The Guardian view on the general election in Northern Ireland: time for London to re-engage

Sinn Féin’s Michelle O'Neill, Northern Ireland’s first minister, with the party’s former president Gerry Adams. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA

Compared with the contests in the rest of the UK or in France, the one in Northern Ireland may seem like this week’s electoral sideshow. Devolved government there has finally been resumed. The Brexit protests have died down. And there are only 18 seats in Northern Ireland anyway, out of Westminster’s 650. The chance of the Northern Ireland results affecting the post-election balance of power, as they did in 2017, are vanishingly small this time.

All true. Yet the election in Northern Ireland matters all the same. It matters for Northern Ireland’s people, of course, not least because one in four of them are on an NHS treatment waiting list, a higher figure than in most of Britain. It matters too because, although the devolved institutions have resumed operation, there is too little by way of creative, cross-community, cooperative government to show for it. And it matters because, at least among unionists, the wounds of Brexit have not been fully healed.

In contrast to Britain, Northern Ireland is once again fighting a Brexit election. In January, under its former leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the Democratic Unionist party did a deal with Rishi Sunak that was presented as the effective abolition of post-Brexit trade barriers between Britain and Northern Ireland and thus gave the green light to the DUP’s return to power sharing. Yet support for the deal within the post-Donaldson DUP is lukewarm. The DUP looks set to lose votes over the issue this week, which may tip some seats to their various rivals.

The UK’s 2019 election was the first in which nationalist parties, with nine, took more seats than unionists, who had eight (the remaining seat went to the non-aligned Alliance). That trend may strengthen on Thursday, because Northern Ireland has several marginal seats, and the balances of power between the parties, and within the communities, are shifting. In Northern Ireland’s most recent opinion poll, no party had more than Sinn Féin’s 24% support (compared with the DUP’s 31% in 2019). Under first past the post, this means that electoral pacts, as well as tactical voting, will be significant.

On the nationalist side, Sinn Féin, whose vice-president, Michelle O’Neill, is now Northern Ireland’s first minister, and which does not take its seats at Westminster, may not make gains; yet it is likely to again be the biggest winner. The unionist side is less predictable, with the DUP down at 21% in a recent poll, and the vote split between the DUP, the Ulster Unionists and Traditional Unionist Voice. This may help the Alliance, which has hopes of adding to the DUP’s difficulties by unseating its new leader, Gavin Robinson, in East Belfast, and may even take Sir Jeffrey’s former seat in Lagan Valley.

The new balance of seats in Northern Ireland is therefore likely to renew speculation about an eventual referendum on unification with the Republic. Such a referendum will not happen any time soon. But such a set of results will heighten unionist uncertainties even so.

This reinforces the argument, set out in a new report for the London-based Constitution Unit by the former Northern Ireland Office official Alan Whysall, that an extensive task of re-engagement faces the new UK government in Northern Ireland, as well as in Dublin. What is needed, Mr Whysall argues, are new ideas to sustain constructive politics. Developing the advantages that Northern Ireland’s special access to the EU and UK markets now confer could be a productive place to start.