Mick Clifford: Symbolic and actual change in Northern Ireland's elections is staggering

The Assembly election may be done, but its purpose of putting an administration in place in Stormont still has a road to run, writes Mick Clifford

The biggest beneficiary of a drop in the SDLP vote appears to have been the Alliance party, which also encroached into the Ulster Unionist party’s patch. Photo: Niall Carson/PA

Symbols sit heavy in the North and never more so when the democratic process is underway.

The count centre for the Belfast constituencies in the Assembly elections was located in the Titanic Exhibition Centre, not much more than a big tent pitched down on the docks where Harland & Wolf assembled the doomed ship. 

Harland & Woolf epitomised the old order in the city, jobs for Protestants, the road for Catholics. So it went for the building of the Titanic, and so it remained less than a decade later when the island was partitioned and a Protestant state for a Protestant people was born.

The ghosts of the dockworkers probably got the first ferry out of town yesterday, fleeing a land that was no longer theirs to shape. From the early tallies, it became obvious that Sinn Féin looked to be on course to be the biggest party in the assembly, thus winning the right to the role of First Minister. 

The ultimate outcome won’t be known until all the seats are filled, but the early indications were that the predictions would turn out to be correct. The symbolism was staggering.

The Northern Ireland designed to ensure a perpetual unionist majority was no more. Those consigned to second-class citizenship for the first 50 years of the statelet’s existence were now manning the bridge. 

And what must grate with true blue unionists more than anything is that they have only themselves to blame. They simply were incapable of doing politics in an environment where they had to go out and persuade rather than sit back and assume that their dominance would always persist.

Two senior figures were among the early arrivals at the Titanic Centre. Sinn Féin member for North Belfast, Gerry Kelly, was busy among bowed heads, attempting to crunch the early numbers. He was in no mood to tempt fate.

“We’re happy with the campaign we ran, we’re confident that we’ve done what we needed to do,” he said. “The people speak then.” 

Edwin Poots, who spent three weeks as leader of the DUP last year, was more downbeat. “If there are significant divisions in the unionist vote, it will be hard to keep Sinn Féin out,” he told RTÉ.

The division in the unionist vote was obvious. The DUP had not done as badly as some of the polls had predicted. There was a shy vote that didn’t want to admit it but ultimately came home to the unionists they knew. 

To the right of the party, Jim Allister’s TUV has corralled some of that hardline vote, highlighting that despite all the DUP’s antics around the protocol, there is still a unionist vote which has drifted away in search of another, stable, straightforward home.

Then there was the soft vote. This, it appears, belongs to a cohort that has had enough of the no, nay, never and found a new home among the progressive voice of the middle ground, principally, the Alliance party.

UUP's Mike Nesbitt (left) and Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly at the Titanic Exhibition Centre in Belfast on Friday. Kelly topped the poll in North Belfast with 8,395 votes, and was duly elected. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA

Kelly and Poots between them could be viewed as personifying the evolution of politics in the North over the last 50 years. Kelly was sentenced to life in prison in 1973 for his role in a series of bombs outside the Old Bailey in London, the first major attack by the IRA on the so-called mainland. 

The bombing was indiscriminate and designed to terrorise, features that were to mark much of the Provos campaign over the following two decades. At that time, Sinn Féin was little more than a front for the killing campaign.

Kelly spent the best part of 15 years in prison, played a prominent role in the ceasefire and nascent peace process, and went on to hold a seat in the Assembly. On Friday, before the results began to flow in, he prowled the Exhibition Centre, looking frail now as he approaches his 70th birthday, but no worse the wear despite enduring a long hunger strike in a London jail when a young man. 

In the Titanic Centre, he wore a cautious face as if, after all these years, he had no intention of counting chickens until they all finally arrived home. He and his party have travelled a long road.

Edwin Poots, by contrast, wasn’t looking too hot as he awaited tallies from his South Belfast constituency. His father Charles was one of the founders of the DUP, at the side of Rev. Ian Paisley, the man who made a career on firebrand rhetoric which sent out young Loyalists to kill and die in defence of the Crown, as they saw it.

Poots’ father was also the victim of an assassination attempt, an incident which, Poots said, nearly prompted him to take up the gun himself, but for the personal intervention of Paisley. 

In his own career, Edwin Poots came to symbolise much of what has gone wrong for unionists as their former adversaries began to gain confidence while the sectarian state was dismantled. Poots is a creationist. He would be perfectly at home among the Christian right in the USA, but beyond the inner circle of his own tribe, he appears out of step with the direction of travel on this island.

His leadership of the DUP last June lasted just three weeks and ended in chaos, highlighting the disastrous manner in which the DUP does politics at a time when all around them are growing up.

Edwin Poots came to symbolise much of what has gone wrong for unionists as their former adversaries began to gain confidence while the sectarian state was dismantled.

Friday's gathering in the Titanic Centre began to thicken as the morning turned to afternoon. Food arrived in bags and trays, mainly from a nearby Spar shop because, despite the elevation of the docklands in recent years, there wasn’t a sausage to be got inside the exhibition centre. 

The tallymen and women, elevated to the perch of sage in southern elections, didn’t have a full grasp on where the votes were going. The system of proportional representation is still in its infancy here compared to the other side of the border. 

And there is no tradition of competing parties sharing information in the name of accuracy, as has been happening down south for the last century. A long and winding road to parity of esteem has meant that old suspicions linger within an ass’s roar of the ballot box.

A stream of candidates showed up ahead of the early declarations, including the Alliance leader Naomi Long. A smile was rarely absent from her face, but in keeping with the campaign, it was one of quiet satisfaction rather than smugness. 

Her party has been a slow train coming, but all the indications are that it is now arriving. At 2.45pm on Friday, the returning officer for the Strangford constituency made a declaration. A scrum surrounded Naomi Long and her candidate for Strangford, Kellie Armstrong. The cameras clicked, lights flashed and the pair of them beamed.

Alliance Party leader Naomi Long at the Titanic Exhibition Centre in Belfast on Friday. A smile was rarely absent from her face, but in keeping with the campaign, it was one of quiet satisfaction rather than smugness. 

Armstrong is a popular figure. Just before the DUP collapsed the Assembly in March, she managed to push through legislation for integrated education. Her private member’s bill came dropping slowly, but it was notable that it was the Alliance that finally got it done rather than either of the two designated groupings which dominated the government.

“Integrated education was enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement – it is part of our peace process and a vehicle for change,” she said at the time.

“I have worked six years for this moment. There was always going to be vested interests opposed to any bill. They are going to criticise. Anything that could have been thrown at this bill was thrown against it.” 

On Friday, Armstrong’s vote was alphabetically the first conveyed by the returning officer.

“Armstrong Kellie, Alliance Party 7,015,” she said. A cheer went up. She exceeded the quota, was elected ahead of both the DUP and the TUV in what was once a staunch unionist enclave. She thus became the first member returned to the new assembly.

The wind was at their backs in this election, but the Alliance probably also benefited from an increase in voting numbers. Turnout was in the region of the 64% achieved at the last election, but the electorate has increased since then. 

One thing that ensured that was the Covid emergency payment of £100, the North’s equivalent of the PUP in the south. Receipt of the payment was dependent on registering to vote. There must be some lesson in there for democracies everywhere to ensure that as many as possible are signed up to exercise their franchise.

Within 10 minutes of Armstrong being elected, the second member was returned. Gerry Kelly topped the poll in North Belfast with 8,395 votes, and was duly elected. There was never any doubt that he would make it. 

What had been doubted was whether he would bring in his running mate, Carál Ní Chuilín, but she also got over the line on the first count. A few minutes later, a result for West Belfast came in with the Shinners in the top four positions in the field.

Sinn Féin, aware that they were on the cusp of something big, ran an astute campaign. Appearances in the media were strictly controlled and there was no sign of any of the flag-waving that has often been a feature of the party’s politics. 

They were keenly aware that transfers would be vital, and transfers have, at various points, been a tough sell for the party. All talk of the sacred border poll was quietened. 

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood at the count centre at the Meadowbank Sports arena in Magherafelt in Co. Derry. For the SDLP, this election would appear to have been another staging post on its long, slow decline. Photo: Niall Carson/PA

This was Sinn Féin with its best foot forward, reaching out to all and sundry, asking the electorate to compare its moderation with the carry-on being wrought by the DUP. And all the indications are that it worked.

One element of the Shinners' success appears to have been a capacity to attract transfers from SDLP voters in particular. The soft shoe shuffle combined with the stary-eyed prospect of a nationalist first minister ensured that votes were lent to Sinn Féin. 

For the SDLP, this election would appear to have been another staging post on its long, slow decline. The biggest beneficiary of a drop in the SDLP vote appears to have been the Alliance party, which also encroached into the Ulster Unionist party’s patch.

In an election that heralded much symbolism, it was notable that the pioneering parties on the road to normality in the North, the SDLP and UUP, were among the biggest losers. 

Meanwhile, should the assembly actually sit and govern with Michelle O’Neill at its head, another milestone will have been reached on the island. With Micheál Martin still Taoiseach until December, Fermoy-born Michelle O’Neill’s elevation would ensure that Cork people will be in charge right across the island. 

You couldn’t make it up, but don’t hold your breath just yet. The election is done, but its purpose of putting an administration in place still has a road to run.