Sir, – The number of seats won in the recent Northern Ireland election does not reflect the level of support for the different parties. Sinn Féin won 27 seats compared to 25 seats won by the DUP. But Sinn Féin attracted almost 229,000 first preferences compared to just over 163,000 for the DUP.
When we combine the first-preference votes for the two nationalist parties and compare them to the combined votes of the three unionist parties, the former is still ahead by over 47,000 first-preference votes.
The significance of these figures is obvious. The border poll will in effect be a count of each voter’s first preference in a binary choice between a united Ireland and the status quo.
Of course, the 99,000 voters whose first preference was for Alliance could determine the outcome but given the distribution of first-preferences votes in the recent election, 74 per cent of them would have to vote for the status quo to avoid a nationalist majority.
I am not suggesting that we should have a border poll in the morning – far from it. I hope that Sinn Féin uses its electoral success primarily to demonstrate to all the people of Northern Ireland that they are committed to representing their interests. But the voting pattern does suggest that we may have a border poll within a decade, and our Government should begin the task now of creating a vision of a new Ireland which could appeal to both unionists and nationalists. – Yours, etc,
JOHN McGRATH,
Ashford,
Co Wicklow.
Sir, – It is unfortunate that the real winners in the Northern Ireland elections, the Alliance voters, are in the first instance not well served by the framework of the Stormont Assembly which was primarily structured for the two traditional electorates of unionists and nationalists.
Be that as it may, it is indefensible that the greatly expanded group of Alliance MLAs will be prevented from getting down to work on fulfilling the mandate for which they were elected because of the DUP’s weaponising of the protocol to save face and avoid assenting to Sinn Féin with the role of First Minister.
Perhaps the most wretched aspect of all for the Alliance is that the British prime minister continues to employ the politics of Northern Ireland in threatening, with sabre-rattling belligerence, to break an international agreement signed with the EU.
Regardless, Alliance should not worry. All this chicanery will only grow its vote and add momentum to it eventually becoming the largest party in this hapless part of our “Shared Island”. The sooner the better!
Yours, etc,
MICHAEL GANNON,
Kilkenny.
Sir, – In June 2021, Edwin Poots made the bold strike of separating the who of a DUP First Minister from the who of a DUP leader, a slick self-interested move but now redundant. A similar either/or logic regarding Assembly and protocol is now operative in the mind of the current DUP leader and the DUP itself, but really is it asking too much to serve the whole of Northern Ireland and try and bring about what the DUP see as positive change from within a working democratically elected Assembly? – Yours, etc,
Dr JAMES FINNEGAN,
Letterkenny,
Co Donegal.
Sir, – Let Mary Lou McDonald’s immediate response to the Northern election be a warning to voters down South. Sinn Féin will care about social issues in order to get elected but their real priority is the national question. People voting for them for left-wing reasons are only kidding themselves. – Yours, etc,
JOHN COTTER,
Ferrybank,
Waterford.
A chara, – The election for the Assembly is over but already before the new Assembly meets on Thursday, the parties are in disagreement and the DUP refuses to create a new Executive. Deadlock has continued. It is worth reminding everyone that the UK government recently changed the law regarding elections to the Assembly. Previously, there was a three-week period for parties in the Assembly to form an Executive. If no Executive could be formed within the three weeks, a new election would occur. The UK government changed the law so that parties now have 24 weeks, or in other words, nearly half a year, to form an Executive.
Is the UK government mad? There is a phenomenon called Parkinson’s law, which says that a task will take as much time as is allowed for it. There is nothing like a deadline to focus the mind and stir people to action. Previously, parties in the Assembly would have to get on with negotiations within a three-week period. Now, they will be able to shilly-shally and dawdle for half a year. They will be able to fit in a decent summer holiday in the 24-week period.
If a political deadlock continues for months, the reason why it occurs can be traced back to a change in the law that allows a deadlock to continue. A new election after three weeks was a better threat to ending deadlock. I have no doubt that the deadlock will continue for far longer than three weeks. This is a repeated pattern from the UK government. From 2002 until 2007, there was no Executive, but the Assembly remained in place and the MLAs continued to be paid despite doing nothing.
After the collapse of the Executive in 2017, the law which stipulated a three-week negotiation period was ignored and the parties were allowed to continue to stand their ground for three years until an agreement was reached in 2020. Now things are in deadlock again but instead of concentrating minds and having a deadline hanging over their heads to get people to act, the UK government has allowed more time than is necessary for parties in the Assembly to act.
Giving parties lots of time to do nothing does not work. Will the UK government ever learn this? – Is mise,
SEANÁN Ó COISTÍN,
Trier,
Germany.