“The full story has not been written. Who will be the last person to hold the pen?”

Selfies with the POTUS and his decisions spreading panic in Dublin, or so the DUP hopes, Northern Ireland gifted special status as the USA celebrates 250 years of the Declaration of Independence and the Deputy First Minister, Emma-Little Pengelly MLA, by all accounts scoring a ‘home run’ during the St Patrick’s Day jamboree in Washington and with President Trump’s tariff tactics judiciously  ignored, the DUP did not hide a feeling of it being a good period for the party; an opportunity to build on the positivity of leader Gavin Robinson MP at the 2025 DUP Spring Conference.

This at least seems to be the view being promoted.

At the Spring Conference, the DUP leader referred to the ‘tired lie’ that Irish Unity is inevitable. Drawing on evidence echoing that tabled at a series of recent pro-Union civic evenings, presented by former DUP advisor Lee Reynolds and Professor Peter Shirlow, Director of the Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool, he referred to economic progress in Northern Ireland and lack of significant shift in the vote for parties advocating the separation of Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom.

The DUP leader’s observations, arguably locked hitherto into a party identity prone to a stubborn knowledge deficit and allergic to solutions that require creative and inclusive thinking, reflect a relief within unionist political worlds that the claims of organisations viewing the impact of demographic change as building momentum for constitutional change are open to evidence-based re-analysis and challenge.

Like much discourse on the issue, politics, identity and morality get tangled; filtered through emotions, feelings and pre-existing frames of reference with unionism happy to present Irish unity as a distant threat.

The recent ARINS survey, the methodology of which has been questioned, might act to suggest avoiding complacency but more pertinent is the context of a sobering pattern of diminishing and uncertain electoral support for mainstream unionist parties, suggesting leaders like Gavin Robinson MP need to exercise caution in drawing comfort from the evidence.

It may indicate strong support for maintaining links with the United Kingdom but a substantial and growing proportion comes from within unaligned referendum unionism and surely compels political unionism to understand civic unionism better?

The world within Northern Ireland, as well as globally, is altering and a mildly diluted and adjusted orthodoxy informed by, but only tentatively acknowledging, if at all, past failings will not stem political unionist drift.

The confidence which the DUP now seeks to display may ultimately prove deceptive and reductionist; unwise in its delusion, cultural polarisation and tendency to ‘cherry-pick’ validation.

In changing hearts and minds, a purpose which has been fundamental to the progress which Northern Ireland is making, facts are only part of the equation. The need to find shared values in order to connect unique identities and emotions to collective action is being driven by evidence-based and issue-centred civic unionism rather than political unionism; too often exhibiting fear and risk aversion at solutions which can work on a collaborative basis.

Some representatives will, on occasions, emerge from behind the party masks and walls of self-justification to acknowledge that this is a partial but important factor in unionist electoral decline yet remain timid in following their convictions. As a result, the DUP now mirrors the UUP with both parties struggling to accommodate factions; opposed ideologically and strategically.

As yet, with its feet held to the fire by the apocalyptic language of the TUV, as it once did to the UUP, the DUP is not proving any more successful than the latter.

No amount of toning down language or adopting positions on all Ireland island projects which were once alien to its politics can compensate for the fact that under its leadership, in spite of losing its taste for curried yoghurt, it continues to collude in fostering a political environment wherein religion, culture and politics are allowed to remain combustible and polarising; with culture and education two areas where this is evident.

Appealing rereatedly to the electorate on a platform of populist rhetoric, fuelled by emotion and cluster identity, embeds division and disintegrates the potential for the consensus envisioned in the Good Friday Agreement.

This seems integral to what political unionism has become; yet to marry identity to a pro-union position is to muddy the waters.

Both are evidentially not one and the same.

This is an approach which has a declining attraction for those who do not feel threatened by the Irish language, hybrid culture, equality, respect and parity of esteem.

Political unionism needs to pivot in this direction, switch from polemic and motivated reasoning to common sense.

It is not acceptable to impose values on others so that you can feel better about yourself. Instead, voices calling for unionist unity and getting the ‘PUL working class’ low turnout electorate registered and into the polling stations, continue to speak louder. The former is a non-runner.

There are fundamental differences on values and policies, as well the legacy of bitter electoral battles at local level. The latter may produce a limited increase in representation but is not in itself guaranteed to sustain a pro-union majority in the long-term.

Many within a widening civic unionist constituency, no longer willing to endorse the communal polarisation in which some tell them they have to live, have already moved into a space which is challenging and unsettling  for political unionism. Their aim is to mould a future for all that is worth having. Data confirms this significant shift with regard to what people of all generations deem important to their lives with health, economy and employment, equal rights and disability and protection of the environment prioritised above constitutional concerns.

It is beginning to appear that political unionism cannot respond.

Oblivious to the reality that many continue to see unionism as anti-Catholic and uber-Protestant, representatives continue to use language couched in denominational overtones and embrace pseudo-cultural rituals accordingly.  A more honest understanding would reveal that to identify in increasingly narrow tribes is to see those with a different view as deserving of lesser respect and oppositional; threatening to what you seek to ‘have and hold.’

Not alone within current political structures, unionist parties have failed to make significant inroads into health reform, infrastructure, disability rights and high rates of economic inactivity; with some traditionalist ideologues  preferring to prioritise, as a controlling framework, the pursuit of past grandeur.

The prosperity and investment in the Titanic Quarter of Belfast and other areas like mid-Ulster is bringing prosperity but regional levelling-up remains challenging. Segregation continues to waste scarce resources.

It is understandable that political unionism struggling to provide solutions should seek comfort in the data which shows, with some statistical differences, a majority for maintaining the link with the United Kingdom; as yet sparing a Secretary of State from having to call a border poll.

However, in the midst of the current global economic turbulence, if unionism fails to recognise the risks and understand what is happening within communities, to continue along the same pathway, all options will come on to the table.

Making Northern Ireland work for all needs to move beyond sloganizing. The legacy of Brexit is a slow-burner but continues to find expression in the view that the British economy would benefit from closer links with Europe

The Spring statement of Chancellor Rachel Reeves MP will focus minds on the human impact of welfare cuts in deprived and low economy areas which the political insensitivity of prioritising benefit fraud where it is negligible by a less than compassionate, Carla Lockhart MP on BBC’s ‘The View’ will not be welcomed.

That the Deputy First Minister is adopting a different line points to the need for the real DUP to stand up.

Climate writer and activist, Christina Figueras writes of climate change:

“The full story has not been written. Who will be the last person to hold the pen?”

A majority remains content to endorse the current constitutional narrative but can unionism hold the pen to deliver what for it will be a happy ending and what will it look like? It is a question it should be asking of itself. Step back and ask what is going wrong.

Others are.