Left, Right or Centre: The Future and The North
Opinion Piece
From 9/11 onwards, we’ve seen two growing trends in Western Democracies: one is a greater mistrust of the Institutions of Government and the second is greater polarization in society broadly and in the political arena. It would be correct to note that these trends were most likely greatly accelerated after the 2008 financial crisis. The reason I make this point is that politics in the North of Ireland is no stranger to polarization, so in the post-Trump and post-Brexit era, is there something that the North can offer to the rest of the world as a vision for operating in the body politic within what can be a divisive community at times. And secondly is the center something the people want and does it have any answers?
Historically, power-sharing has been successful in the sense that it prevented armed conflict between the two main groups in the North. The first group being the Ulster Unionists who are in favour of the partitioned state of Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK and the second being Irish Nationalists who believe that Ireland North and South should be re-unified as one constitutional and economic entity. In a lot of other respects it has been a less than successful venture. Since the 1998 peace agreement was reached, the NI Assembly has been suspended five times as a result of crisis or disagreement between the main parties. In the midst of all these crises and during the prior conflict a center political option was available in the form of the Alliance Party, birthed from the New Ulster Movement, a movement put in place to assist candidates in support of the moderate Unionist leader Terence O Neill politically.
Alliance is a broadly liberal leaning political party, the same sort of politics that brought Bill Clinton to the White House and Tony Blair to Government in the UK for the first time in decades. These political beliefs (center-left) were once believed to be the future of the political landscape but it now seems to be substantially rejected in the US in 2016, in parts of Europe (e.g. Hungary and Poland) and with substantial populist movements in Italy and France that threaten the current neo-liberal governments in power. It’s most likely that the forces of British and Irish nationalism that exist in the North are so large and dominate in the political arena that centrist, internationalist views and movements never appealed to a large enough swathe of the population.
As mentioned, the UK Labour movement spent a long time in opposition until changes made to the party under Neil Kinnock culminated in the premiership of Tony Blair and New Labour or at least that’s what the Blairites in the Labour party will testify to. It seems as though the newest leader of the Labour party Keir Starmer is attempting to re-create that Centre-left political victory that Labour enjoyed in 1997. After Jeremy Corbyn’s defeat at the 2019 General Election, Starmer who was then Corbyn’s Shadow Brexit Secretary, stood for and won the Labour leadership contest. In the past 18 months of his leadership, Starmer has made a stunning break with the left-wing values he claimed to believe in when he was serving under Corbyn and has reneged on the pledges he made whilst running for leader, opting for a center-ground position for his cabinet and the party. It is understood that Starmer is currently being advised by Peter Mandelson, during his conference speech a cry of “Where’s Peter Mandelson?” could be heard from among the hecklers in the audience. Mandelson was one of the first people for whom the term ‘Spin Doctor’ was originally used and is also attributed with modernizing the Labour party from Kinnock to Blair and seems to be attempting the same with Keir Starmer’s leadership.
However, this tactic does not appear to be panning out as planned. Faced with a Tory Government steeped in scandal and with the specter of 140,000 Covid deaths in clear public view, Starmer has been consistently trailing Johnson’s polling with the public. It seems that a red-on-red civil war wasn’t something the electorate wanted to see from the opposition during a global pandemic. Or perhaps it’s that the center-ground that brought Blair to power no longer exists. It is true that in the US Joe Biden’s 2020 election was won from essentially a center-left position, and he did oust a hard-right populist from the White House. However, he did this in conjunction with the left-wing of the Democratic Party, mainly his primary rival Bernie Sanders who is now the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. And although American politics is a much different arena it would seem that this path is working.
The center ground seems to offer electability at its best but usually when it’s working with all aspects of its party. As for the North the best we seem to do is make attempts at seizing aspects of the center ground in the run-up to a potential border poll. With talk of constitutional change in the air on the Island of Ireland it seems that Sinn Fein is seeking to moderate itself and to champion progressive policies that appeal to the broadest population possible. With the SDLP as a fairly significant minority and the DUP polling the lowest of the three main unionist parties (at the time of writing) it looks like the moderates are being rejected and it seems that in the North it’s come down to left or right, green or orange, unity or loyalism.
It seems some things never change.
