EVEN the most insipid nationalist must have felt a surge of pride to see Michelle O’Neill descend the gilded staircase to be ushered in as First Minister of Northern Ireland. One did not need to be an admirer of Sinn Féin to realise that the long road had finally reached its turning, that the wheel had come full circle and – to put it bluntly – the shoe was at last on the other foot.
To the credit of the newly victorious, the triumphalism was muted, and Ms O’Neill went out of her way to extend the hand of friendship and to state her intent to make the restored Stormont an assembly that would carry out the mandate it had been given.
In cold political terms, it could be said that the unionist faction, or more specifically, the DUP, became second best through nobody’s fault but their own.
It has often been remarked that, when it comes to practical politics, Sinn Féin would run rings around the DUP. But then, as other wags have remarked, it was easy to run rings around the DUP, since there can hardly have ever been a more inept conclave of elected representatives on the island of Ireland. The litany of misjudgements, blunders and gaffes which is the DUP template for decision making surely places the voices of unionism at the creche level of political competence.
By its lack of leadership and authority over the past decade, the DUP not only enabled Sinn Féin to take the high ground of competency, it held the door open for the nationalist representation to walk through. And through all that decade, nobody seemed to know – not least the DUP itself – what exactly it was seeking by way of concession or preferred treatment.
To recap, this was the party that stridently campaigned for a hard Brexit, against the express wish of the electorate it purported to represent. That crusade included the expenditure of a mysterious £400,000 on a pro-leave advertising campaign on the British mainland, where the party does not even have a presence. The DUP wilfully scuppered Theresa May’s plan to keep the UK, in its entirety, within the customs union, a gold-wrapped gift that would have kept the North aligned completely with the rest of the UK. And to the utter dismay of the pragmatic, hard-headed, northern farmers and business leaders – who know more than most the value of a pound – it put every possible obstacle in the way of a smooth landing.
For most of the UK, the supposed benefits of Brexit proved to be illusory. (The country recently learned that British expats owning holiday homes in France will not be allowed stay longer than ninety days, without a visa). But for Northern Ireland, almost by default, the ball has bounced kindly. Now in the enviable position of being able to sell simultaneously into the UK and into the EU single market unhindered, the prospects should be bright.
But again, true to form, the DUP wails of the glass being half empty; the North, it complains, is being forced to align itself with EU market rules, it must accept dictation from Brussels. It is, in effect, cut off from its true home across the water, and all because of the perfidy of London which, it claims, sold it down the river.
Whether the unionist element at Stormont is up to the task of putting its shoulder to the wheel and restoring prosperity to Northern Ireland is an open question, given that the North is now the poorest region in the UK. The £3 billion dowry that lured it back into Stormont won’t last forever, and it would be a brave punter who would bet the house against the unionists walking again before too long. 