I recognise that I have a lot more subscribers at the moment than I did when I wrote my last post, and specifically more people who don’t actually know me personally; thus you might not have been expecting a snarky post about how the Northern Irish election is being reported on.
Think it may be because of the fact that SF are now the largest party in a state that was exclusively designed to prevent that from happening. This is a big turning point. Fact that a lot of votes for SF is because of the behaviour of DUP isn’t being considered either. DUP are currently SFs greatest asset
(Edited to remove a mistake about the size of unionism vs nationalism.)
I'm not clear that 2022 actually is a big turning point. I think we have to make a distinction between (on the one hand) the absolute sizes of the unionist and nationalist blocs, and (on the other hand) the relative sizes of individual parties within those blocs.
2017, when the unionist blocs lost their outright majorities, absolutely was a big turning point: Northern Ireland was never intended to have that happen, and that's of crucial importance.
What happened this election seems to be of less importance: unionism overall did not lose ground relative to nationalism. The DUP lost ground relatively *within* unionism, sure, and as a result Sinn Féin (who didn't lose ground relatively within nationalism) are bigger than them; but the overall balance of power between unionism and nationalism is pretty much unchanged. The biggest shift is that the Other bloc has gained a lot of seats.
I don't think it's fair to consider the relative size of one nationalist party versus one unionist party, as opposed to just the relative overall sizes of nationalism and unionism. Consider a hypothetical election that looked like this: Sinn Féin 25, DUP 23, UUP 19, TUV 13, SDLP 5, Alliance 5. This would be a terrible election for nationalism, and a fantastic election for unionism, even though Sinn Féin got the most seats: support is spread out among different unionist parties, but the overall unionist bloc has a majority.
And back in the real world, nationalism is no bigger than unionism, and that matters more than the relative size of *particular* unionist and nationalist parties. After all, it's the size of the blocs that ultimately determine if a border poll is called, not the size of individual parties within that bloc. If Sinn Féin want a border poll, they somehow have to get a nationalist majority. Just being bigger than *one* unionist party isn't enough - they have to be bigger than *all* of them. And if future elections continue the trend of the last two, I don't see that happening any time soon.
Think it may be because of the fact that SF are now the largest party in a state that was exclusively designed to prevent that from happening. This is a big turning point. Fact that a lot of votes for SF is because of the behaviour of DUP isn’t being considered either. DUP are currently SFs greatest asset
(Edited to remove a mistake about the size of unionism vs nationalism.)
I'm not clear that 2022 actually is a big turning point. I think we have to make a distinction between (on the one hand) the absolute sizes of the unionist and nationalist blocs, and (on the other hand) the relative sizes of individual parties within those blocs.
2017, when the unionist blocs lost their outright majorities, absolutely was a big turning point: Northern Ireland was never intended to have that happen, and that's of crucial importance.
What happened this election seems to be of less importance: unionism overall did not lose ground relative to nationalism. The DUP lost ground relatively *within* unionism, sure, and as a result Sinn Féin (who didn't lose ground relatively within nationalism) are bigger than them; but the overall balance of power between unionism and nationalism is pretty much unchanged. The biggest shift is that the Other bloc has gained a lot of seats.
I don't think it's fair to consider the relative size of one nationalist party versus one unionist party, as opposed to just the relative overall sizes of nationalism and unionism. Consider a hypothetical election that looked like this: Sinn Féin 25, DUP 23, UUP 19, TUV 13, SDLP 5, Alliance 5. This would be a terrible election for nationalism, and a fantastic election for unionism, even though Sinn Féin got the most seats: support is spread out among different unionist parties, but the overall unionist bloc has a majority.
And back in the real world, nationalism is no bigger than unionism, and that matters more than the relative size of *particular* unionist and nationalist parties. After all, it's the size of the blocs that ultimately determine if a border poll is called, not the size of individual parties within that bloc. If Sinn Féin want a border poll, they somehow have to get a nationalist majority. Just being bigger than *one* unionist party isn't enough - they have to be bigger than *all* of them. And if future elections continue the trend of the last two, I don't see that happening any time soon.