Fury of the faithful as Dr. No says Yes

Following the St Andrews Agreement, the DUP leadership has set out to convince its membership that, though following the well-trodden path of David Trimble, the party is on the right track.

In a series of ‘Town Hall’ meetings across the province they expected to rubber-stamp the agreement. Peter Robinson, believed to be the architect of the current strategy, would give a masterful Powerpoint presentation, Ian Paisley would endorse the progress so far, and a party which is not known to think for itself would, as the crowds used to sing on the Shankill Road:

Follow, follow, we will follow Paisley,

Up the Falls, Derry’s Walls,

We will follow on!’

The party’s attempt to sell the St Andrews Agreement has, much to the surprise and alarm of the leadership, had a rough ride, exacerbated by a 50/50 split amongst its MPs and MEP. The membership, raised on a diet of ‘Ulster says No!’, were now being expected to say ‘Yes!’

The first of the ‘soundings’ was held in the La Mon House Hotel in Castlereagh, Peter Robinson’s fiefdom. It was tightly controlled, dissent had been muffled, and many in attendance were on the payroll; endorsement of party policy was assured, but at some cost.

Outraged dissenters believed that debate had been stifled, the meeting had been ‘stacked’, and the memory of those murdered by the IRA would be betrayed if Ian Paisley entered into a Northern Ireland Executive with Martin McGuinness as his Deputy First Minister. Some of the audience were unimpressed by the party’s use of ‘scare tactics’, a ploy David Trimble had used to push his programme through. The grassroots began to mobilise.

Following a meeting in Ballymena, it was claimed that 80 or 90 per cent supported the leadership: the BBC bought into the ‘spin’. Knowing that a number of Ballymena councillors had voiced their opposition, the grassroots became yet more exasperated. Ian Paisley was running into trouble.

At a meeting in Lurgan Town Hall on 26 October, as an unofficial minute reveals, Paisley himself was subjected to sustained heckling by incredulous supporters, enraged that their leader could contemplate joint office with Martin McGuinness. There was standing-room only, making it impossible for officials to cover up the ensuing debacle. Fever pitch was reached when Ian Paisley declaimed against his own MEP, Jim Allister, following that MEP’s analysis of the flaws in the DUP’s presentation. Baroness Paisley berated a questioning loyalist activist who had raised his hand. The local MP, David Simpson, ended the meeting, making an impassioned appeal for party unity.

Following the ‘Town Hall’ meetings, a very tense meeting of the party’s executive was held on 8 November in the council offices at Castlereagh in East Belfast, where reaction to a deal with Sinn Fein topped the agenda. There was an atmosphere of panic. Ian Paisley lost his footing at the entrance. Hours later, party officials emerged tight- lipped. Subsequent comments indicated that members had closed ranks, targeting Sinn Fein to distract the media.

Opposition was emerging elsewhere. The lacklustre Ulster Unionist Party, debilitated by the desire for office and smarting because Paisley had destroyed Trimble only to come up with an even worse proposal, published a broadside cataloguing examples of DUP ‘spin’.

Vestiges of a puritan conscience still mark the unionist community, and the accusation that the DUP was resorting to ‘lies’ found its mark. But this has been the contradiction at the heart of Ian Paisley’s political career — preaching the Gospel to his sober and stern congregation on the Sabbath and then spending the week deploying all the worldly methods and dark arts of post-modern secular politics.

More alarming for Ian Paisley, some members of the governing body of his Free Presbyterian Church, the Presbytery, added their criticism. Their Moderator, Ian Paisley, had engaged in blatant sequencing prior to St Andrew’s, when this arch-critic of the Pope engaged in talks with the Roman Catholic Primate of All Ireland, Archbishop Brady. One Presbytery member, Rev. Ivan Foster, added to the DUP leader’s woes by publishing an attack on the agreement in his Free Church magazine, The Burning Bush. Attempts were made to stop distribution, but some congregations still took the magazine.

If rumours are correct, Paisley has been given an ultimatum by the Presbytery: he can be either Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church or First Minister in a power-sharing executive. He cannot be both. If true, this would confirm that his church is indeed divided.

What had gone wrong? For the first time Paisley’s grassroots support, not only in his party but, perhaps even more significantly, in his Free Presbyterian Church, was questioning his judgement and accusing the aged leader of having broken faith with his fundamentalist and loyalist heartlands: the wheels were coming off the DUP’s bandwagon.

Bob McCartney, leader of the tiny United Kingdom Unionist Party, had entered the fray early on, accusing the DUP of bowing to government ‘blackmail’. He now plans to run anti-agreement candidates in the coming spring elections and there is some suggestion that working-class voters are moving in the UKUP’s direction, broadening his base.

An opinion poll commissioned by BBC Northern Ireland and taken between 27 and 30 October revealed that only 46.6 per cent of the DUP supported the agreement, while 31.9 per cent said ‘no’ and a further 21.5 per cent remained undecided.

Taken at the most favourable time for the DUP, when the full impact of its internal crisis had not yet registered with the electorate, the survey confirmed the split in DUP support and highlighted the leaderships’ misrepresentation of the level of approval enjoyed by its proposed detente with Sinn Fein. Meanwhile, party headquarters were leaning heavily on the pro-unionist Newsletter to ensure that anti-DUP reaction failed to reach the ‘letters’ column.

This is the second time the DUP has attempted to cut a deal with its arch-enemies: in December 2004 it was widely surmised that ‘the Doc’ had saved the day by putting the brake on going into partnership with Sinn Fein. Even before St Andrews, fervent supporters of Ian Paisley were assuring me that Dr Paisley would never share power with ‘the murderers of our people’. That phalanx of DUP support has learned a bitter lesson and they are now deeply disillusioned.

The intense feelings aroused by the St Andrews Agreement caught the hierarchy off-guard, imposing a form of inertia on the leadership and leaving ordinary party members in a state of confusion.

We are now in a situation in which the Ulster Unionist Party and the DUP are in support of the agreement, while a substantial proportion of the unionist electorate, particularly the DUP electorate, are either unconvinced or actively hostile to bringing Sinn Fein into government as of right.

Ian Paisley himself now faces a huge personal dilemma: in the past, he could rely on a band of followers who never doubted his word and who followed wherever he led. Recent events demonstrate that this is no longer the case. There has been much debate, not least in Parliamentary Brief, as to whether Ian Paisley is committed to delivering a power-sharing executive. The events recorded here suggest that he is now personally committed to this.

Though Ian Paisley may well be able to deliver a majority of unionist voters, can he risk splitting his party and his church in pursuit of going into a power-sharing executive with Sinn Fein?

Clifford Smyth is author of ‘Ian Paisley: Voice of Protestant Ulster’ (Scottish Academic Press).