Left and right are united against extended Sunday opening hours in Belfast.

A council plan to let large stores open all day – currently they can open only in the afternoon – is opposed by trade unions, who argue it would put pressure on workers and damage family and community life, and some business groups, who say it would harm small independent retailers.

The plan is also opposed by political parties across the left-right and orange-green spectrum. The SDLP, Greens, People Before Profit and all three unionist parties are against. Only Sinn Féin and Alliance are in favour, although that is enough for a majority, meaning the plan is likely to succeed. They argue extended opening will serve the tourist industry and improve footfall for all businesses, large and small.

The absence of Sabbatarianism in this debate is striking and possibly suspicious to anyone over the age of 40. Can Christian influence have abated so quickly? While religious observance is being mentioned, it is without the prominence and intensity of the last time the council considered the same issue, between 2016 and 2018, when Alliance was the only party to support it.

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The classic image of Sunday closure in Northern Ireland is of unionist councils chaining up playground swing in the 1960s – the non-swinging ‘60s. This is recalled because it was always considered ridiculous. Less absurd but equally fervent Sabbath observance remained a constant issue in local government well into the first decade of this century. It inevitably focused on leisure centres, one of the few major amenities councils were trusted to control during the long spell of direct rule from 1972.

I was stopped by a DUP councillor at one of the 1990s pickets, outside a Wellworths in Portadown. When I said his religious views should not dictate how everyone spent their Sundays, he replied: ‘You get your people and I’ll get mine and we’ll see who gets elected.'

I was stopped by a DUP councillor at one of the 1990s pickets, outside a Wellworths in Portadown. When I said his religious views should not dictate how everyone spent their Sundays, he replied: ‘You get your people and I’ll get mine and we’ll see who gets elected.'

Councils are also responsible for enforcing Sunday trading laws but this was a non-issue. With similar laws in England and Wales and similar customs in Scotland, it was inconceivable Northern Ireland would be a liberal trailblazer.

Shops forced the issue themselves with an act of civil disobedience. After Sunday trading was relaxed in England and Wales in 1994, large retailers in Northern Ireland chose to break the law and pay any fines.

The DUP was outraged. It picketed the first shops to open, which happened at Christmas, adding to the party’s Dickensian aura. But it was powerless to tighten the law in the absence of devolution.

Direct-rule ministers recognised reality in 1997 with new legislation, modelled on England, enabling small shops to open all day and stores over 280sq m to open between 1pm and 6pm.

In another sign of how much things have since changed, Belfast City Council tried to subvert this last year with its own act of civil disobedience.

It announced a six-week pilot scheme that would have permitted all-day opening by simply not enforcing the law. This was cancelled only after Sinn Féin withdrew its support, although its concern was that the scheme was too limited by being confined to the city centre.

To extend opening permanently, the council intends to exploit a loophole in the 1997 law that permits extended opening in “holiday resorts”. All the parties opposed to extension have criticised this legal wheeze but none has suggested closing the loophole at Stormont, where the legislation falls under a DUP minister. The argument is apparently not worth escalating to that level.

The softening of the DUP’s religiosity over the past decade or so has been widely sensed. Events in Belfast give some measure of the transformation.

An issue the party approached primarily in Christian terms as recently as 2018 it now frames as a secular argument, informed by Christian values.

The change is partly sincere and partly strategic, driven by electoral decline and the realisation of having to work with others – an incomplete realisation, as its obstinacy on other issues continues to demonstrate.

I was stopped by a DUP councillor at one of the 1990s pickets, outside a Wellworths in Portadown. When I said his religious views should not dictate how everyone spent their Sundays, he replied: “You get your people and I’ll get mine and we’ll see who gets elected.”

This was not said harshly – just matter-of-factly, believing “his people” would win.

That confidence has gone, along with the majoritarian arrogance it supported.

As the DUP has toned down its confessional politics, other parties feel freer to discuss Christian concerns. Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the Greens stuck to secular arguments during the Sunday opening debate a decade ago, when all three were opposed. This time, the SDLP and the Greens have both raised the importance of Sunday worship to individuals and communities, while Sinn Féin has acknowledged it. Parties are losing their fear of being associated with DUP religious fundamentalism when they speak up for Christian interests. That could be the most effective thing the DUP has done to keep those interests on the political agenda.

© The Irish Times