The North will be biggest loser in the Brexit election

Posted by Jim on April 22, 2017

By Kathryn Gaw (for the Guardian)

The general election couldn’t come at a worse time for Northern Ireland.
As Brexit looms without any clarification on the border issue, Stormont
is without a working government, and the Northern Irish people are
facing direct rule from Westminster politicians who have no presence in
the province, meaning that the future of Northern Ireland is likely to
be decided by voters in England and Wales.

This will be Northern Ireland’s fourth election in two years, not
including the EU referendum, and it comes with incredibly high stakes.
Yet residents will have no say in the result, even as they are set to be
the most affected by it.

Excluding the SNP, the UK’s three main political parties are currently
Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, none of which have
a functional base in Northern Ireland. Instead, the Labour vote is split
across three tiny parties: Labour Alternative, the Cross-Community
Labour Alternative and the newly created Northern Ireland Labour
Representation Committee party, which together won just 0.8% of the
total vote in the last assembly election.

The recently rebranded NI Conservatives has a stronger presence in the
province, but a bad habit of standing young party members who are based
in London and who choose not to campaign in Northern Ireland. In last
month’s election, they scraped just 0.3% of the popular vote.

The Liberal Democrats have no presence whatsoever in Northern Ireland,
although the party has aligned itself with Alliance in the past.
Alliance has won just one Westminster seat since it was founded in 1970.

In total, Northern Ireland has 18 MPs in Westminster, although four of
these seats are currently held by Sinn Fein representatives, who
maintain a policy of abstentionism. Since the Brexit vote, support for
Sinn Fein has been at an all-time high, with the party increasing its
minority in Stormont after campaigning on a pro-EU platform. Early polls
suggest that the party is likely to win at least one more (empty) seat
in the general election.

Of the remaining 14 Northern Irish MPs, there are eight from the DUP
party, three SDLP, two Ulster Unionist and one Independent. These
numbers are so small, and in such conflict with each other, that their
votes are almost never in alignment. In fact, of the 13 MPs who voted
against the general election in Wednesday’s parliament, one was the SDLP
representative Alasdair McDonnell, and another was the NI Independent
Sylvia Hermon.

In the event of direct rule, Northern Ireland is relying on a fractured
minority of politicians to stand up to a Tory government that has given
no indication of having a post-Brexit plan for the province.

In last year’s referendum, 56% of Northern Irish residents voted to
remain in the EU, and almost a year later there is still overwhelming
uncertainty on the border issue, despite tepid reassurance from prime
minister, Theresa May, that any Irish border would be “frictionless”.
However, just a few months ago, the Irish government began actively
scouting locations for border patrols between the north and the south,
with up to 250 possible locations being discussed.

Sinn Fein has seized upon the general anxiety of the province by raising
the possibility of a border poll to gauge interest in a united Ireland.
While this would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, the idea is
gaining momentum. A 50% support threshold among Stormont politicians is
all that is needed to force Northern Ireland secretary of state James
Brokenshire to call a border poll, and Sinn Fein currently holds 30% of
the seats. But before any of this could happen, there needs to be an
actual Assembly.

Just days before Theresa May’s election announcement, Brokenshire
extended the Assembly talks for another month, but with parties
deadlocked on emotive issues regarding culture and identity, a
resolution looks unlikely. Brokenshire has previously ruled out a second
Assembly election, so direct rule from Westminster is practically a
foregone conclusion.

Northern Irish residents know this, but when they step into the ballot
box on 8 June, they will have no opportunity to vote for any member of
the next government.

Amid all the political turmoil at both local and national level, all we
know for sure is that Northern Ireland does not want Brexit. Yet Brexit
is being forced upon it – by a Westminster government with no vested
interest in its future.