A four-year dose of Marty McGuinness as Shinner First Minister is the perfect remedy
to bring about unionist unity, and ultimately a single Unionist Party.
Since my primary school days, I have watched unionist rip unionist apart, and
become convinced that Irish unity will eventually come about because of
Protestant voter disunity.
It is going to take some very bitter medicine to create a situation like the
early 1960s when all shades of unionism were represented by a sole movement,
simply known as The Unionist Party.
And in last year's General Election, even when we Prods had an agreed candidate
in Fermanagh South Tyrone along with a split nationalist vote, they still managed
to allow Shinner farming minister Michelle Gildernew to hold the seat.
Unionist unity has become almost as big an aspiration as Irish unity.
Realistically, the wounds of unionist infighting will take generations to heal.
Since the late 1960s, there have been so many movements whose aim was unionist
unity, they have now run out of names to call themselves.
If you thought divisions were bad between Robbo's DUP and Elliott's
feud-festering Ulster Unionists, you should see the political exchanges between
the DUP and its even more bitter rivals in wee Jimmy Allister's Traditional
Unionist Voice party.
While it will take decades to bring about an eventual single Unionist Party,
nationalists have the chance on 5 May's Stormont poll to create a scenario where
there will be Irish unity in everything but name only.
But this means moderate Catholics sacrificing the Stoops in favour of Shinners.
It may mean respectable middle class nationalists having to vote for ex-IRA
jailbirds.
For many Catholics, snubbing the SDLP may be one bitter pill too much to swallow.
A Sinn Féin victory on 5 May will not just mean McGuinness ascending to the First
Minister's throne. It will also mean a huge rise in power for the cross-border
bodies.
Unionists will be so busy indulging themselves in their favourite political
pastime, the 'Blame Game', that they will have totally missed the all-island
structures which the Shinners will have sneaked into place.
And nationalists should not underestimate how deep the divisions in unionism run.
As a Primary Six pupil in the heart of unionist North Antrim, I remember a
fundamentalist fellow pupil waving a 'Vote Paisley' poster at me in class. When I
laughed, I literally got the boot stuck in me.
During the 1970 General Election campaign, I brought cups of tea to a very
physically shaken Unionist MP Henry Clark, who lost his seat to Paisley senior,
after he witnessed a painted slogan 'Shoot Clark' in a 100% Protestant
village.
My father and a fellow Orange chaplain, the late Rev John Brown, had to try and
calm Clark's nerves in Clough Presbyterian manse after Paisley supporters blocked
his canvassing team from entering a staunchly unionist area.
The RUC once called my father to physically escort the chairman of a local
Unionist branch out of an Orange hall after Paisley supporters surrounded it and
forced the meeting to be abandoned.
In the coming years, many UUP meetings ended in chaos as Paisley supporters
disrupted the party in an orchestrated campaign.
My father, who retired at 81 as an MLA last month, still bears the scars of a
kicking given to him by DUP hardmen during a Ballymena canvass in the 1983
General Election campaign.
Unionism has already had its crossroads election when Paisleyism landed on the
political map.
May 5 will be nationalism's crossroads. The question is simple – can republicans
unite and maximise on unionist disunity?
