UK election exposes Northern Ireland’s deep divisions

Political leaders in Northern Ireland are casting next week’s British election as a referendum on whether voters want to be part of the UK or neighbouring Ireland. Britain’s vote to leave the EU has raised the stakes in the long and divisive dispute over Northern Ireland’s status. Concerns that Brexit will lead to a hard border with EU member Ireland have reinvigorated Irish nationalism and its dream of a united Ireland free of British influence. That in turn has unsettled unionists, who back British rule and fear their majority is slipping away in the region of 1.8 million people. For some people in both communities, the idea of a new, rigid frontier with Ireland stirs painful memories of the British Army watchtowers and checkpoints that peppered the border during decades of sectarian violence that killed thousands. Next Thursday’s election will see British voters elect 650 lawmakers to the parliament in London. The battle between Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives and Jeremy Corbyn’s opposition Labour might dominate proceedings nationally - but not in Northern Ireland. The Conservatives have no chance of winning a seat in the region and Labour does not contest elections there because of its historic alliance with nationalist party the SDLP. Instead the vast majority of Northern Irish voters will choose between nationalist and unionist parties, often represented by posters marked with Irish tricolours or British Union Jack flags. The struggle between nationalists and unionists over whether Northern Ireland should unite with Ireland or remain part of the United Kingdom plunged the region into 30 years of violence from the late 1960s which saw 3,600 people killed. A 1998 peace deal created a power-sharing government that has brought peace and relative prosperity, but has failed to heal the sectarian divide that still defines politics here. While no one expects a return to the violence of Northern Ireland’s “Troubles”, sectarian tensions intermittingly erupt into rioting.‘Nothing else matters’Sinn Fein won four of Northern Ireland’s 18 seats in parliament in 2015 with 24.5% of the vote and has a chance of winning a maximum of eight on a good day. The DUP won eight seats on 25.7% of the vote and also hoping to win up to 10. While Sinn Fein refuses to take seats in the British parliament, the DUP could have significant influence if May’s Conservatives have a bad day and need the votes of their traditional allies. As important as the seat count for Northern Ireland politics will be the relative strength of the total nationalist and unionist parties vote. Nationalists will be hoping to narrow the gap between the 280,000 who voted for their parties at the last Westminster election and the 360,000 who supported unionists. “It’s just a numbers game,” said  Alex Kane, a columnist for Northern Ireland’s largest unionist newspaper, the Belfast Telegraph. “Nothing else matters.”