It’s difficult to fathom what’s going on in British (or should that just be English?) politics at present.
Conservatives and Reform demanding a public inquiry into events 15 or more years ago which have been the subject of a national inquiry, the recommendations of which were ignored by the contemptible Conservatives. All of which driven by Elon Musk to embarrass Keir Starmer and disrupt his government.
None of which concerns anyone here, does it, because it’s English politics with which we have no connection?
Well, yes and no. No, because Starmer’s travails have no bearing on day-to-day events in the north and his majority is so large he can see off any bandwagon the opportunistic Conservatives jump on, so there’s no prospect of an election.
It’s only the obsessively England-oriented broadcast media here that thrusts events in Westminster onto the north’s TV screens and radio news.
What would it take to have something in Scotland dominating the headlines here? As you know, nothing ever happens in Wales.
As for the south, if you depended on local media you’d need real ingenuity to work out what’s going on about government formation, even though the largest party here is also the largest party in the south and the second largest in the Dáil. Oh, and by the way, there’s an election to the Seanad.
On the other hand, current English political turmoil should concern people here.
There are some questions about the effect of the shenanigans in England on local politics which for some reason aren’t asked.
Is Jim Allister’s TUV still connected with Nigel Farage’s Reform or did that fall apart last June?
Is Sammy Wilson still bosom pals with Farage and Reform? If so, does the DUP leader approve?
These questions matter. Most people here (indeed anywhere) don’t watch Westminster on TV so they don’t know that Reform MPs sit on the same bench beside the DUP.
Allister has distanced himself and sits appropriately with his back to the wall of the chamber, though that may be to distance himself from the DUP whom he regards as treacherous ‘Protocol implementers’.
The questions matter because Allister signed up to a formal agreement with Reform last year. Reform supports Trump and Musk. Does Allister?
Did Allister sign up with Reform in the hope of finance coming in the direction of the TUV, or, and we’re entitled to know the answers, does he support the xenophobic policies Reform espouses? Does Farage’s favourite, Wilson?
You can’t sign an agreement with a character like Farage and then claim to have no knowledge or association with his party’s policies.
It makes it even more difficult to deny complicity when you’re sitting alongside his MPs, as DUP members do.
We know both the TUV and DUP supported Farage and Sunak’s stupid ‘Stop the Boats’ slogan, stupid for a number of reasons, not least because the total number of people entering England from boats amounted to a tiny percentage of the total immigration into Britain last year.
We need to know where the DUP and TUV stand on these matters because, while neither party has the slightest effect in England or wider British politics, they pretend they’re part of British politics and they obviously have an effect here.
That effect is visible and apparent in the language and actions of DUP and TUV supporters.
For example, last summer the semi-literate graffiti artists of Belfast’s Tiger Bay scrawled ‘Stop the Boats’ below their usual biblical inscriptions before someone told them no boats were coming to this island and they erased it.
Is the language of English racism and nativism mimicked here because of the TUV and DUP’s support for Farage, Reform, and, on a wider scale, Trump and Musk?
Why does no-one ask the DUP leader if he supports Trump? Does he support the contrived, disruptive demand for a public inquiry into child abuse in English cities advocated by Musk?
Do Jim Allister and Gavin Robinson approve of similar language about immigrants being copied here from extremist English parties?
Do they think the rioting in loyalist districts last year is completely disconnected from the links unionist parties sought with such parties?
If election results are anything to go by, and what else can you use, unionist voters as a whole didn’t exactly flock to polling stations to express their approval for the DUP’s lurch to the right, slavishly following the extremes of Allister and his crew into a far-right cul de sac.
So, on this score, what does unionism stand for? Answer: anything.