However blogging at Slugger O'Toole kind of reminds me of attitudes in my school days over 50 years ago. There is an informed view there that his refusal to bow to "woke" pressure won't do him or the UUP much, if any harm, and may even attract a different type of voter.

If anything the fierce competition between four unionist parties is maximising their vote and could also maximise their seats if there is efficient transferring between them.

One poster - in response to my thesis - even suggested that if the unionists refuse to nominate a deputy First minister, Sinn Fein should designate itself as Unionist, thereby claiming the first Minister role and leaving the Deputy First minister role open for the SDLP as the leading "nationalists" party.

Having both First and deputy first Minister's from the nationalist side would undermine the intent of the GFA and probably lead to its complete rejection by the unionist community, but there is a certain dark humour about it. "If you won't help govern NI, we'll do it ourselves" would be a reasonable nationalist retort.

This business of parties having to designate as unionist or nationalist to operate the Executive positions needs to be changed in any case, because it fails to take account of a growing non-aligned centre which has been excluded from the top two jobs. However renegotiating the GFA is probably the last thing either government wants - it would be more difficult than renegotiating the Protocol!

Of Course Sinn Fein would see that as just a logical next step to a united Ireland and justification of their aspiration and claim to represent all Irish people regardless of their faith and political orientation.

Unionists would just go mad. They might prefer to be in a united Ireland if there was a guarantee it wouldn't be governed by Sinn  Fein.

Index of Frank's Diaries