Political reality must finally bring Northern Ireland’s main parties together

More than 30,000 people who were too young to vote in the last election have registered for this week’s count.

In a BBC program featuring the views of first-time voters, unsurprisingly the two main issues that emerged were health and education. Both are chronically underfunded and both are difficult nettles to grab.

The campaign has been lackluster and attempts by the mainstream parties to talk about issues such as the cost of living, health care and education have largely been drowned out by a fairly minor battle between Sinn Féin and the DUP over who becomes the front runner.

While most voters seem to want to talk about bread-and-butter issues, this election was always about whether the DUP or Sinn Féin would emerge as the strongest party.

By refusing to say whether the DUP would work with a Sinn Féin First Minister, Jeffrey Donaldson played right into their hands. This has allowed Michelle O’Neill to tap into the latent feeling of many nationalists that the DUP is only truly a supporter of democracy when it is in the helm.

This is likely to drive moderate nationalists ever further towards Sinn Féin and get the DUP a bloody nose.

In reality the position of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister is a common and equal one. But symbols matter – especially in Northern Ireland – and Sinn Féin is delighted at the prospect of a DUP humiliation.

Both main parties attempted to vote on Northern Ireland’s constitutional position. Sinn Féin say they want First Minister’s position to push border poll on Irish unification.

On the other hand, the DUP insists they must win the election in order to have more leverage with the UK government over the protocol they so despise.

But the reality is that all parties don’t need to look outward, but work together on the issues that affect people in everyday life, like rising fuel costs and job insecurity.

“You can’t eat a flag,” the late great John Hume once said when he appealed to his fellow politicians to work together for the good of all.

Now, 24 years after the Good Friday Agreement, those words are as relevant as ever in the face of the cost of living crisis.

Passionate speeches about the Northern Ireland Protocol or a united Ireland will not detract from the reality that the local people need good government – and they need it now.

The DUP and Sinn Féin also have to face up to reality. The British government has little or no interest in the protocol. It’s just not an issue in London. At the same time, few voters in the republic have an appetite for a border poll.

Nobody seriously believes that such a survey would favor a united Ireland on both sides of the border in the short to medium term.

When the dust settles, Dublin and London need to put pressure on the parties to honor voters, agree quickly on a program and get down to the basics of governance, rather than contributing to further polarization.

This will lead to some swallowing difficulties and difficult steps, but we’ve been here before and overcome more difficult obstacles.

The prospect of direct rule by disinterested Tories is a thought that should strike fear into the whole country – no matter where we stand in relation to Northern Ireland’s long-term future.