“I work twelve hours a day to support my family; my wife can’t work because we have a disabled child. I always give my vote to the DUP, but I am so disappointed that our leader, because she has a bit of money around her, would just up sticks and leave if there were to be a United Ireland. I feel betrayed.” — A Belfast taxi man.

These sentiments, the result of a taxi journey a friend took in the city the other day, were a reaction to comments by the DUP leader Arlene Foster, that in the event of a United Ireland – a prospect seemingly more likely in our current political climate – she stated, “I would have to move”. Her response came when home-grown comedian Patrick Kielty, whose father was murdered during the Troubles by loyalist paramilitaries, interviewed her for his documentary ‘My Dad, the Peace Deal and Me’. The unsettling words of the DUP leader are what seems to have resonated with viewers the most.

Since becoming party leader in late 2015, Mrs Foster’s intransigence has been well documented. Her lack of grace and missed opportunity to be the leader that changed the tone of politics in this land was forensically summed up in an Irish Times article by Eamonn Mallie last year. 

From ‘rogues and renegades’ to ‘crocodile’ comments against her opponents, along with her recent unwillingness to accept any responsibility for the miscalculated RHI scandal have come to be the attributes displayed by the leader of the largest Unionist party.  Whether her unfortunate choice of words in her evidence to the inquiry was  deliberate or not, her account of the failure of her memory spoke volumes.

But it was her comments to Mr Kielty that appear to have unearthed a new discontent from her own supporters, who just like her, held the injured in their arms, but more than that, felt the weight of their loved ones as they carried them upon their shoulder too many times.

Despite being defended by colleagues and supporters on social media as simply giving a hypothetical answer to a hypothetical question, every word, every statement, every cold look pulls back the veil of a larger story: that the DUP are unashamedly of the belief that unionist rule is sovereign. This is why Mrs Foster can barely contain her anger when faced with any eventuality other than the status quo. The lack of party comment reinforces this point, and indicates why Sinn Féin, right now, are winning the PR war.

The idea of democracy – one man, one vote – is the only political capital of working class loyalism and unionism. So when you express that capital by helping your leader retain their position as the largest party, returning them to Westminster with ten MPs, and that leader says in the event of constitutional change she’s leaving on a jet plane, where do you go? What do you do?

Up until her comments, I have been totally opposed to the narrative that constitutional change in Northern Ireland would lead to a return to violence. But if the sentiment behind Mrs Foster’s statement is more than simply a throwaway comment, and I believe it is, it would make me think twice about the idea that violence wouldn’t return if unionist leaders chose to take flight. In a time of constitutional uncertainty, Foster – and all political leaders – are required to alleviate fears, not throw petrol on them.

One of the things that attracted me to mainstream nationalism was how it has long been at one with the working class – take the pictures of a battered John Hume in Derry during the Civil Rights Movement of 1968 as an example. What big house unionism appears to have never cottoned onto is the fact that telling your working class constituents to turn out for flag protests whilst you sit at home by the fire is an unsustainable set up.

That said, Mr Kielty’s programme, beautifully illustrated by his respect and decorum against the backdrop of his own tragedy, was humbling. Unlike Mrs Foster’s comments it provided a stark reminder that the road to reconciliation, albeit slow, is a steady one, and despite the efforts of some, is unstoppable.