Watching the Unionists
By Brian Campbell
I don't care what everyone says, there's still plenty of
entertainment left in Ian Paisley. He has lost none of his old
slapstick style, even if he has slowed down a bit. That said,
entertainment is probably the wrong word. It's more that he
inspires a gruesome fascination. Take his performance at press
conferences over these past weeks.
``Who's that boy shouting? I'm in charge of this press conference.
Now shut up,'' he told one journalist on Wednesday morning as he
(Paisley) was in the middle of congratulating a TnaG journalist
for being able to speak English.
``I know women find it hard to hold their tongue when a man is
talking,'' he said to a female journalist two weeks ago as she
tried to ask him a question. There was a sharp intake of breath
from the foreign hacks but Paisley and his men laughed it off in
a way that genuinely shocked them.
It is a regular performance. The TnaG journalist was told to ``get
out'' by Paisley's colleagues at the press conference. Paisley
browbeats journalists all the time by simply talking over the top
of them and many of them decide not to challenge him. Noel
Thompson, the award-winning BBC presenter of Hearts and Minds,
took him on recently and Paisley went into a rambling rant which
got louder and louder. Thompson perservered and even though he
got nowhere, he seemed satisfied that he had exposed Paisley's
refusal to engage. It was worth doing.
Paisley was also challenged by members of the PUP at Stormont
last Thursday night. ``Where are you going to take us, Ian?''
``You're a fucking mouth.'' ``Grand Old Duke of York.'' They shouted
and Paisley tried to respond, but eventually he called for them
to be thrown out. It was a moment which showed the deep
bitterness within loyalism and it is rooted in memories of
Paisley's implicit calls to arms over the years. The DUP have
always been prepared to fight to the last drop of someone else's
blood.
The referendum campaign will show how much power the old man has
left. He can still appeal to a sizeable constituency which
admires him precisely for his bluster and for his instinctive
inability to compromise. Both are traits of fundamentalism and it
is no surprise that his base is still firmly in rural areas where
his Free Presbyterian Church finds support.
Paisley will provide the colour in the `No' campaign within
unionism but the decisive influence will be elsewhere. Anyone who
has listened to recent interviews with UUP MP Willie Ross will
recognise an influential voice who has the potential to derail
Trimble. His sharp, precise answers and his no nonsense, not an
inch brand of unionism mark him out as someone who will carry
weight when the Ulster Unionist Council meets decisively on
Saturday to consider the Agreement.
It will be a defining moment for Unionism and already the debate
is fierce. On Trimble's side is a constituency which has pushed
him this far. Trimble was never a natural compromiser - how could
someone who made his recent reputation by walking over the rights
of nationalists on the Garvaghy Road - but within unionism there
have been voices over these past few years who have urged him to
make a deal.
Not that Trimble has changed his spots. Nor some of those who
support him. His deputy leader, John Taylor, writing this week
about the ``all-island bodies'', told us that ``a Unionist would be
present at every North-South meeting carrying a veto''.
So there is little difference between the various leaders of
unionism. Instead of watching them, look carefully at where the
real battle will be - among the grassroots unionist community.
Five weeks from now we'll know.
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