DREAM ON!

Tom Kelly wrote an article on how the two main protagonists in our political system, according to the latest Lucid Poll, are losing their shine, that is, if you believed they ever shone brightly in the first place. The premise, according to Tom, is whether the so-called political middle ground can capitalise.

Firstly, the current political system, known as a “mandatory” coalition, was cleverly set up to do a number of things:

1. To take violence off the streets and put it in Stormont, tick.
2. A system where inertia is a core feature, tick.
3. Design a political structure at Stormont where shining is not encouraged, tick.
4. A system that embeds sectarianism and identity politics and where outputs and outcomes are not on the radar, tick.
5. A system where political failure is not punished, tick.
6. A political system where the word cross-government collaboration is a slur, tick.
7. A political system where, at best, the intellectual capital is mediocre, tick.
8. A political class that is largely blind to the challenges of the future, tick.

I will stop there. Let us start with the DUP, as I described in a past post, as the Death of the Union Party. A party which stemmed from the unification of the born-again Christian brotherhood has been severely damaged by the revelations of the Jeffery Affair. It damaged its political kudos, if it had any, over Brexit, continues to fail working class protestants and now embraces the migration issue, implying that migrants are the new bogeymen/women. These are the same migrants that underpin our health and social care system.

Then there is the new leader of the UUP, John Burrows. I suppose the grey and the good of the UUP had to try a former PSNI man after the sad failure of a naval officer and a former soldier. The UUP is a party I described in a past blog as the Utterly Useless Party. A party that has failed to redefine unionism and a party that has failed working-class Protestants for decades. To remind you of their middle-class background, they don’t support a wealth tax. Tom is right; he does elude confidence, though with little substance in respect of public policy and no clear direction and understanding of the challenges that face future generations.

 Sinn Féin now has the position of First Minister and, quite frankly, has made no difference to how this place is governed. They will not stop banging on about a border poll and Irish unification even though it hardly figured as an issue in the Irish 2024 election. To add salt to the wound, Sinn Féin in the 26 counties have fallen in the polls, from 37% to 24% in just 3 years. All this in a rapidly changing geopolitical world, particularly in the EU and how AI impacts the future of work and education. It is policy light, and its unionist stepbrothers now have joined the chorus of “Blaming the Brits” for all our social and economic ills. Northern Ireland’s failure as a region will not lead to Irish unification; let us focus on making this place work, and as  Joel Keys said at an SDLP event: the people of Northern Ireland are my people, and I want the best for my people. A glimmer of hope for the future.

The analysis is that an underperforming Sinn Féin will lead to a resurgent SDLP. Tom, were you at the recent MAC event? You cannot be serious. Again, in a past blog, I referred to the SDLP as the Sad, Dozy, and Lacklustre Party, and that view has not changed. They are policy and vision light, sell electoral failure as a virtue and chase Sinn Féin coattails on the issue of Irish unification. They send Colm Eastwood, a failed party leader, to rant about Irish Unity, a leader who on his watch saw the SDLP’s share of the vote fall from 15% in 2015 to a low of 7% in recent polls. This is an SDLP that brings shame to the term social democrat. They cannot utter the term “working class” or “redistribution” and do not support water rates to repair our crumbling water infrastructure. They will also not support an increase in the rates cap but want more fiscal powers. Their appeal is to the grey, anti a woman’s right-to-choose, conservative, Irish News-reading, and mass-going part of the community. Matthew O’Toole reminds me of Kamala Harris in that he embraces the proverbial word salad, as the recent event has reaffirmed. Claire is a lovely woman, and that is hard to disagree with. She used Irish at Prime Minister’s Question Time, great. Her political rhetoric is good, but her understanding of the rapidly changing world around us and the public policy needed to tackle it is somewhat lacking. I am on the left of politics; however, when the SDLP become a real left-of-centre party, they will have my vote, and that seems a long time away.

In respect of the Alliance, it is clear that Naomi is past her sell-by date as a leader and it is time for a change. Alliance’s rise in the polls has been a consequence of the middle classes being just tired of the two main parties’ rhetoric. Also, sitting on the political picket fence and being inoffensive up till now has played well with the electorate. Now, getting off the political picket fence should be an important part of any new political strategy and policy agenda. What we need is a party on the pragmatic and progressive left.

The system is broken; “you can’t shine shit”, but you can do as our political representatives try to do, is roll it in glitter. As far as capitalise is concerned, our so-called centre ground understands it as an uppercase character on the keyboard.

Finally, a quote: ” Elections are the greatest symbol of participation and political reform”. This was said, funny enough, by a former Iranian President and zealot, Mohammed Khatami.

As Mercutio said, with a minor change, “A Plague on all your houses”

Suneil Sharma

11^th August 2026

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