Opposition Unity and Disunity

Abstract

Many factors may converge to stimulate the formation and development of a political party and their weight in specific situations helps to determine the subsequent form that the party eventually takes. In Ulster a number of influences were at work in the late 1960s with the ability to shape new political alignments. Of all these potential influences, perhaps the most significant was negative: the constitutional arrangements. The adoption of the Westminster model of government in a divided society had resulted in a permanent government and opposition. The effect of this on Catholic politics was to militate against the establishment and consolidation of any tradition of parliamentary activity. In 1968 and 1969 those Catholics who primarily sought reform of the system rather than Irish unity therefore bypassed parliamentary politics by utilising street protest. Those that later stood for election on civil rights platforms did so as Independents, outside the already existing anti-partitionist political parties, and hence served as an impetus towards the reformation of the opposition groups.