Given the
Unionist stance on not sharing power in the Stormont executive with a Sinn Féin
First Minister we were expecting a huge surge in the Sinn Féin vote.
It didn't
happen. They remain on 27 seats and their overall vote only increased 1.1% from
the 2017 Assembly elections and was in fact down 0.4% from the 2019 Westminster
election.
Not only
that, the claim that Sinn Féin is the first Nationalist party to top the polls
in the assembly elections is wrong. The SDLP did that in 1998 and lost out to
the position of First Minister because the UUP got more seats on that occasion.
This time
the Unionist vote was split and Sinn Féin got to have the position of First
Minister because of this.
However, if
they want the First Minister position then they have to give in to Unionist
demands over the one thing tearing Unionism apart, the Protocol, or it's no
executive.
They can't
do that because the power to do so is between the Tories and the EU.
If the Brits
try to change the Protocol then Unionism is still getting its own way and
nothing has changed and the claim that Unionist domination is at an end is
meaningless.
Also, now
that they are the largest party in the executive means that Sinn Féin has to
deliver on the promises it made on the run up to the election. There is no
hiding behind Carson's statue in that regard.
As for Derry, the Sinn Féin vote was down 3.8% while the SDLP vote was down 0.9% meaning that the people in the city are increasingly growing tired of hearing the same promises which disappear like the clouds in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land after the elections . . .
 |
Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman. Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie |
Good piece Dixie - Alex Kane made a point which just about sums it up:
ReplyDeleteIt may not bring a Border poll any closer and it doesn’t mean the union is in peril. But unionism feels different.
Excellent piece thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete