council there’s always going to be the chance the lord mayor is a republican.
However, it was at Hillsborough that the changing of the guard was most obvious, partly because Donaldson had scored an own goal by blocking the election of a Speaker. As a result, he had to thole Alex Maskey doing the honours with the new king. Glum and grim faced, Donaldson had to suck it up down the receiving line while Maskey joked with Charles about Donaldson’s diminished status. “Don’t be telling Jeffrey.” To recover his spirits Donaldson needed to do a walkabout in Hillsborough to ragged cheers.
There for all to see was the existential problem the DUP has serving as deputy first minister with Sinn Féin. They haven’t come to terms with the role. Their erstwhile leader, the Dame, couldn’t hold back from fulminating about the “intensive coverage” given to SF. She’s a godsend to SF, her indignation dispelling any doubts Sinn Féin voters might have had about chatting up the new British king. As some wag asked, “Is she secretly working for SF?” The answer was, “No. There’s nothing secret about it.”
What unionists have to realise is that the terms of trade have changed. Demographic trends, as you’ll see tomorrow, and the political balance east of the Bann, including the loss of young educated professional unionists to Alliance, mean no unionist party will ever supply the first minister again. What the DUP needs to be pondering is how long it suits a British government to support a minority party’s obdurate demands to confront the EU in the face of the threat from Putin. What’s the percentage in that for Westminster?
There was a time when northern nationalists were the problem. Now that unionists are a rapidly diminishing political minority, but unable to conceive of any coherent or workable proposals, they have become the problem. Alex Maskey referred obliquely at Hillsborough to their lack of leadership. The major failure, as Peter Robinson warned a decade ago, is that retaining the support of Protestants is no longer enough for political unionism, and therefore the union, to survive. The Dame’s dyed in the wool style of unionism is the problem. A unionist leader has to reach an accommodation with republicans because the leadership of the north has now passed over to them.
