“Sinn Fein needs these powers to be devolved..”
Sinn Féin’s u-turn over their previously demanded “safeguards” in any devolved justice ministry, however Martin McGuinness cared to portray it, might have bought them the appearance of movement.. however briefly.. But Gerry Adams is still talking about failure of the “indigenous” deal threatening to take the ball away. And he’s still pointing, again, to ‘promises’ at St Andrews. Not that he can point directly at such a promise on policing and justice.. as the DUP’s Peter Robinson has re-stated. The problem for the Sinn Féin leadership is that those promises were made elsewhere by them, and to a particular audience – as Maurice Hayes identified in March.
Sinn Fein needs these powers to be devolved, not only because they represent the last piece of the Patten jigsaw, but because it was a main element in the bill of sale on which they persuaded republicans to buy into support for policing.For Patten, it was a defining function of government, and a manifest of the commitment of parties to defend the institutions and the common good, that they should exercise these powers. For Sinn Fein and republicans, it is symbolically important that these powers should be exercised by local politicians responsible to the Northern Ireland Assembly. Without that, the Sinn Fein leadership would not have got agreement, and failure to deliver will seriously damage their credibility.
O% new content. It’s fucking, spam Pete.
And also: Political party wants to deliver key promise or else it loses credibility? This is a key fucking insight? Really?
In any case, there are reasons why it got to be a key demand in the first place, some of them ideological, some of them practical. SF do not want it devolved for the sake of it: they want it devolve because it is a key pillar of government, and important for a Republican perspective that the power is exercised in Irish hands. It also helps cement the settlement, important at a junction where fragmentation is occurring within Republicanism.
Adams is 100% right in threatening to take the ball away, and 100% should if necessary.
The natural instinct of any political party is to weaken its opposition.
The DUP don’t owe any favours to SF. As a matter of fact they should frustrate their demands for devolution as long as possible because they owe it to their supporters that these powers will only come to Stormont when the Unionist community have confidence they will be properly used.That confidence does not exist.
If this causes problems for Adams it is tough luck.The DUP can call his bluff because he has nowhere else to go.
Remember the mantra ” GFA is the only show in town”— How he must regret saying this.
He can be pushed much further to give concessions such as ILA, Maze and restoration of academic selection if desired by parents.
Where does that leave us? Back to original Unionist demands.
The DUP don’t owe any favours to SF. As a matter of fact they should frustrate their demands for devolution as long as possible because they owe it to their supporters that these powers will only come to Stormont when the Unionist community have confidence they will be properly used.That confidence does not exist.
Pure, steaming horseshit.
“Community confidence”? Has anyone ever set out an objective standard for this? Attempted to give any criteria? IRC, the last survey had over 50% of DUP supporters supporting the devolution of justice powers in May. I could add that there is a significant section of the Nationalist community that don’t have confidence unless the powers are devolved. No, there is no criteria other than what the DUP can get out of SF.
Which is fine, but it does mean that
1. The DUP are soft on crime. There is basically what amounts to an epidemic in West Belfast. Normally, public outcry would cause minsters to act a la knife crime in England but whoops, no, we have no minster to act. Every murder, every rape, every police fuck up, every miscarriage of justice — the DUP deserve a wee bit of the responsibility for them by blocking a change that means we might be able to make changes that changes those outcomes.
2. The DUP have zero interest in actually create a stable NI, but are rather only interested in pure sectional advantage. Having a rump of society completely divorced from its institutions is utterly bad from us all. Have we learned nothing.
No, the DUP owe SF squat. They owe their constituents better.
kensai
I am a little confused. Since when did the GFA become a settlement? Sf describe it as part of a process leading to something else and when did fragmentation of support take place. Here again we are told the leadership enjoy the confidence of all.
kensei, you’re drinking that strange SF koolaid which says that crime will mysteriously stop in West Belfast as soon as the new (non Sinn Fein) justice minister takes over. I’d be very careful about buying into that idea.
If Adams wants to take the ball away, then fine. All party talks again, and given that Sinn Fein have burned all their bridges with the SDLP, they’ll be isolated and out of government for a long time.
CS
kensei, you’re drinking that strange SF koolaid which says that crime will mysteriously stop in West Belfast as soon as the new (non Sinn Fein) justice minister takes over. I’d be very careful about buying into that idea.
No, I’m not, and don’t put words in my mouth. I don’t have particular faith in our local politicians to do anything serious or inventive enough to really tackle crime.
But they will at least try something, and you can always be surprised. What is absolutely, 100% certain is they will not do anything while the powers are not in their hands. In the future the blame could be fairly leveled at the Justice Minster and the Executive in general. At the moment it’s entirely fair to leave at the door of the DUP for being soft on crime.
UF
I am a little confused. Since when did the GFA become a settlement? Sf describe it as part of a process leading to something else and when did fragmentation of support take place. Here again we are told the leadership enjoy the confidence of all.
It’s, shall we say, the current settlement. If the DUP are serious about it being a permanent settlement, then they need to draw outsiders in. Sectional advantage won’t cut it. It won’t cut it for SF either, if they want to move us elsewhere.
As for fragmentation, follow the news. SF do still enjoy a remarkable amount of support. But councilor here, adviser there, creeping dissident support. A lot of it with the breaking point being policing. The principle of P&J;has been conceded by everyone. It’s in everyone’s interest then to get it here and make it work. If it helps stem the drift to dissidents and has people more comfortable for policing structures, that’sa win for everyone, not just SF.
Are Sinn Féin committed to powersharing?
Are Sinn Féin committed to powersharing?
I guess it depends. Are the DUP going to share power?
Looks like a stale mate.
Who is going to blink first?
“I guess it depends. Are the DUP going to share power?”
Sinn Féin has the same power as the DUP.
slug
In theory SF have the same power but in reality DUP are in a more dominate position.
For example if SF want some significant changes they require approval from DUP and vice verse.
On the other hand DUP can keep the status quo without any support from SF.
If Sinn Fein could walk on water rather than marvel at that the DUP, Peter and Iris Robinson, would ridicule them for not swimming.
The problem is the DUP continues to focus on personalities rather than a new middle-class electorate who voted for SF to ensure historic deals were finished off, IRA wound up, and policing backed and back in the hands of people, all people.
It is a mandatory coalition, parties must show leadership and innovate politically to deliver inside these constraints to grow wider NI confidence in devolution. Until there is credible belief at elector level that the Assembly will not bifurcate into its negative designation blocs to block rather than overcome contentious issues, then the public will see to it that mandatory coalition remains.
Ergo, no chance nor opportunity to renegotiate the shape and operation of NI assembly governance.
It’s time to inspire, grow support, change attitudes and lead people into acceptance of power sharing not banking up shares of power to the advantage of a particular ethnic group.
Talking to me again then, ken?
You might want to check your percentages too.. since you don’t actually click on my links. And as long as Gerry continues to claim that promises existed, I’ll continue to point out the reality of the current situation.
But your argument/futuring is not un-reasonable as far as it goes.
Not withstanding Comrade Stalin’s reasonable caveat and your own admission that you “don’t have particular faith in our local politicians to do anything serious or inventive enough to really tackle crime.”
But if they do have any ideas they can still lobby the current minister in charge of criminal justice matters – who happens to be introducing new measures as we speak.
Now that Restorative Justice, SF’s big idea, hasn’t worked.
As for
Policing, eh? And not the repeated claims to promises that never existed.
That’s where the credibility gap exists.
Pete in this case your micromanagement is tantamount to bad political mismanagement!
There’s no IRA now, no London face to save nor any British prestige either. Either local politicians build up confidence in Northern Ireland in terms of operability and stability; or, the British exchequer runs it down, and more back deal talks with SF et al.
News management will see to it that consensus over the next decade or two delivers in the right direction. Unionist are fecking idiots.
At a time when local councils are working together delivering strategies to work up on local image and branding through amplifying a common direction together; unionists fail to see the same need to get over a retarded past and work on building up regional image themselves.
It’s a nonsense. The proof of this is the fact that roughly speaking the DUP cant bear to see a SF minister over policing with a DUP one, so instead they are happy with a ministry to go to someone else inside a devolutionary system. It is personnel and not politics at stake here and that sums up the DUP. Person before politics, which roughly speaking is an illness throughout much of NI politics. People well into themselves rather than the people who put them there to lead up change and to get the best deal on their behalf.
DC
“It’s time to inspire, grow support, change attitudes and lead people into acceptance of power sharing not banking up shares of power to the advantage of a particular ethnic group.”
As a start, how about certain party’s stop being economical with the acualité?
To their own supporters.
Pete – when SF were conducting all those town hall meetings re policing quoting the May 08 deadline do you think that:
a) They were making it up or:
b) They believed that the DUP were committed to the timetable.
Personally I suspect b)
To be honest I reckon that SF would have been happy with a later deadline – as lond as the path was clear.
“Personally I suspect b)”
Dewi
That would require you to ignore everything that both the DUP actually said and the UK government eventually confirmed.
But you believe Gerry et al if you want to..
After all, despite everything that’s happened, Gerry’s sticking to his guns on this one [pun intended].
Pete,
thanks for that reminder to everyone about the importance of the transfer of Police and Justice to the PEACE PROCESS. We have The Irish Government, The British Government, The US administration, SF, SDLP in favour of the transfer and the DUP against.
If Grizzly has to collapse the assembly because on non-movement by the fundamentalist-anti-gay-anti-evolution party then I think its pretty clear who is going to take-one-up-the-jacksey for the failure at Stormont – if you’ll pardon the imagery.
Kensei,
dont let the feckers grind you down.
How about calling that inspirational, what SF did. Otherwise Dr No, would never have jumped what with his decades of negativity in suits all grouped around him. And we would be blogging about Joint Authority being a bunch of..? Yea?
People have been exposed to decades worth of political negativity culminating in legitimised sectarianism, in the year 2008 it’s about time certain factions either moved on emotionally and politically, or do an Iris Robinson. That is if morally it is too much for them then they should just give up office and lobby for change outside of it rather than do nothing within, whenever other people especially at local government level and beyond clearly are doing something together.
why would s.f give any support to a police system that connor murphy described in an phoblact on thursday past as ‘heavy handed and politically inspired’? this so long after they had told their troops that they would ‘put manners’ on the p.s.n.i. does anyone in s.f. actually have any real idea of where they are supposed to be going? i hae me doots!
I chanced on “Inside Politics” today and I heard Gerry say something rather strange: “Peter Robinson is the senior partner”. He was referring to the OFMDFM, a ministry of supposed equals.
kensei
You are starting to believe your party’s own propaganda. SF have been talking up crime in West Belfast to bolster the case for devolution to ‘make things better’ and to justify their own focus on community restorative justice to solve the serious problems in the area. But as the PSNI Annual Report shows
“There were 108,468 crimes recorded by the PSNI in 2007/08 compared with 121,144 in 2006/07, a decrease of 12,676 (-10.5%). Decreases in crime were also achieved across all 8 of the PSNI’s Policing Districts.”
So crime is down overall and down in all policing areas. Crime per capita in NI is also well below that in the rest of the UK.
Undoubtedly there are some serious problems in West Belfast but nowhere near as bad as some would allege.
I think there are two factors in this.
First, some of this may of course be displacment therapy. Get people to think about the bogeyman so they don’t dwell too long on other less palatable things, like what the hell was 35 years of murder for?
Second, and even worse, is the issue of perspective. For 30+ years the scum and hoods respected SF (i.e. feared PIRA). That fear is still there but is weakening. If you have been used to being the voice of the community who defines what people think then its a real blow when they all start talking with different voices, including the hoods who may even talk back.
There is very little support within the Unionist community for the devolution of P&J;as things stand at present. Personally I think it is much better to let sinn fein continue to fragment over the issue. Just as it was the republican plan to fragment Unionism now we should play the long game and wait until they are torn apart internally over this issue and any others possible.
Intelligence Insider
a cunning plan….except you may well experience greater ROI influence when Grizzly pulls the plug because the fundamentalist-anti-gay-anti-evolution-democratic-unionist-party will rightly take the blame for the costly decision “to let sinn fein continue to fragment over the issue” as you like to put it.
If the peace process has taught Unionists anything then it should be that when the British are forced to make a choice that normally favours Nationalism.
II
The signs of fragmentation are already there.
In due course some SF voters will see the benefit of remaining in the UK and become unionist.
This will evolve over the next 30/40 years and no one will take seriously talk of U.I.
The union can only get stronger when we think of the great number of people moving from England and Scotland to live here.
“we think of the great number of people moving from England and Scotland to live here.”
That’s interesting ulsterfan – I’ve been trying to find out about population movements from the rest of the UK. Are your thoughts anecdotal or do you have evidence?
Sammy
If Adams pulls the plug he will not have any friends in London Dublin or Washington.
He will be on his own and can kiss goodbye to any electoral advance in the South.He will be on his own ignored by everyone else.
If ROI do become involved Unionists will clearly dictate their terms which will be seen as reasonable.
Any talk of a new leader for SF?
Dewi
When I turn up the figures I will let you know but I am certain more are moving into the North than leaving and this takes into account the large number of Protestant children who move away to University and generally speaking don’t return.
From an anecdotal point of view you only have to listen to accents in places like Coleraine,, Ballymena, Belfast and Bangor.
Estate agents will confirm the interest expressed by those living on the mainland up until the recent housing crisis
Ulsterfan,
re. “great number of people moving from England and Scotland to live here”
Indeed.
They must be attracted by the images they see on TV – with those very colourful anti-catholic marches that close Belfast down for the day and the regular fundamentalist utterances attacking gays and scientists.
Perhaps an advertising campaign, along the following lines, could even increase the ‘great number’ even further…
“Move back in time from the uncertainties of the liberal attitudes of 21st Century Britain to the more fundamentalist Non Iron where you can enjoy the cultural attitudes and religiosity of the 17th century.”
“… Unionism … should play the long game and wait until they are torn apart internally over this issue and any others possible.”
And then what, Intelligence Insider ? What does your “inside intelligence” advise you as to the likely outcome of such a scenario? Do you imagine that the last 80 odd years have been some sort of strange football league and that if you can only prevent your opponents from scoring this time then you will have achieved some drunken status close to heaven on earth?
The world has been told and reassured again and again that agreement has been reached by the two communities to move forward together to build better government and that this would be demonstrated by the co-operation between the parties that represented those communities.
The UUP showed that unionism could not hold to an agreement because of pressure from its backwoodsmen and now the backwoodsmen have made much the same agreement they appear simply to have no intention of adhering to it.Is this how you percieve victory for unionism – as a combination of deceit and reckless intrangicense? Has unionism learnt nothing whatsoever from the hope and horror of the last 40 years? Must it all be repeated and hope sacrificed on the bloody nails of “Not an inch”?
If the peace process has taught Unionists anything then it should be that when the British are forced to make a choice that normally favours Nationalism.
Posted by It was Sammy McNally what done it on Aug 09, 2008 @ 11:27 PM
——————
that was until gordon needed the DUP votes, and reg cuddled up to the Tories
Rory, the all-party committee which suggested that the P&J;minister be chosen by 50:50:50 consent (the consent of the majority of each of the three designations) also suggested that it be the first appointed ministry and that it should count in the d’hondt allocation of other ministries.
The committee was chaired by the Jeffrey Donaldson of the DUP and this suggestion was supported at the time. The problem is that Alliance aren’t entitled to a ministry (they’d need another seat) which creates a question over whether they’re entitled to an executive place and SF are refusing to nominate/support the SDLP. If SF did support the SDLP so would the unionists and alliance.
SF are the only ones causing this problem. Perhaps they’re worried about a northern Michael McDowell.
The other alternative is the UUP but that would require a re-run of the whole d’hondt round as they’d need to give up an existing portfolio.
Anyway – why are you blaming the prods again?
Talking to me again then, ken?
More berating the lack of anything new, and kind of hoping someone else would come along to talk to.
You might want to check your percentages too.. since you don’t actually click on my links.
Tell me, how the hell am I supposed to identify which link has the info I want? In any case – is this not the last survey:
http://sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics/
I could add, since your spin in thatpieces was on the support decreasing, that fuck me political leadership does work Shame the DUP is moving it in the wrong direction.
And as long as Gerry continues to claim that promises existed, I’ll continue to point out the reality of the current situation.
If you are going to continue to post without adding anything new at all, I’m sure I could write you a script that will post it up to Slugger every two minutes.
Not withstanding Comrade Stalin’s reasonable caveat and your own admission that you “don’t have particular faith in our local politicians to do anything serious or inventive enough to really tackle crime.”
But if they do have any ideas they can still lobby the current minister in charge of criminal justice matters – who happens to be introducing new measures as we speak.
I sorry, Pete, I don’t view that running to our colonial masters to beg that they might, possibly, if they feel like it have a go at sorting out the problems for the natives. If that’s the road we’re going down, why not just hand back the Assembly? In any case, it’s the type of patronage politics that is unfitting for Irish Republicans, and SF have been engaged in too much of that already.
Now that Restorative Justice, SF’s big idea, hasn’t worked.
Not so sure it can be written off entirely yet. Did you not blog about some being approved recently? Long run it may have a role to play, and it mightn’t be exactly where SF wanted it to fit. But that’s hardly unique in politics.
Policing, eh? And not the repeated claims to promises that never existed.
That’s where the credibility gap exists.
SF promised wrongly, but is that what is causing people to leave. It is neither the first or last promise they will break. What you seem wholly ignorant of is that this isn’t simply “symbolic”, or wholly created so SF can have a win. It is causing them bother because substantive themes and ideology underpin it. People did not leave because SF broke a promise. They left because the broken promise meant SF was supporting institutions under conditions they found untenable. It wouldn’t have mattered if SF had not have made the promise in the first place. It’s the underlying situation that gives the difficulty.
Of course, for some not even devolved P&J;would have been enough. But for some it would, and essentially the DUP are playing cheap games for sectional advantage for a principle they’ve already conceded. Which fine, and how the game is played an’ all, but people need to be at least aware of that when the next wave of violent crimes is hitting and our politicians are powerless ot make any real changes to combat it.
cynic
You are starting to believe your party’s own propaganda.
I am not a member of any party. I am an independent Republican. Currently the SDLP is completely ineffectual, so we’re left with SF.
SF have been talking up crime in West Belfast
I’ll assume the reported murders and rapes did not happen.
“There were 108,468 crimes recorded by the PSNI in 2007/08 compared with 121,144 in 2006/07, a decrease of 12,676 (-10.5%). Decreases in crime were also achieved across all 8 of the PSNI’s Policing Districts.”
How much crime goes unreported within strongly Republican areas?
So crime is down overall and down in all policing areas. Crime per capita in NI is also well below that in the rest of the UK.
Is it 0? Is there no way our politicians might have ideas to improve thing for the better?
Pete
That would require you to ignore everything that both the DUP actually said and the UK government eventually confirmed.
Two questions, yes or no will do:
Has everything in The Process been stated publicly?
Has every statement from the DUP and the British Government been truthful?
CS
If Adams wants to take the ball away, then fine. All party talks again, and given that Sinn Fein have burned all their bridges with the SDLP, they’ll be isolated and out of government for a long time.
Completely missed this. It does not matter one bit what the SDLP do. SF draw strength from the Nationalist electorate here. If they back SF and the SDLP defies them, then they will be wiped out and SF will have to be dealt with in the long run. If they don’t, then it is SF who are toast. That is SF’s gamble if they want to make it.
Although I couldn’t travel to Dublin today for the Armagh match (due to work commitments), I drove past Lurgan PSNI barracks at lunch-time on my break for noseyness sake to see the eirigi protest.
Although I only expected to see about 10 or so there, I was surprised at the turn-out. 40+ people and I was also surprised at many of the faces that were there because I thought some of them would have been sound SF supporters.
While I still believe in SF, I have to say it was a better turnout than the “political policing” pickets of 3/4 years ago.
I know I might get jeep from people in work or in the pub about where SF is at, or where they think they see SF going this weather, I didn’t think that Duffy and Mac Connithh could attract that type of support locally.
I still don’t think eirigi is a threat to SF, but it may be a wake-up call for us in SF to get back to basics.
Kensei
“How much crime goes unreported within strongly Republican areas?”
Quite a lot (as happens everywhere) but with the new dispensation we might have expected a rise in reporting in Republican areas. However recorded crime there is falling. This suggests that the underlying real drop in crime is even higher in those areas.
No i am not suggesting that ‘those murders and rapes didn’t happen’ and thats a specious argument. This is a hard inner city area. No matter where it was and no matter what the local politic, there would be murders and rapes in any city. Those problems must be policed confronted and minimized.
My point was that they were being talked up in West Belfast to help bolster the case for devolution while the figures show that crime is falling and the Police are getting on with their jobs, however imperfectly.
Again we have SF on a variation of the MOPE strategy. Things are awful. You arent getting what you need. Trust us to solve it. We will put manners on the police.
A real alternative would be to tell people the truth – that things are much better and that the changes in policing are delivering in co-operation with the community. But then there might not be so many votes or photo-ops in that.
“So crime is down overall and down in all policing areas.”
Cynic, the statistics are for reported crime. Perhaps there has been a drop in reporting rather than a drop in crime.
I was shocked quite recently to hear a Presbyterian church elder say that he decided to report ‘anti-social’ activities to someone associated with paramilitarism rather than waste time reporting them to the PSNI. I wasn’t impressed to see PSNI officers participating in community projects that were being directed by folks with alleged paramilitary affiliations.
Rory,
“What does your “inside intelligence” advise you as to the likely outcome of such a scenario?”
I would imagine that long term, the continued fragmentation and splintering will lead to a decline in sinn feins vote removing the entitlement to the DFM post in possibly 2 elections time. Any return to terrorism and criminality by these splinter groups would be easily managed and in a post 9/11 world we really could take the gloves off in dealing with them. Already the likes of cira/rira are full of covert human intelligence sources, almost to the same extent that pira/psf were/are.
kensei,
One reason I’m suspicious about the link being made between crime in West Belfast (and other places) is because I haven’t seen a proposal from Sinn Fein about how the problems might be addressed. The Police Board is responsible for policing policy and practice at the moment, and I’ve seen no evidence that SF have put any proposals forward there to improve the situation. It may well be argued that the Police Board is ineffective; so where’s the evidence ? There’s no indication that SF have exhausted all of the avenues to try to sort things out in West Belfast.
Like I said, the idea that this will magically change once we are in charge of the policing ministry, particularly in the absence of any specific plan, seems highly fanciful. The executive parties, broadly speaking, have shown no inclination to challenge the worldview of things put forward by the civil servants, and I’m sure we will agree that the civil servants who have been in charge of policing and so on for the past 30-odd years are going to be, shall we say, somewhat set in their ways.
Despite how it may seem, I don’t actually disagree with you on the core issue, I think policing needs to be devolved quickly and I think we need to get a local minister in charge to make a few radical changes. However, that is my attitude about the whole executive, and let’s face it, the executive has been precisely the opposite of radical on the limited areas it has managed to agree on. Overall, I do not think this matter is worth bringing the house down over, and the only reason why Sinn Fein do is because they made some promises they couldn’t keep. By following this headline-grabbing pact with the DUP path, rather than having an all-inclusive political process, you have given the DUP the rope which they are now strangling you with.
BTW, the reason why I think SF are short on policing proposals is because they know that the only way to sort things out in West Belfast and elsewhere will be for the police and courts to toughen their line. You’re going to have Sinn Fein politicians and former republican prisoners looking on while the police baton-charge hoods, like the ones up in Dunclug, off the streets. I think swallowing the StA is going to give you guys some serious indigestion.
kensei:
Completely missed this. It does not matter one bit what the SDLP do. SF draw strength from the Nationalist electorate here. If they back SF and the SDLP defies them, then they will be wiped out and SF will have to be dealt with in the long run. If they don’t, then it is SF who are toast. That is SF’s gamble if they want to make it.
A lot of people, including myself, have underestimated the resilence of the SDLP vote despite their own silliness. Personally, I do not think that the nationalist electorate right now have time for politicians who walk out.
Despite Sammy etc.’s weird assertions, a walkout will leave SF isolated and without a negotiating hand. I would predict that all-party talks will resume and the resulting governmental structures will see a substantially diminished role for SF. The aftermath of the IRA’s disarmament will be Gerry Adams hand-delivering letters of protest to the doorman at Stormont. That’ll make republicans really happy.
Intelligence Insider
“[i]There is very little support within the Unionist community for the devolution of P&J;as things stand at present. Personally I think it is much better to let sinn fein continue to fragment over the issue. Just as it was the republican plan to fragment Unionism now we should play the long game and wait until they are torn apart internally over this issue and any others possible. “[/i]
Too right. The shinners held their guns as ransom against the decent people of N.Ireland for far too long. Let them rott.
I find this “let them rot” talk sickening, and utterly dishonourable given that SF have met the requirements made of them concerning disarming.
Personally, I have no specific reason not to want SF in power, other than the fact that they are incompetent and have crap policies. I don’t consider them any more or less fit for government than the UUP or DUP, both of whom continue to maintain tenuous relationships with loyalist paramilitarism. At present, though, their mandate and the present rules give them the right to be in government.
ulsterfan,
‘The natural instinct of any political party is to weaken its opposition.’
That it is and in any normal democracy it could even make sense especially if it led to electoral gains at an upcoming election. Northern Ireland is NOT a normal democracy and neither can it ever become one in it’s present 6 county format .
It would seem that you have either forgotten or are oblivious of the political history of the past 40 years in NI
You have heard of Sunningdale ?
I guess you miss the good old days of Unionist majority rule or you may even hope for the possibility of the SDLP replacing SF in some new coalition ?
Dream on .
Adams is right on this one. NI needs to see Justice devolved a.s.a p . Failing that SF need to collapse the Assembly , and I would’nt worry about taking the blame . Unionists pulled that particular stunt on at least two occassions if I recall. Given ‘parity’ of esteem why should there not be a parity of ‘collapse ‘ surely it’s SF’s time anyway ?
Any future ‘settlement ‘ will only result in a further weakening of the ‘unionist’ political position so Northern Nationalists and Republicans should’nt worry unduly . After all when Northern Nationalists and Republicans look at the political record over the past generation they can point to most ‘progress’ for their position being achieved under Direct Rule than under any Unionist Government .
The Assembly is a House of Cards. I don’t mean that in the comic sense even if Mrs Robinson and Mr Storey have mistakenly chosen politics instead of ‘comedienne /comedian’ for their careers . It’s also a massive waste of time and taxpayer’s money . The sooner NI nationalists and Republicans bring it down the better .
Roll on ‘repartition’ – it’s yer only man – and the sooner the better !
Well done Greenflag, you left repartition to the last sentence this time!
Unionism should definitely not let P&J;be devolved as things stand. Let’s adopt the wait and see approach and watch sinn fein flounder and fall apart. There’s nothing I would rather see, apart from maybe them getting guns involved and shooting each other like the inla frequently did/do.
I find this “let them rot” talk sickening, and utterly dishonourable given that SF have met the requirements made of them concerning disarming.
—————————–
big surprise there from ALliance, we`re talking about terrorists who murdered men women and children. Tell me what is honorable about them NOT killing us. Totally sickening comment
Ulsterfan,
I wouldn’t get too excited about the accents. We have lots of people in the Republic with English accents but their parents or grandparents were Irish. The same might well be true in Northern Ireland
Greenflag,
I love your repartition idea.
observer, given that you’re a DUP sympathizer, you’re in no position to make judgements on people using violence.
Greeflag, repartition is a load of wank. If we’re going to dick with the border, we might as well get rid of it. I don’t anticipate that in the short or medium term, however. The problem is that the political parties seem to want to make us believe that we can “solve” things without addressing the core problem. The fact that Iris Robinson was able to make the remarks that she did and get away with it is symptomatic of the problem.
intelligence outsider .
‘Let’s adopt the wait and see approach and watch sinn fein flounder and fall apart.’
For the cerebrally challenged of a unionist disposition ‘
A short history of Unionist political idiocy .
1920 -1968
Let’s grab what we can -and give the Fenians feck all .
Result .
Oh s**t that did’nt work then did it ? Wonder why?
1969 -1972
We have to do something – there’s blood in the streets and the TV cameras and investigative reporters are making Northern Ireland’s Unionsts look like stone age throwbacks. Maybe Paisley has the answer or would that be Craig or Chi Chi .
Result
More S**t . No end of it
1972 -1974
Let’s do power sharing with the nice Catholics like the SDLP because they’re tame and any way we don’t want those Republican gunmen getting their hands on power .
Result -
Oh s**t got it wrong again
This is getting to be a habit .
1974 to 1995
Lets pretend it is’nt happening and we are as British as Finchley and fish and if Mr Molyneaux can’t win us integration in the UK a la Finchley then perhaps Enoch Powell will become Prime Minister and he will save us from the Fenians .
Result
Oh S**t got it wrong again
1995 to 1998
Mr Trimble’s fish and chips policy is definitely the answer and all of these talks about talks will sort out the problem surely
Result
Oh S**T got it wrong again .
1998 to 2007
GFA has saved the day . Trimble the fish and chip traitor is now gone and we are to be saved by Mr Paisley who has always stood up to the Fenians by refusing to share power with them -until now that is .
Result
Oh s**t it looks like we got it wrong yet again or so the TUV say . Maybe they have a plan ?
2008 .
Quite frankly from this outside observers opinion enough is f*****g enough !
Say goodbye to Unionism in it’s every manifestation , shape and form for it is incapable of reforming itself from within or without . Time for Irish Nationalists and Republicans in Northern Ireland to start to prepare for real politics in a 30 county or so Republic following a fair ‘repartition’ of the abysmally dysfunctional 6 county State .