Northern Ireland’s election started as a contest about Brexit and British and Irish identities, and finished by focusing on a big empty building that evoked comparisons to the Overlook hotel in The Shining.
The parliament building at Stormont, an estate outside Belfast, is an imposing structure in the Greek classical style filled with ornate ceilings, chandeliers and marbled halls.
Life drained from the building three years ago when a row between Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) led to the collapse of power sharing, mothballing the assembly chamber and zombifying Northern Ireland’s politics.
The debacle haunted both parties on election night. The DUP lost two of its 10 MPs and saw its overall vote fall by 5.4 percentage points. Sinn Féin won a headline-grabbing victory in Belfast North where John Finucane toppled the DUP’s Nigel Dodds, but faltered everywhere else, losing a seat in Derry and seeing its overall vote drop by 6.7 percentage points.
It was punishment for Stormont’s paralysis amid crumbling public services, especially a crisis in healthcare, and it was Brexit blowback: retribution for DUP bungling and Sinn Féin irrelevance.
“People were voting against abstentionism and the dominance of the two big parties. People are fed up with the impasse,” said Katy Hayward, a reader in sociology at Queen’s University Belfast and the author of Bordering on Brexit.
“They were not delivering for their constituencies,” said Nicholas Whyte, a Northern Ireland election maven with the consultancy Apco Worldwide. “So votes went to other parties. A crucial number now feel sufficiently secure to not vote for their tribe.”
Days after the election, lights started blazing at Stormont. Chastened DUP and Sinn Féin leaders were huddling there with other party leaders and British and Irish officials in an attempt to revive the assembly.
But last night the British and Irish governments blamed the DUP for holding up a compromise deal.
Julian Smith, the Northern Ireland secretary, said he was “bitterly disappointed” and that talks would probably be paused over Christmas to give all parties time to “reflect” before trying again in January.
“I know there are people in the DUP who want to move forward and I would urge them to move forward so we can get this done,” he said.
Smith said the lack of consensus stopped him tabling a motion to restore power-sharing at Stormont.
If devolution is not restored by 13 January Smith has vowed to call new assembly elections. The DUP and Sinn Féin want to avoid a fresh lashing at the polls so there had been optimism they would compromise on an Irish language act, the main sticking point, to clinch a deal.
Boris Johnson’s pledge on Thursday to end “vexatious” prosecutions of army veterans may create an additional hurdle. Bigger challenges loom, raising profound questions about Northern Ireland’s future.
The prime minister’s Brexit deal rattles loyalists who say a border down the Irish Sea will diminish their British identity. And it will create headaches for business owners faced with murky rules and regulations for trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Equally unclear is how Downing Street’s coming trade talks with the European Union will impact Northern Ireland’s economy and constitutional status within the UK and EU. All this while a renewed push for Scottish independence and a demographic tilt towards a Catholic majority in Northern Ireland fans republican hopes – and unionist dread – of Irish unification.
There is everything to play for, in other words, so little wonder that voters vented anger at the absence of players on the pitch.
The DUP had deflected frustration over Stormont’s impasse by touting its confidence-and-supply agreement with Theresa May’s government, casting itself as Downing Street’s puppeteer, only for her successor, Johnson, to negotiate a Brexit deal that cut the strings, leaving the DUP betrayed and sidelined.
Sinn Féin, meanwhile, struggled to show its impact given the empty chamber in Belfast and a policy of abstention from Westminster that emasculated its seven MPs during Brexit’s great parliamentary dramas.
Both parties sought to rally their bases with existential appeals: vote DUP to save the union from peril, vote Sinn Féin to get a border poll on a united Ireland. They again emerged as the dominant parties, respectively with 30% and 22% of the vote, but with with major dents, even in their heartlands.
Instead of sweeping the vacant seat of North Down, the DUP disappeared under a landslide for Stephen Farry, deputy leader of the non-aligned Alliance party, which rallied Remainers, including unionists, against the DUP’s would-be Brexiters.
A tsunami for Colum Eastwood, leader of the moderate nationalist SDLP, swamped Sinn Féin’s incumbent MP in Foyle, which encompasses Derry.
“It was a very clear message to the DUP and Sinn Féin that the status quo was completely unacceptable,” said John Kyle, a councillor with the Progressive Unionist party.
The election’s big winner was the Alliance, a socially liberal party that rejects nationalist and unionist labels. It won 16.8% of the vote, an surge of 8.9% percentage points from the last election, making it the third biggest party. Previously it was fifth biggest, behind the Ulster Unionist party and the SDLP.
“There is a new confidence about the middle ground,” said Hayward. “It offers an alternative that is more policy focused.” Brexit will put Northern Ireland in limbo, requiring focused and practical leadership, she said. “Regulations, trade policy, nitty-gritty policy – these are the challenges. The constitutional question … diverts attention away from what’s needed here and now if Northern Ireland is not to become a basket case.”
A nurses’ strike this week underscored the gravity of the healthcare crisis, piling pressure on all sides to restore Stormont. Another factor that may clinch a deal is the presence of a secretary of state, Smith, who is respected by all parties and civil servants, unlike certain predecessors. “God I hope we get to keep him,” said one official, eyeing a coming cabinet reshuffle.
There is widespread agreement that Stormont must not just be restored but reformed. The cash-for-ash scandal – a bungled green energy incentive scheme that helped topple power-sharing – exposed dysfunction and corruption. The rise of the centre also increases pressure to change rules designed for the binary politics of nationalism versus unionism.
Brexit raises the stakes for both sides of that quarrel. Already unnerved by Scottish fissures in the union, some loyalists, including paramilitaries, have warned of a backlash over Johnson’s “betrayal bill”, raising the spectre of disruption at Larne and other ports.
Kyle, the PUP councillor, played down such a prospect. “Past experience tells us civil disobedience peters out and is not effective at bringing about change. The best options are to be involved in serious negotiations with Westminster and Dublin to see how potential problems can be ameliorated.”
For nationalists who yearn for a united Ireland the omens are mixed. Nationalist MPs – two SDLP, seven Sinn Féin – for the first time outnumber unionist MPs. Opinion polls suggest a conceivable majority for unification, a sentiment likely to harden if Brexit inflicts serious damage.
“This election has left Sinn Féin’s calls for a border poll bolstered, particularly amidst renewed calls in Scotland for another referendum,” said Marisa McGlinchey, an assistant politics professor at Coventry University who studies Irish nationalism.
Others dispute that, saying a 22% vote share and downward trend weakens Sinn Féin’s hand. “The narrative of unstoppable forward progress has been badly weakened,” said Whyte. “Their border poll idea is now dead,” wrote Mick Fealty, political editor of the political blog Slugger O’Toole.
The big debate about Northern Ireland’s constitutional status lies in the future. For the next few weeks, at least, focus will be on the politicians driving up the mile-long drive of red-twigged lime trees to the grand, abandoned parliament building to see if they can banish the cobwebs.
