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Showing posts with label Predictions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Predictions. Show all posts
Dr John Coulter ✍ With only a couple of days remaining of this year, I’ve been delving into my crystal balls to see what 2026 holds for us on both sides of the Irish border.

It might be another 18 months until the next Stormont and local council elections in Northern Ireland in May 2027, but all the political parties have been in election mode since the new school year began in September 2025.

So expect bundles of opinion polls throughout 2026 with all eyes on the race between Sinn Fein and the DUP as to who will be the top dog in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Expect to see support for Jim Allister MP’s TUV creep up especially as distrust among pro-Union voters about DUP promises over the Protocol, the Windsor Framework, and the Irish Sea Border continues to fester.

The real danger for Unionism is Lagan Valley Syndrome developing in many constituencies, especially if opinion polls reflect a fairly even three-way split in the pro-Union vote between the DUP, UUP and TUV.

During last year’s Westminster election, the supposedly rock-solid pro-Union Lagan Valley constituency fell to the pan nationalist front in the form of an Alliance MP.

Speaking of Alliance, the bubble will finally burst and there will be an all-out civil war between those who want Alliance to become more openly middle of the road mirror image of the Liberal Democrats as its founding fathers intended, and those who want it to be a more clearly defined soft nationalist party which will allow Alliance to make gains west of the River Bann.

And speaking of leadership elections, even if the UUP’s Mike Nesbitt remains as party boss, the grassroots will hold its own unofficial leadership contest between MLAs Robbie Butler and Jon Burrows with both camps inviting their respective ‘candidates’ to address constituency and branch meetings.

Across the Irish Sea, expect a leadership coup against Labour PM Keir Starmer, with a Hard Left candidate winning thereby shifting the party policy-wise to the Looney Left.

Such will be the fanaticism of the new look Hard Left leadership, that they will decide to call a snap Westminster election. Unfortunately, this will backfire on Labour, and Hard Right Reform UK will gain control of the keys to 10 Downing Street.

With party boss Nigel Farage as PM, expect to see the rapid start of large scale deportations of asylum seekers and illegal migrants from the UK. Expect to see Reform propose a plan to have a series of deporting centres and camps established on remote Scottish islands rather than the current luxury of hotels.

The small boat crisis will come to a shuddering halt as Reform pumps millions of pounds into the Royal Navy to form an iron wall in the English Channel forcing the people trafficker gangs to start pushing people into other European Union countries.

Reform will undo any Labour bid in the meantime to get the UK to rejoin the EU, creating a financial crisis whereby the EU will say it actually doesn’t want the UK back!

Presidents Trump and Putin will do a Munich-style agreement which prevents World War III, with Ukraine being craved up politically. Given Trump’s interest in history, the US President will give the Crimea to the UK, making the region a British Empire dominion based on the fact that Britain won the Crimean War in the mid 19th century.

As for Gaza, American sources are hinting at evacuating thousands of Palestinians to South Africa while the Jerusalem-Washington political alliance begins the process of rebuilding the region as an Israeli-controlled dominion.

However, the big global power broker in terms of financial clout will be China as the Far Eastern communist super nation takes firm control of world economics, causing militant Christian fundamentalists to rethink Biblical predictions as to who is the Anti Christ. Beijing will replace the Vatican for this Biblical honour.

And speaking of religion, Islamic communities across mainland Britain will demand Sharia law to run regions where Muslims are in the clear majority culturally and numerically. As Sharia law is blatantly homophobic and transphobic as well as being overtly tough on women, expect Sharia law courts to start closing LGBT clubs and meeting places and cutting funding to LGBT and women’s rights organisations and groups.

Across Ireland, the safe-guarding crisis which has gripped one of the island’s largest Protestant denominations, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) will explode as more alleged victims come forward to tell their stories, potentially sparking as the saying goes - more heads will roll.

In the Republic, the broad Left alliance which saw Catherine Connolly sweep to power as Irish President will disintegrate as the various factions begin ideological feuds with Sinn Fein lighting the fuse over a border poll.

Southern Ireland will have to ditch its military neutrality and join the NATO alliance as part of the Russia/America pact on Ukraine. Mind you, this could be a real benefit to Southern Ireland as Trump stations thousands of American forces personnel across the island bringing millions of much-needed dollar investment to both the Republic and Northern Ireland.

While the UK farming industry enjoyed a festive present of a Labour climbdown on the so-called farm inheritance tax, the agricultural industry will be stepping up a gear in its campaign to get the tax scrapped completely.

Just as this year witnessed strikes by key medical staff, 2026 will see similar strike action by the farming community causing food shortages, rationing and long queues and panic buying in many shops and supermarkets.

Once politicians come back from their New Year holidays, expect to see more silly arguments over language on road and housing signs. Just as erecting flags has always been seen as a clear method of marking out sectarian turf, there’ll be more Irish language signs erected in republican areas, with Unionist areas retaliating with signs in both English and a Ballymena accent (sorry, that should read Ulster Scots!)

On the sporting front, there will be some notable achievements. My beloved Gunners will finally bring silverware to the Emirates with either the English Premier League title, or the Champions League title.

In Scotland, Edinburgh side Hearts will follow St Mirren in breaking the Old Firm domination of domestic titles by winning the Premiership, while in Northern Ireland, Linfield will launch a last gasp onslaught to retain the Gibson Cup.

Similarly, in the soccer World Cup, the Germans will reign supreme again, beating the English in the final. In rugby, Ireland will secure pole position for the next World Cup, while yet another Irish trainer will clinch the much coveted English Grand National in horse racing.

On the GAA front, the Sam will be won by an Ulster team, with a Munster squad becoming all-Ireland hurling champions. In cricket, England will continue to make fools of themselves at the wicket as they did in the recent Ashes tests in Australia, meaning that Ireland will move above England in world rankings.

In the meantime, a Happy New Year to all Pensive Quill readers, and roll on Easter!
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 


Coulter’s Crystal Balls 🔮 Predictions For 2026

Dr John Coulter ✍ Primarily, a very Happy New Year and prosperous 2024 to all the readers, editors and fellow contributors on The Pensive Quill.

I’ve been delving into my crystal balls to see what 2024 will throw at us. It’ll be a year of elections, with Labour winning a snap Westminster General Election after the Scottish nationalists imploded and gifted Sir Keir Starmer much-needed seats to guarantee him the keys of 10 Downing Street.

The Tories will go into free-fall in both the Westminster and local council polls leading to the toppling of current PM Rishi Sunak’s leadership with the Right-wing, eurosceptic European Research Group (ERG) (or what’s left of the Tory Right!) dictating who will be the next Conservative boss.

In the Irish Republic, the Shinners will manage to get a successful vote of no confidence in the present Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil administration, triggering an early Dail general election in which the Provisional IRA’s political wing tops the poll in terms of TDs elected.

However, Sinn Fein will need a partner to ensure Mary-Lou McDonald gets the Taoiseach’s post, probably with the help of a smattering of Independent and Hard Left TDs - or even Fianna Fáil turning traitor and climbing into bed with the Provos’ political wing.

In spite of Sinn Fein hopes of an outright majority, the FG/FF’s double whammy of throwing enough cash at Northern Ireland projects and taking the British Government to court over the latter’s legacy legislation will ensure that enough republican voters stay loyal to the FG/FF political shotgun marriage to deny the Shinners that coveted outright majority.

In Ulster, DUP boss Sir Jeffrey Donaldson will get enough votes in his party to ensure the Duppers end their Stormont boycott and trigger the power-sharing Executive.

This will result in a major realignment in Unionism with the UUP and pro-Assembly DUP in one camp, and the Hard Right of the DUP, TUV, Loyal Orders and loyalist paramilitaries in the new No camp.

And although the UK is out of the European Union, well apart from Northern Ireland, there will be a strong campaign by 2016-style Remainers to rejoin the EU.

However, this campaign will run aground when the 2024 European parliamentary elections return massive gains for the Far Right. The EU make-up which the UK first sent its MEPs to in 1979 is no longer the EU which will emerge after this year’s poll.

The Israel/Gaza conflict worsens, but the Donald Trump 2024 Presidential election team proposes an interesting solution - that Israel withdraws from Gaza and a joint SAS/Delta force hit squad goes into Gaza and wipes out the Hamas terrorists - a move that will guarantee Trump the White House once again in late 2024’s election.

Sadly, in retaliation, what’s left of Hamas attacks the UK for the SAS adopting its ‘no prisoners taken’ policy in Gaza and in spite of the UK Government emphasising that ‘British boots were not on the ground’ in the region.

In a panic move as the body count of Hamas terrorists begins to climb, the United Nations will vote to send peace-keeping troops from the Irish Defence Forces into Gaza, sparking the occasional embarrassing incidents of so-called ‘friendly fire’ between the SAS and Irish UN troops.

On a lighter note, in sport, my beloved Gunners will secure their first Premiership title in two decades, and the famous Sam Maguire will be clinched by an Ulster county.

In religious terms, more councils will start to pass increasingly draconian laws to combat the menace of an irresponsible section of the theologically Hard Right fundamentalist street preacher movement, some of whom are nothing more than attention-seekers trying to get themselves arrested so that they can claim to be a modern-day St Stephen, viewed by many Biblical scholars as the first Christian martyr.

As these new draconian rules will apply to all Christians, responsible open air evangelists will have to take a tough stand against the militant fringe which is getting all open air witness tarred with the same irresponsible brush.

Likewise, 2024 will see a widening of the split which has already started in the pro-life movement in terms of their tactics as the distances imposed by the safe access zones are increased. Again, the overall pro-life movement has been infiltrated by hardline fundamentalists who in the past have used extremist ‘in your face’ tactics at health clinics and locations which deal with abortions.

What many of these militant pro-life activists fail to understand is that many of these health locations also deal with other issues, such as women who have lost babies through miscarriages, or are suffering from blood disorders.

Imagine the additional hurt, pain and tears heaped on women who have lost their much-wanted child through miscarriage having to run the gauntlet of militant pro-life extremists waving placards bearing images of unborn children on them? And many of these protestors will call themselves ‘Christian’? As with the street preacher movement, the responsible pro-life movement will suffer as a result of the street militancy of the movement’s lunatic fringe.

And we could see the Education Authority having to implement a similar policy of safe access zones outside our schools as this month sees the launch of compulsory lessons in Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) in post primary schools in Northern Ireland.

Many of these lessons focus on issues such as abortion, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Again, as with the pro-life movement, what happens if the anti-RSE movement gets infiltrated by militant fundamentalists who believe in protests outside schools which teach RSE?

Just as folk attending health clinics had to run the gauntlet of militant pro-lifers, could we see the horrific sight of pupils, parents and teachers having to run similar gauntlets by the anti-RSE fundamentalists outside many of our schools?

And returning to the political front, with Stormont back in business as a fully functioning power-sharing parliament with a Sinn Fein First Minister, and with the Irish Unity debate moving further up the agenda, we will see the Alliance Party ‘bounce’ fall flat as the party tears itself apart deciding which way to vote on a future referendum - Irish Unity or the Union? The same lack of direction, this time on Brexit, cost the Ulster Unionist Party its European seat; a seat the UUP had held since 1979.

Given the atrocious and unpredictable weather the Province has endured during last year, especially with the severe flooding, the new Stormont Executive will create a new department for weather with its own minister to help regions cope with the catastrophic effects of rain, hail and storms.

However, like the health portfolio at Stormont, which party or individual has the courage to take on such a challenging role?

The socially conservative wing of the Catholic Church will launch a counter attack to combat the Vatican’s ruling on allowing blessings for same sex relationships. Expect to see a sighting of the Virgin Mary somewhere in Ireland to rally the flocks behind traditional Catholic teaching on marriage, divorce, abortion and homosexuality. My money is on Ballycastle in north Antrim!

As for the Protestant Church, the overall Pentecostal movement will launch another contentious divine healing phenomenon akin to the Toronto Blessing and Florida Outpouring which will see North American-style healing meetings with so-called healers claiming they can raise the dead.

In the meantime, a happy Easter to everyone.

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. 

Coulter’s Crystal Balls For 2024

Dr John Coulter ✍ Last month’s artic storm is still kicking around when it comes to the big question of 2023 - will there be a snap Stormont poll, or can the UK and the EU agree a good enough deal which will help the DUP trigger a power-sharing Executive?

The big problem is that so many former Ulster Unionists have joined the DUP, or have influence within the DUP, that the party has really become a mirror image of the UUP in 1986 when the latter was dominated by leading integrationists like leader James Molyneaux and South Down MP Enoch Powell.

They both ideologically had little time for devolution, believing instead that power should rest with the Westminster Government and that the Northern Ireland Office - which implemented Direct Rule at that time - should her staffed by MPs elected in Northern Ireland instead of parachuting MPs in from British mainland constituencies.

Even the late Ulster-born NIO Education Minister in the 1980s - Dr Brian Mawhinney - was the Tory MP for Peterborough before his elevation to the House of Lords.

With the planned local government elections pushed back to later in May to take account of King Charles’ coronation, the big question remains - when will the Northern Ireland Secretary of State call this much-mooted Assembly election, which has become known as the ‘election which no one wants’?

The problem still remains that the old Paisleyite fundamentalist wing of the DUP is now firmly back in control of the party with many key influencers in the party based at Westminster.

So it’s not a case of the UK/EU deal satisfying the DUP as a whole in terms of getting the party to walk back into an Executive at Stormont, but whether the fundamentalists are happy with the deal itself?

Then again, the DUP strategists must be pondering how many of the 66,000 first preference votes the TUV notched up in the May 2022 Stormont poll can be persuaded to vote DUP in any snap Assembly poll?

After all, the DUP is only two seats behind Sinn Fein in the battle for the First Minister’s post. At the same time, the Shinners must be pondering how many of the remaining SDLP seats or Alliance seats held by Catholics could they snatch come the Stormont poll.

While the Duppers will be looking to gain at least another three seats to overtake the Shinners, what happens if the snap Stormont poll yields the same result as May - Shinners in first place in terms of MLAs, with the Duppers as runners-up? Will the DUP agree to serve as deputy First Minister under a Sinn Fein First Minister even though they are supposed to be joint posts?

The loose cannon in this political debate is the TUV. It’s not transfer friendly as last May’s poll concluded - 66,000 first preference votes and only a single MLA; party boss Jim Allister in North Antrim.

With the May 2023 council showdown definitely on the cards, could the TUV now transfer those 66,000 Assembly votes into first preference votes for local government candidates across the 11 councils in Northern Ireland?

The Ulster Unionists are playing smart for any Stormont poll and adopting a ‘what we have, we hold’ attitude to the number of candidates, so the chances of the DUP nicking seats from the UUP are greatly reduced.

As for Alliance, it will certainly ‘up’ the number of council candidates it will be running, especially west of the River Bann in traditionally nationalist areas. It will also be hoping the so-called ‘Alliance Bounce’ will keep bouncing in council areas with large Unionist voter bases.

As for the Shinners, their priority must be to prepare for any snap Dail General Election should the ruling Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael coalition ever lose a vote of confidence in the coming months.

Although the next Dail General Election is not scheduled until 2025, the big mistake which the Shinners made in the last 2020 Leinster House showdown was in not running enough candidates - a serious error of judgement the Provisional IRA’s mouthpiece will not make again.

If opinion polls are taken as gospel, Shinner boss Mary Lou McDonald is on course to become either Taoiseach or Tanaiste following the next election south of the border.

The key question will be - can all the other parties and independents get enough TDs returned to form an anti-Sinn Fein rainbow coalition to keep Mary Lou out of one or other of the top posts? Or will one of the existing Dail parties break ranks and form a coalition government with Sinn Fein?

As for British mainland politics, expect PM Rishi Sunak to face yet more Tory backbench rebellions as both the cost of living crisis and recession bite deep into the UK economy.

Maybe US President ‘Sleepy Joe’ Biden will waken up in time to come to Ireland and kick off the celebrations, commemorations, or commiserations marking the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, which supposedly heralded the formal start of the peace process in Ireland. Maybe the time has come to negotiate a new agreement as the GFA has finally run its course.

After all, all it takes is the DUP’s fundamentalist bloc to dig in its heels over Stormont, triggering a 1972-style proroguing of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Direct Rule comes back to the Province.

That could see a lot of redundant MLAs and party workers, including office staff, scrambling to get nominations as council candidates. Would the DUP have enough clout left at Westminster to persuade the Tory Government to allow Northern Ireland MPs to staff the new look NIO?

That would put the Shinners in a real dilemma over their traditional abstentionist policy of not taking their Commons seats. Would we see a special 1986-style conference to rustle up some excuse to enter the Commons as Sinn Fein concocted in 1986 to take seats in the Dail?

On a brighter note, I hope my beloved Gunners get back into the Champions League at the expense of Tottenham. Then again, after his Qatar World Cup penalty kicking skills, maybe England captain Harry Kane will sign for Slaughtneil GAC?

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. 

Freezing Fog Engulfs Coulter’s Crystal Ball For 2023!

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