David Trimble is now the leader of the minority party of Unionism. But how much longer he will hold that position is a matter of serious concern for that dwindling group of unionists who still back him. The overwhelming question, for Northern Ireland’s unionist and nationalist populations, is does this mean that he will soon go the way of the two unionist leaders with whom he is most often compared, Terence O’Neill and Brian Faulkner?
The Rev. Ian Paisley fervently hopes so. The leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, which replaced the Ulster Unionists during last November’s Assembly elections as unionism’s dominant party, is now planning an all-out campaign to crush the UUP.
The first stage of this campaign is already well under way, though it seems to be mainly generated from within the UUP itself — a worrying sign for both Trimble and his supporters. Last week, an entire branch of the UUP in Belfast resigned. The BBC reported that William Parkinson, the chairman of the Dunmurray and Seymour Hill section in the south of the city, said he and his members were “disgusted” at how the party had treated unionist dissident Jeffrey Donaldson.
Donaldson and two sympathizers, Arlene Foster and Norah Beare, left the party after a long-simmering dispute with Trimble and joined the DUP last month. Most of the former Dunmurray-Seymour Hill UUP members would be following suit, according to Parkinson, who called it a “gut-wrenching” decision. The resignations followed claims that up to 100 UUP members have left the party to join its rival for Protestant votes.
David Burnside, the MP for South Antrim and a Donaldson supporter, has described the party as being in a “sorry state.” An important Trimble supporter who sits in the Northern Ireland assembly is expected to call for him to resign sometime this week.
Stage two of the assault on the UUP will get under way in the coming months as the DUP gears up for the European elections in June. Paisley’s decision this week not to run because, he says, he wants to concentrate on the upcoming review of the Good Friday agreement, has fueled speculation that his party will field two candidates this time around to rob the UUP of its representation in Strasbourg. The UUP’s sitting candidate, Jim Nicholson, is regarded as an easy target. It has also sparked off rumors that Donaldson might be chosen as the high-profile candidate to do the job.
“It’s possible we could run two candidates and get both in,” a DUP source said Monday. “It will be considered.”
But he insisted there was as yet no decision on how many candidates will run or whom they will be. However, the DUP is worried that it could split the unionist vote and perhaps allow a second nationalist to slip through. But the very fact that the party is seriously considering the move is an indication of its growing confidence.
Stage three of the DUP campaign is the next Westminster general election, still about 18 months away. Donaldson’s defection to the DUP has already made Paisley’s party the majority unionist party in parliament, where it now holds six seats to the UUP’s five. However, the DUP is not satisfied with this majority of one and is determined to reduce the UUP to the rump party of unionism. Their aim is to place Trimble in the same situation that Brian Faulkner found himself 30 years ago next month when, during a general election, Paisley led anti-power-sharing unionists to a sweeping victory. Not one of Faulkner’s candidates won a seat. The Sunningdale Agreement, under which the power-sharing executive had been created, was doomed from that instant. Faulkner’s leadership was doomed with it. Within a few years of the fall of the executive, he was an insignificant figure on the political scene in Northern Ireland.
It has been Paisley’s ambition almost since he began preaching his unhealthy mixture of fundamentalist religion and reactionary politics back in the late 1960s to destroy any brand of reforming Unionism that dared to attempt to lead Northern Ireland’s Protestants in the direction of change and accommodation with their nationalist neighbors. Now, it would appear that he is closer than ever to realizing that ambition.
The UUP has fought off Paisley before by the simple tactic of inertia. Leaders such as Harry West and James Molyneaux had no fear of Paisley because they did nothing, other than oppose change, and took no political risks. Under Molyneaux, the UUP opposed the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Unionists conducted for a time a vigorous street campaign against what they saw as Dublin interference — the agreement having recognized a role for the Irish government in Northern Ireland affairs for the first time. But the campaign failed. Political inertia reigned among unionists for a decade.
However, that was not a realistic option for Trimble and his party. The development of the peace process in the nationalist community demanded a response. Under pressure from London, the UUP did respond. Trimble led his party into government alongside Sinn Fein on three occasions. Each one ended in collapse and increased unionist disillusionment with the Good Friday agreement. Some now think that unionist disillusionment is so deep that the Good Friday agreement is doomed to go the way of Sunningdale, albeit at a slower pace.
However, there are major differences in the current situation and the situation in 1974. Trimble has argued that the agreement is under threat not so much from the DUP as it is from, as he put it recently when speaking in the House of Commons, “the inability or unwillingness of paramilitary related parties to commit themselves fully to the democratic process.” He was thinking primarily of Sinn Fein and the IRA. If the IRA disbanded, would that be enough to convince Protestants that devolved government involving Sinn Fein was now acceptable? Or is it too late even for such a dramatic move to make much difference? There is only one way to find out. But it could come too late to save the leadership of David Trimble.
There is another factor that cannot be discounted. It was demonstrated two weeks ago. On Sunday, Jan. 11, there was a rugby match at the Ravenhill rugby club in East Belfast. About 15,000 people showed up to find the game being picketed by Paisley and his Free Presbyterians on a “Keep the Sabbath Holy” campaign.
The vast majority of the 15,000 ruby enthusiasts to attended the match were probably middle-class Protestants, core UUP supporters. No doubt they would have regarded the antics of the “Free Ps” with disdain. The question is, can Paisley win over this constituency without ridding himself and his party of their religious fundamentalism? The vast majority of middle-class unionists who support the UUP find the DUP’s links to the Free Presbyterian church a big disincentive to supporting it. The “Free Ps” could turn out to be as much of a liability to the DUP as the IRA currently is to Sinn Fein.
But David Trimble may well have to sit out this battle from the political sidelines.