Newton Emerson: Parties rarely disappear, but there’s now serious talk of the end of the DUP

People are starting to talk about the end of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). This is more than wishful thinking from opponents and rivals. Prof Peter Shirlow of the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Irish Studies told The Irish News two weeks ago the survival of the party was “questionable”.A split is widening over the Drumcree dispute that could crack open deeper fractures. The DUP is arguing with itself in public over whether to stay in Stormont: the leadership has warned that leaving would be disastrous for the party, the union and the public.In July, the DUP dropped one point behind the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) in a LucidTalk opinion poll. This was linked to the conviction of former leader Jeffrey Donaldson the month before. Almost 40 per cent of unionist voters questioned said they would stop giving the DUP a preference as a result. Another LucidTalk poll will be published next week. If it shows a further fall or if it has the UUP still in the lead then there will be panic inside the DUP. The party is already in election mode, preparing for assembly and council votes next May. Fighting these contests while behind in the polls will be a novel horror for almost everyone in the party. READ MOREThe last time the DUP fell behind the UUP was in 2021 at the height of a farcical leadership wrangle that saw the post change hands twice in a month. That was considered a one-off. The last time before that was in 2003, the same year the DUP surpassed the UUP at the ballot box.[ DUP’s tough talk on Sinn Féin exposes the bind Gavin Robinson’s party finds itself in ]Declining trends feed into a perception the DUP has lost its role within the party system. Rationally, unionism has space for two parties, which might be loosely termed liberal and conservative. Yet it now has three, the DUP, the UUP and the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), all at roughly the same level in opinion polls. This is unprecedented and probably unsustainable. Although none of the three fits neatly into the liberal or conservative categorisation, the DUP is the most awkward fit.During the 2021 leadership crisis, senior DUP and UUP figures held talks on “unionist realignment” – an exchange of factions to reorganise themselves into neat liberal and conservative parties.In reality, such a thing could never be agreed between rivals. It can only happen through calamity, split and defection, a process that in retrospect is well under way. The TUV was founded two decades ago by a DUP defector, Jim Allister, in objection to powersharing with Sinn Féin. Its support took off in this decade after the DUP’s acquiescence to an Irish Sea border. There is now speculation that prominent DUP MP Carla Lockhart could quit or defect to the TUV over Drumcree, taking other members and voters with her.A party can still thrive in Northern Ireland without ideological neatness by simply being the biggest kid on its bloc. Large numbers of tribal pragmatists among unionist and nationalist voters will swing behind whoever is likeliest to win.Within unionism, for a quarter of a century, that has been the DUP. Anyone contemplating its demise has to consider its continued dominance. The DUP took well over half the unionist vote in the last assembly, council and general elections. It has over half of unionism’s MPs, two-thirds of its councillors and three-quarters of its assembly members. These positions are locked in by Westminster’s first-past-the-post voting system and Stormont’s multi-seat constituencies, which create hurdles for smaller parties. By contrast, the TUV is a glorified one-man band, with its support spread too thinly for a breakthrough. The UUP is a hollowed-out shell, dangerously dependent on its energetic new leader, Jon Burrows.But while the DUP’s support may be a mile wide, it could prove an inch deep. The party has always been a strange vehicle for the unionist population, remaining religious, opaque and introverted even as it grew.Pragmatist voters must be a large share of its total vote, ready to discard it for any better prospect. Falling behind the UUP in opinion polls could be a tipping point.It is not only voters who make a crucial decision to move on. In 2003, when the DUP and Sinn Féin became the largest parties on their respective blocs, the British and Irish governments had already accepted this was the future and structures would have to be adjusted to cope. The UUP and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) were marginalised, powersharing was redesigned under the St Andrews Agreement and the project to nurture loyalist parties was finally abandoned.Should the DUP falter and be picked apart by its rivals, governments could see the advantage of a dominant UUP unambiguously committed to Stormont and a stronger TUV that spoke for loyalism. Unionist and nationalist party systems would no longer be symmetrical, requiring another adjustment to powersharing.Parties rarely disappear, or even rapidly shrink, but the first step is imagining it possible.