Free
Presbyterian Moderator Ian Paisley Senior needs
to return Northern Protestantism to the days of
former Premier Terence O'Neill and start the formal
process to create a single group, simply called
The Unionist Party.
Paisley
also needs to follow the advice given by a former
rival Ulster Unionist boss, wee Jimmy Molyneaux,
and convert the DUP into a “broad church
for Unionism”.
For
the past generation, Paisley has been branded
a vote splitter and party wrecker within the Unionist
family.
With
the UUP sliding into electoral meltdown, now is
the time for common sense between Paisley and
under-fire Ulster Unionist boss Reg Empey.
Rather
than gloating over the tragic electoral demise
of the UUP, Paisley must make his DUP a warm house
for traditional Ulster Unionists.
The
collapse in UUP fortunes has ruled out the formation
of a United Unionist Coalition. There's just not
enough UUP MLAs to make the venture worthwhile
politically. Bob McCartney's dissident UK Unionists
are now electoral history.
The
UUP has a stark choice – merge with the Paisley
camp, or end up being defunct within a few years.
At
almost aged 82, as Paisley enters the twilight
years, he can make amends for all the cries of
Judas and traitor he has heaped on rival Unionist
bosses from O'Neill onwards.
His
legacy to the Unionist community is to leave them
with a single, united party. For Unionism, turning
the clock back to the mid 1960s would become a
future electoral blessing. Its simple sums for
Unionism – one party, one seat, one candidate.
Besides,
Paisley may need the support of the so-called
Rump – what's left of the UUP Assembly team
who are all pro-deal – to push ahead with
setting up the power-sharing Executive with Sinn
Fein.
Today,
under the political dance routine carved out by
the Scottish Agreement, the Paisley camp and the
Shinners have to provide their nominations for
First and Deputy First Minister.
SF
is certainly a united party having effectively
silenced the dissidents in the polls. But the
DUP contains a fairly significant sprinkling of
anti-deal MLAs loyal to North Belfast MP Nigel
Dodds and MEP Jim Allister.
Gone
are the days when the DUP's ruling executive merely
rubber stamped the decrees of Big Ian. Its very
clear from the DUP's manifesto that Dodds and
Allister are the king pins of the Paisley camp.
That
being the case, Big Ian may need to come cap in
hand to the UUP Rump to ensure the power-sharing
Executive is up and running by the 26 March deadline.
Or
should it be the case a UUP Rump, eventually led
by Lagan Valley's Basil McCrea, comes rather tattered
cap in hand to the DUP looking for a new political
home – especially now the supposedly written
off Alliance seems to have regained the Northern
centre ground.
And
talking of mergers, surely Mark Durkan's SDLP
must now get the message that if moderate nationalism
is to have any realistic voice in a Northern Assembly,
it must develop its all-island identity by formally
teaming up with Bertie Ahern's Fianna Fail.
Gerry
and the Shinners must be really getting up auld
Bertie's nose with their all-island power taunts.
Indeed,
given the slide in the SDLP vote, FF needs to
come north and save Durkan's ass, otherwise the
party founded by the late Fitt the Brit will have
as much influence in the Assembly as the old opposition
Nationalist Party in the original Stormont parliament
– and the NP is now defunct, too.
Now
that the DUP has firmly swallowed up the UUP,
its time for Big Ian to truly follow the words
of Jesus when our Lord said: “Blessed are
the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
Its
not the bitter medicine of sharing power with
Shinners the DUP needs to swallow; its a large
dose of common sense Biblical meekness –
and then the Paisleyites will inherit devolved
power which the Northern people so disparately
crave for.
