NI POLITICS: Dead Orangemen walking
How long before the purple turtle goes belly-up?
When Whitelawism was a Good Thing
When the history of the last few troubled years for the Ulster Unionist Party comes to be written, the 9th of August 2000 ought be regarded as a highly significant date. On that day, on a country road in County Down, there was a terrible car crash in which a 66 year old man died. For a few hours in February earlier that year Sir Josias Cunningham had been the most important man in Northern Ireland. As President of the Ulster Unionist Council, he held the post-dated resignation letters of David Trimble and his ministers on the new Executive. If the IRA had not commenced decommissioning by the date in that letter then they would resign which would lead to the collapse of the Belfast Agreement. Aware that Sir Josias would soon act, Peter Mandelson stepped in to announce the suspension of the Executive and the Agreement survived to live another day.
T.E. Utley in Lessons of Ulster spoke of unionism’s ‘aristocracy of trade’. The Cunningham family down through the generations is a perfect example. Apart from business prominence (the family owned the Northern Whig newspaper), at various times it had a senator in the old Stormont parliament, Harold Macmillan’s PPS at Westminster, and 2 Presidents of the UUC. Sir Josias was the archetypal man in a grey suit, or a grey sash, as he once said. Significantly in 2000 he was seen as an impartial figure in a party that had been polarised by the leader. His death removed the only relatively independent figure in the party’s hierarchy, most of whom were solidly behind David Trimble. Funny, isn’t it? The UUP is often seen as a party full of grey men but that it lacks enough men in grey suits is more significant. There isn’t anyone who can tell the leader when the game is up.
When in a hole . . .
I’ve always thought that, for all their Machiavellian pretensions, politicians are inherently predictable because they so often act in what appears to be their best interests. That’s why it’s hard to see why David Trimble wants a showdown with his rebel MPs. An optimistic Trimble groupie could say that since the three were never going to back the leadership anyway they should simply be ignored and hung out to dry. Instead the Trimble camp went hyper in two foolish ways.
The first of these grossly misjudged reactions was that, immediately after the rebels resigned the whip, a disciplinary panel was set up which, before the week was out, had suspended them without a hearing. Now if you wanted to marginalise a persistent critic, would you make him a martyr and give him an excuse to take the party to court? Then, having set up the committee, would you appoint as its chairman a Trimble partisan? Raymond Ferguson is a Fermanagh councillor (and a solicitor, which makes the suspension-without-hearing even harder to fathom) with whom Jeffrey Donaldson had frequently jousted within the party. Helpfully, Mr Ferguson has been a party rebel in his own time. As a Fermanagh representative, he broke a short-lived party boycott of the Prior Assembly in 1984 for which I don’t believe he faced disciplinary action. Moreover, he has also made various disturbingly agreeable comments about an agreed (i.e. united) Ireland. Not to labour the point, he has the touch of a hanging judge about him.
For the second instance of Trimbleite hysteria, we have only to consider the sorry fact that, if only David Trimble had the same support in the country as he does in the local press, then all would be well for him. Northern Ireland’s two unionist newspapers are solidly supportive of him, a stance reflected in their choice of regular columnists. Take the Belfast Telegraph (or the Bellylaugh as to its critics.) One Bellylaugh columnist is Steven King, an energetic Trimble partisan (and taxpayer-funded UUP employee) with all the appeal of David Mellor on an off day. For two successive weeks Mr King turned his fire on Jeffrey Donaldson, often in personal terms, when logically he should have been turning his fire extinguisher on the fracas. After this attack on the present Lagan Valley MP, another Trimble supporter, Ruth Dudley Edwards had an even sillier swipe at his predecessor and alleged eminence grise Lord Molyneaux. Ms Dudley Edwards had previously won the confidence of the Orange leadership by writing a sympathetic book on the Order, so viciously attacking one of the most respected figures in Orangeism wasn’t too clever. There have been other stinging attacks on Mr Donaldson but these two were particularly stupid, because a cynic might think that Mr Trimble had authorised proxy attacks while publicly calling for unity. Whatever, they did their master no favours and, to coin a phrase, missed a good opportunity to keep quiet.
Why is Donaldson hated?
Here’s a fact for you: in the UUP, Jeffrey Donaldson gets up people’s noses. That is not necessarily his fault. The UUP is predominantly an elderly sedate party that is loyal to its leaders (which is hardly a fault of theirs!) A young fast-tracked man like Mr Donaldson was always likely to generate resentment. His patronage by Enoch Powell put him for a time on the integrationist wing of unionism and made him a bête noire of the devolutionists. Actually, I don’t think Mr Donaldson could be described as an integrationist after 1991 at the latest. In that year, he announced that any settlement in Northern Ireland had to have nationalist consent. That is not much disputed now but old Enoch would never have said it or accepted the rationale. In 1993, Mr Donaldson moved into the Lagan Valley constituency and many people thought he was after the 73 year old Molyneaux’s seat should he retire at the following election. When Lord Molyneaux did step down in 1997, Mr Donaldson won the nomination after a desperate rearguard action by most of the local councillors. The resentment lingers and most of the councillors supported a motion of no confidence in June 2003 (later withdrawn).
Media pundits like to sneer at Jeffrey Donaldson as both a lightweight and a hard-liner. There are also anti-Agreement unionists outside the UUP who privately believe a more heavyweight challenger would have deposed Mr Trimble by now. In terms of pure intellect, I doubt any unionist could match Mr Trimble, although the same could be said for mostly anyone from the Tory and Labour frontbenches. I’m not sure how Mr Donaldson would compete even with Peter Robinson or Nigel Dodds from the DUP. But, to give him credit where it’s crucially due, Mr Donaldson has a better instinctive grasp of what grassroots unionism will wear than his leader does. In a democracy, this is hardly a failing in a political leader. In those knife-edge UUC debates, the consensus is that Mr Donaldson has been making the speeches of his life. As for the hard-liner charge, well, they said the same about David Trimble on the way up, and before him, Brian Faulkner. Personally, I think Mr Donaldson, if he is ever becomes leader of something meaningfully approximate to the present UUP, will be every bit as liberal as Mr Trimble, but would have the distinct advantage for his party of being able to the recognise the cliff when he sees it. (I should stress that in this instance I mean liberal in its peculiarly Ulster sense: which is to say, keen on preserving his virtue for the world to come as he doubtless is, Jeffrey Donaldson I believe can see the benefit in stooping to win a few fights in the here and now.)
‘Challenging’ Donaldson also suffers from his powerbase in the Young Unionist movement, of which he was a successful chairman. They also got up noses for the reasons mentioned earlier: staunchly right wing, integrationist and disdainful of devolution. (Think FCS but without the social liberalism and wild Saturday night parties: after all there was church the following morning). Many YUs came into the party via Queens University. Here many of these quintessentially middle Ulster and middle class children had, courtesy of the rampant Irish Republicanism of the Students Union, up close and personally encountered Provoism for the first time in their lives. No wonder they were less emollient than some of the party’s older hands: Queens wasn’t like that in Mummy and Daddy’s day. Apart from being hard line, they were also more articulate and active than other affiliated groups to the party. The YUs in addition ran the stalking horse challenge to Jim Molyneaux in 1995 and were active in Mr Trimble’s surprisingly successful leadership campaign later that year. They were nicknamed the Baby Barristers, as some were junior members of the Bar, and became David Trimble’s Praetorian Guard. It was a bond only broken by the signing of the Belfast Agreement, after which nearly all the YUs went over to Mr Donaldson and some continued on to the DUP.
The Importance of being Orange
A lot of nonsense is spoken about the Orange Order by metropolitan commentators, when even they should know better. Part of this is a cultural clash. Ulster Protestant society is at least half a century behind English society, and it has never experienced the pressures and strains that have transformed England since the 1960s. Once upon a time a flash journalist was in a humble terraced home in east Belfast and his reaction in print was, of course, to poke fun at the pictures of the Queen and Churchill on the wall — this reflexive bigotry, against Orange paraphernalia, obviously has the benefit of masquerading in the media as normative behaviour. The Orange parades do not just commemorate history but use history to give a context to the present and future. The hostile incomprehension of this by much of the press naturally leads to a misunderstanding of the function that Orangeism plays within unionism.
In relation to political developments, Orangeism is basically a giant focus group. Like the Unionist Party, it is mostly made up of socially conservative farmers and small businessmen. So what’s the difference between the geographically similar unionist branch and the district Orange lodge? I think it is that loyalty to a party leadership is likely to be more conditional in the lodge than in the branch. That’s not surprising as members of any party are likelier to show deference than non-members. Most Orangemen and their leaders were traditionally supportive of the UUP. But as an organisation, the Order is not particularly party political, as it recognises that many members will vote DUP. Here’s a rule of thumb: if something political causes dissent within the Order it’s a reliable indicator of unionist opinion. It’s certainly more reliable than a Bellylaugh opinion poll or a lazy BBC Northern Ireland vox pop. Significantly, post the rebels’ suspension, the County Grand Lodge of Londonderry came out unanimously against the Joint Declaration and threatened to bar the UUP from meeting in its halls.
One striking illustration of David Trimble’s declining status within unionism is in his association (or lack of it) with the Order. I understand that Mr Trimble, once the hero of Drumcree, has not been near an Orange parade or platform since he signed the Belfast Agreement. He has been advised that someone might try to shoot him, but it’s also true to say that he would get a rough ride from his audience if he ever did get up to speak. At the Twelfth of July this year I would wager a bowler hat complete with Orange lily from the Pall Mall that the UUP leader will not be seen or heard. I remember a sad sight from 1999 of Mr Trimble addressing cameras outside Downing Street on the most important day in Orangeism’s year. It spoke volumes about his estrangement from his former supporters.
Cometh the eleventh hour
At the rebels’ press conference, David Burnside invoked the memory of the unionist coalition against Sunningdale 30 years ago. (Ulster Protestants learn to invoke the past as they learn the alphabet.) Some of the faces are still there, but the landscape is very different. Mr Trimble has not lost control of the UUP yet and the party has not suffered a crippling electoral reverse. I’m not Mystic Meg so I won’t say how I think the power struggle is going to pan out. But I stick with the basic point that no party can be run indefinitely on deeply controversial knife-edge votes. Something has to give, and where I see all the motion is among the Cobains and Kennedys, and even Empeys of the UUP. These men rely for their careers on a viable UUP, and the one thing that ’victory’ for Mr Trimble, on his current proffered terms, will ensure is that there won’t be one.
In 1995 David Trimble inherited from Jim Molyneaux a party with quiescent factions and he has inflamed them. Somewhere along the line he bought the analysis that all he needs is 51% in the UUC. This has always been absurdly unrealistic politics: it would be thus in any party. He also seems to have followed the opinion of his vocal adviser, Dublin journalist Eoghan Harris, that he should purge the party of dissidents (always a preferred undertaking for ‘ex’ Marxists). That’s why Peter Weir, MLA for North Down, was expelled and why the rebel three MPs are supposed to be heading along the same road. Sometimes the inconsistencies become ridiculous. For example, Mr Trimble said last week, when attacking his critics, that he wanted to create a broader unionism. Well, you don’t conventionally do that by expelling people and happily sending traditional supporters to the DUP. Another line of thinking in the Trimble camp is that if their leader can attract traditional non-voters in unionist areas then this will compensate for the seepage of support to the DUP. The casual reader might detect a flaw in that Mr and Mrs Non-Voter actually won’t vote unless (a) someone rounds them up in the clubhouse and takes them to the polling stations at gunpoint (now there’s a thought); or (b) they were made to live near the border. On the other hand, all the anti-Agreement people certainly will go out on a wet day to vote if they think they could dish Mr Trimble.
In the longer term, what is the future for the party? The gloating DUP has kept a low profile as its rival slowly implodes. Beneath the surface the DUP is changing rapidly as Mr Trimble’s erosion of support swells its recruits and brings it closer to the centre of unionism. Paisley, still the scourge of the Roman pontiff, will still lead it until he gets to meet Luther, Calvin and Knox face to face. Distaste for Paisley has worked in the UUP’s favour for years: but how would the UUP fare if it was faced with a DUP led by Peter Robinson, a man for whom the 80s song “Smooth Operator” might have been written — well, it would have been if it had been sung in a broad Ballymena accent? It’s ironic, isn’t it, that the DUP, once the Free Presbyterian Church on the hustings, should start by default to look inclusive in a way that the possibly soon-to-be-purged UUP will not?
In the Molyneaux era, the UUP was a broad church. David Trimble has reduced it to a liberal sect. Can the death cult final stage be far away?
— The Watchman
StormontWatch is ERO’s Belfast-based politics column
StormontWatch, July 2, 2003 12:29 AM