Jeff Peel's Diary

Shinners and DUPs: United in Spending (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On Inside Politics on Sunday Fionnuala O’Connor had a pop at me (and Irwin Armstrong of the Conservatives) for suggesting that there was a yawning gap in centre-right politics in Northern Ireland. She seemed to be of the view that the Unionist Parties very much filled that void and there was no need for any new or revised political groupings – to address the political dispossessed.

The assumption that Northern Ireland’s Unionist Parties occupy the right-ground of the (normal) political spectrum is correct only if one thinks about social policy. But even there the Unionists are a rag-bag bunch. Indeed the Ken Maginnis debacle of last week is a good exemplar. Ken comes out with his anti-gay rampage. Then Mike Nesbitt has his hissy-fit, withdraws Ken’s whip, and thereby engages the wrath of his membership (most of whom are a bit iffy on gay rights).

In short, even the UUP is far from homogeneous on homosexuality – never mind the raft of other social issues.

But I wasn’t really thinking about social left-right positioning when I suggested there was a gap in the Northern Ireland political market.  And I wasn’t thinking about typical “Unionist” voters. Rather, I suspect that the most politically disengaged are fiscal Conservatives – business owners and professionals who want a smaller state – and certainly a smaller and more fiscally Conservative NI Executive.

The only choice on offer to such people (most of whom are pro-Union, regardless of religion) is the choice between fiscally profligate Nats (SDLP/Sinn Fein) or fiscally profligate Unionists (DUP or UUP or Alliance).  Hence my point (and Irwin’s on Hearts & Minds) that there is a Centre-Right void in Northern Ireland politics.

As I’ve stated here in other posts, I’m not sure to what extent the Cameron-led Conservative Party is setting any kind of example for local Centre-Right (potential) voters. The UK deficit is still too great.  Per capita, it is gargantuan in Northern Ireland (much bigger than RoI’s).  And UK borrowing is still at scandalous levels.  And “the cuts” have yet to affect Northern Ireland in any material way (except in terms of capital spend allocation). And the Assembly has increased local business rates – and attempted to introduce other stealth taxes – to make spending here even higher. No real moves have been made to address Northern Ireland private sector under-development.  Instead the default position is always to maintain spending.

Perhaps this clarifies things for Fionnuala.

Related articles

• Lord Maginnis BBC rant linking gay people and bestiality sparks outrage (belfasttelegraph.co.uk)
• Lord Maginnis has whip withdrawn by Ulster Unionists over gay slur (guardian.co.uk)
• Conservatives Relaunched in NI (jeffpeel.net)