Southern parties like Irish Labour and Fianna Fail could eventually bring a
substantial degree of unity among Unionists, loyalists and apathetic
Protestants.
A senior UDA figure has already warned that some Protestant voters in
poverty-hit loyalist districts of Belfast are voting Sinn Féin, because they
feel the republican party has the genuine interests of working class people at
heart.
Since the late 1960s, the Unionist people have bathed in the luxury of
vicious infighting, bloody feuds and washing their dirty internal political
linen in public.
The forthcoming May Stormont poll will see several brands of Unionism battle
for an ever decreasing Protestant pool of votes.
The main cause of Protestant voter apathy is frustration. Some 300,000 have
abandoned the ballot box, with about half of them regular church goers.
Increasingly, previously loyal unionist voters are fed up with their
politicians gutting each other in public.
While it is only a trickle of loyalists who are voting for the Shinners,
could Unionists abandon their traditional feuding parties if a united Southern
party guaranteed the security of Protestants' rights, conditions and heritage?
Severe frustration at this unionist infighting could drive many Protestants
into the arms of Northern Fianna Fail. I know; I almost joined the party in
1983.
There are some in the unionist family who hate their fellow unionists even
more than the most hardline of republicans.
That year, my father was the Ulster Unionist runner in Paisley's fiefdom of
North Antrim in the Westminster General Election. Dad is an ordained
Presbyterian minister and senior Orange and Blackman.
A key canvass was the then Saturday Fair Hill Market in Ballymena. But for
dad and his UUP team, it became a physical running of the gauntlet as the rival
DUP supporters punched and kicked him at every turn.
Now in his 82nd year, dad still bears the scars of the beating he was given
that day. My anger boiled over at the cowardly scum who thought they were hard
men sticking the boot in a small cleric.
But these same slabbers lacked the guts to canvass in North Antrim's
republican strongholds of Dunloy and Loughguile.
A very senior DUP man rang dad at our home goading him to stand down from the
election.
The UUP's Fur Coat Brigade 'tut-tutted' about my dad's kicking, but then
pumped out hypocritical crap about the need for dignity and not taking on these
DUP hard nuts head to head.
These DUP supporters were cowards in bashing a cleric. The UUP supporters
were cowards, too, in not facing down the Paisley camp. After all, North Antrim
had been a UUP stronghold for generations until 1970.
I wanted to rip up my Young Unionist membership card and join a nationalist
outfit – simply to hit back at the DUP. No way would I join the Shinners. Their
military wing had murdered my relatives and friends.
The SDLP in North Antrim was like Alliance – a wine and cheese middle class
club; a Fur Coat Brigade with green knickers.
That left Fianna Fail as even in the early 1983 there was talk that
eventually the party would organise in the North.
I never joined Fianna Fail because I knew some of the DUP were so nutty they
would probably burn me out as a traitor.
Okay, a Biffo-led Fianna Fail will go into meltdown in the South. But with
Unionist unity resembling a bad Frankie Boyle-style joke, Northern Fianna Fail
could make a real impact.
If even a third of those 300,000 apathetic Protestants voted Fianna Fail,
what a bombshell it would drop on the Northern political scene.
If Paisley senior can pussy-foot with the Shinners, then Fianna Fail can meet
the needs of disenchanted Unionist voters.
