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Brendan Hughes

Brendan Hughes: Sinn Fein move on Queen's jubilee tree counteracts DUP election slogans

With just 12 weeks to go until the Assembly election, Stormont parties are busy fine-tuning their campaign slogans.

The same words and phrases are already being trotted out in press releases and interviews as parties hammer home attack lines against their rivals.

Sinn Féin's new message frequently cropping up is, "The DUP only want democracy when it’s on their terms," or a variation thereof.

It strikes at the DUP's refusal to say whether it would share power with a Sinn Féin First Minister if the republican party emerges from the poll in May as the largest grouping.

For the DUP, aside from portraying a tougher stance against Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol to win back unionist support, the party is also accusing Sinn Féin of disrespecting unionists.

"The days of Sinn Féin expecting unionists to be seen but not heard are over," is the party's recurring line in its media output over the past week.

It is arguing that issues such as the Protocol show an imbalance in power-sharing arrangements which are meant to require the support of both unionists and nationalists.

But the party is also accusing Sinn Féin of intolerance and disrespect of unionist culture and identity, pointing to the party blocking small requests to mark Northern Ireland's centenary and the Queen's jubilee.

"We've had enough of Sinn Féin lecturing us about respect, yet their Finance Minister blocked a rose bush being planted to mark 100 years of Northern Ireland’s centenary," DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said in a speech last week.

In many ways it is a reversal of the "equality, respect and integrity" line Sinn Féin deployed during the 2017 snap Assembly election following the RHI scandal.

Just as Sinn Féin then sought to galvanise nationalist support at the polls, the DUP is hoping this argument of unfairness will motivate unionists to get out and vote on May 5.

However, this week has seen Sinn Féin move to counteract this theme becoming a significant election issue.

The Assembly Commission, which is made up of representatives of the main Stormont parties and has responsibility for Parliament Buildings, agreed to plant a tree in its grounds to mark the Queen's jubilee.

And Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald passed on her congratulations to the Queen on a "lifetime of service".

Welcoming the tree-planting decision, Ms McDonald said: "For those who will celebrate the jubilee, I wish them well and a good jubilee and for those of us that don’t I believe we are now big enough, bold enough, generous enough to acknowledge the identity of others."

The ease with which Ms McDonald handled this issue may suggest some disconnect between Sinn Féin north and south.

For months Sinn Féin Finance Minister Conor Murphy has faced criticism over not planting the tree within the wider Stormont estate, nor a rose bush to mark Northern Ireland's centenary.

The party also vetoed unionist proposals for a Northern Ireland-shaped stone at Stormont to mark the centenary.

Ms McDonald's relaxed response to the jubilee tree certainly appears at odds with Sinn Féin’s reaction to the stone proposal, which it said "reflects only one political perspective".

Mr Murphy had insisted his department's policy dictated that only "international events" could be commemorated with physical structures or planting.

However, in an earlier sign of change, he ordered a review of the policy.

The DUP will question whether Ms McDonald's words reflect her party's actions, but Sinn Féin appears in a hurry to dispel unionist slogans of criticism ahead of polling day.

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