As A Rule

Owen Patterson's coming out against the eye-wateringly anti-democratic enforced coalition that blights Northern Ireland is a clear indication, as clear as a certain act of absenteeism in recent days, of the thinking of his new allies in the UUP.

He and they should therefore propose that direct rule to be reintroduced, accompanied by an Act applying all Westminster legislation to Northern Ireland unless, within a suitably brief time, it is specifically disapplied by a suitably weighted majority, perhaps sixty per cent, of the Assembly. That would keep out the likes of abortion, which would never have been introduced anywhere in the United Kingdom if the Kingdom had not been partitioned in 1922, but which would exist throughout these Islands if Sinn Féin had its way.

That Act would also provide for the proper local government that exists over here, and also for a ban on any party's contesting Assembly Elections if it also contests those to Westminster, Strasbourg and the municipal authorities. Those can then be left to the normal parties that will re-emerge in and from the coming hung Parliament, while parties reflecting the old Unionist-Nationalist divide could continue to function, even of necessity, in and for Stormont only. There, and there alone, would that still be the point. As, indeed, it would be.

Why should opposition to enforced coalition be left to the TUV, which does not know its own community's history on questions such as the Irish language, a failing that it shares with Sinn Féin? The tolerance level towards Irish is like the tolerance level towards the Loyal Order marches, also simply a feature of Irish life in general and of Northern Irish life in particular, whether or not one happens to like it. In either case, such tolerance is an invaluable barometer. As, more negatively, is any degree of insistence in either case.

Anyway, last night's Question Time was as surely a set-up as when Nick Griffin was on. Indeed, even more so. Nick Griffin is one of his party's two MEPs. The TUV has no MEP, no MPs, no MLAs, and a handful of Councillors. Jim Allister was only brought on, before a noticeably student-heavy audience, so that he could be lynched.