Irish politics may be about to throw up another curious twist as the pro-Union community indulges in a summer of its favourite past time – splitting and realigning.
The dark horse is the hardline, anti-European Union United Kingdom Independence Party – Ukip – which has been giving Brit Premier Dandy Dave Cameron a series of bloody political noses in recent weeks. It only has a couple of elected reps in the North, including councillor Henry Reilly in Mourne and MLA David McNarry in Strangford.
But Ukip should not be lumped in with all the other English-based parties which have made a Viking-style political foray across the Irish Sea only to be electorally slaughtered before their voters had even got off the beaches!
Luckily for the North, racist movements, such as the National Front and British National Party, in spite of clocking up thousands of votes in Britain, have crashed and burned once they reached the Emerald Isle.
But Ukip has the potential in the coming three years to make inroads where the others have collapsed.
Robbo’s DUP, Nesbitt’s Ulster Unionists, Ex-UUP man McCrea’s new nameless liberal party, Policing Minister Davy Ford’s Alliance as well as Dandy Dave’s politically dripping wet Ulster Tories are all locked in a no-punches-pulled battle for pro-Union Catholic voters.
While this strategy is based on the fact Catholics are voting in greater numbers than Prods, it is also based on the false assumption that all pro-Union Catholics are liberal moderates.
Ukip is well placed to tap into the growing band of Right-wing pro-Union Catholic voters who are totally disillusioned with the European Union.
The Tories have also blasted themselves in both feet by rubbing traditionalist Catholics and evangelical Protestants the wrong way with Dandy Dave’s fanatical desire to ram gay marriage down people’s throats.
If ever there was a PM who was provoking an electoral backlash from the Ulster Bible belt, its Cameron.
Wee Jimmy Allister’s Traditional Unionists have been unable to shake off the perception they are nothing more than a ‘bash the DUP’ movement.
In spite of all the so-called Unionist unity moves between the ‘Big Two’, there is still very much a gap on the pro-Union spectrum for a radical Right-wing movement which is overtly Christian as well as staunchly euro-sceptic.
And Ukip has the perfect chance to get a head-start in mobilising this hardline Right-wing community with the European elections next year, where UKIP traditionally tends to do very well in Britain.
With the loyalist parties linked to Protestant death squads still having great difficulties making an electoral impact, Ukip could pull a flanker on all the Unionist parties by targeting the loyalist working class.
Robbo’s DUP has now rebranded itself as a 21st century version of the party it was formed to crush – the liberal Unionist Party of Terence O’Neill. The DUPcannot perform another dramatic U-turn and race to the radical Right because it is locked into a Stormont partnership with the Shinners.
Such a move could endanger the very peace process. When UUP boss Mike Nesbitt and his remaining MLA team analyse the results of last week’s Mid Ulster poll, he might conclude that his best move to protect the UUP is to swing to the Radical Right and enter a pact with Ukip.
Which would guarantee the survival of the Ulster Unionist Council? Being the lapdog of Robbo’s DUP, or Ukip’s pitbull in the Protestant Unionist Loyalist (PUL) community?
Right-wing – not moderate - Catholics are the key to maintaining the Union, not liberal Protestants.
Castle catholics have always been more unionist than those who claim to be loyalist in fact they are more royalist, also,quisling $inn £ein have in all honesty made big inroads into that constituency, what differentiates their form of republicanism and unionism now being so well blurred its almost impossible to tell the difference,the big two of the political scene here are fairly well entrenched within the sectarian carveup that passes as Stormont that any gains made by ukip or the other players will be nothing more than crumbs from the table for the foreseeable future,unless or until racism also becomes an issue here I dont think the political landscape will changes in any significant way I,m sorry to say.
ReplyDeleteMarty,
ReplyDeleteI simply don't think of SF in terms of republican. Just as we never did the Sticks back in the day. We might have had friends in the Sticks and might have observed the absence of republicanism as we saw it rather than judged it, but we never referred to them as being republicans.
Irish republicans never politically support the forces of the British crown nor the partition principle. Now we can discuss whetether that is a good or a bad thing but we know the demarcation line so well.
'Ukip is well placed to tap into the growing band of Right-wing pro-Union Catholic voters who are totally disillusioned with the European Union'
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with that Mr Coulter. If I lived in England I'd vote for Mr. Ferage myself. Cyprus and bank confiscations/freezing of savings is just unbelievable. The word unbelievable doesn't do justice to the feeling this latest criminal banking crusade conjures up. Astonishment and an ugly awe almost defines it.
Get that Euro crap binned and boot the bankers and unelected EU criminals into jail. They can't foist another World War on people so they have descended into the biggest criminal scam in world history.
As for McGuinness Robbo and the piss-process, the two of them are criminals too. Saw them at Belfast airport on tv last night and was livid thinking of the deaths and criminal records incurred by the youth of decades past by those two and their utterings. Not to mention the 40,000 leaflets the DUP stirred recent trouble up with. As for SF I'm afraid in hindsight if Raymond Mc Cartney was in a hospital bed starving on tv today i'd say starve on douche-bag. Be warned young unionists.
Come in in Mr Ferage, on the EU topic, the my door is wide open.
Dr Coulter.
ReplyDelete"UKIP" were ever you want, You are way of the Beaten Track.
Marty.
"I dont think the political landscape will changes in any significant way"
I agree with you in the quoted part above.
Anthony.
"I simply don't think of SF in terms of republican".
SF? , They are now BRITISH because they accepted to take a seat in the big house on the hill, now the can live off the tax payer , Minimum salary for an MLA = £43,101. MLAs who are committee chairs get another £11,331, MLAs who are committee chairs get another £11,331, Junior ministers get an extra £19,609, while normal ministers get £37,801 extra.
The first and deputy first ministers are entitled to £114,535 each per Year, Marty Boy must be in dreamland. I think the wages were sorted out first at the We Got F All and they got the lot.
Dr. Coulter's latest piece raises two issues for me.
ReplyDelete1) Does the number of 'castle-Catholics' not have equal numbers of Republican six county Protestants which would cancel out the small number of Donaghadee catholic votes?
2) The emergence of ukIP has a curious parallel in the emergence of the Provo's; they both are reactions to bullying, undemocratic regimes neither of which listened to the vioce of the majority.