Unionist Pacts: the recriminations begin
As the likelihood of an agreed unionist candidate for both Fermangah South Tyrone and South Belfast recedes so the blame game seems to be beginning. Jim Allister has noted that the TUV can claim to be innocent in this argument. The DUP and CUs, however, are both in the process of getting their retaliation in first. The DUP of course are far from innocent in the past of the charge of being vote splitters. However, this time they do seem to have a bit more legitimacy in their complaints: unless that is of course one takes Trimble’s non sectarian claims seriously.
The problem of course is that stating things like: “We have said all along that we will not be joining with any party of a sectarian nature” could be seen to sit a little ill with one who made his political reputation tripping along the Garvaghy Road hand in hand with Dr. Paisley: the then leader of the party he is now describing as sectarian.
There is also another problem in Trimble’s comments, he went on to say: “we will be fighting every seat in the UK, and the Province will be no exception.” Whilst that is sort of true it is only sort of true as Norman Tebbit has pointed out on the BBC’s Politics Show (reproduced here on Conservative Home): “Mr Bercow is not a Conservative candidate. He is an independent candidate. And it’s, in my view, not the business of the Conservative Party to support independent candidates. He did cast himself in my mould, indeed. But he has been reworked in recent years. But I don’t think he would really be able to describe himself as a Conservative any more, even if he were not the Speaker.”
Reg Empey’s response was a little less inflammatory: “DUP have nine out of 10 seats and one wonders how many more they want. It was they who gave South Belfast and Fermanagh-South Tyrone to the nationalists and they should return them to us, the new coalition.” Again, however, that form of words ignores the reality that seats are not in the specific gift of a political party and further that in both Fermanagh South Tyrone and South Belfast the sitting MP was retiring at the election where the seats fell to nationalists. In addition the DUP heavily out polled the UUP in South Belfast at the election when the seat was lost and it is far from clear which candidate the out going MP would have felt was his natural political heir.
In Fermanagh South Tyrone it is alleged that Norman Baxter was willing to run as a unity candidate but it was the CU’s insistence that he take the Tory whip which resulted in him withdrawing from the fray. Going back to Buckingham: it is abundantly clear that the MP the Tories are backing will not be taking their whip.
Somehow, however, honouring an age old tradition of not standing against the speaker and, hence, depriving the Buckingham constituents of the option of voting for a Conservative member of parliament, potential government minister etc. etc. is acceptable. However, having an agreed candidate to stop the election of an MP who refuses to take her seat and is an open supporter of the IRA’s campaign of murder, nowhere more brutal, sectarian or indiscriminate than in Fermanagh; is sectarian.
Driftwood,
Thanks for the clear response.
However, is it not the people of Northern Ireland as vested in the agreements that decide if the Union with Great Britain is maintained?
What then is the advantage of national politics in maintenance of the Union?
Did it help Carson when he was a cabinet member?
Did the increase in NI MP numbers negotiated by Molyneaux and Powell avert the Anglo-Irish Agreement?
What happens if Labour wins?
I do not want to shoot you down, but in my line of work clarity of thought is important and these questions immediately spring to mind.
Niccolo
What then is the advantage of national politics in maintenance of the Union?
In my humble opinion, what is the point of the Union if we cannot engage in National politics?
Did the increase in NI MP numbers negotiated by Molyneaux and Powell avert the Anglo-Irish Agreement?
No, and we have to accept that our Government sometimes makes mistakes, like the poll tax. This is likely to continue on a broad range of issues.
What happens if Labour wins?
Are you serious? Their own ex cabinet ministers (cab drivers???) and the UNITE union leaders are polishing off any hopes there. A national Rail strike should provide the stake.
Lets be friends with our friends. The Tories are providing us with funding and good will. Look at Lesley McCauley’s campaign in East Londonderry to see that there is clear blue water between the Unionist parties.
I agree with Driftwood here, the majority of the UCUNF candidates are anything but ‘traditional unionists’.
Northern Ireland is lurching forward (like a learner driver who still hasn’t grasped the concept of ‘clutch, gear, release’)and the UCUNF project is a step in the direction that will ultimately see the end of DUP and SF.
Labour are making more and more noises about running candidates in the next council elections, FF and FG are both dipping toes in the water for Council and Assembly runs – the days of ‘never never never’ are ‘over over over’.
I may not live to see it, but politics here will move away from sectarian headcounts and towards issue led campaigning – the UCUNF project is the first, although fumbling, step towards that.
Anyone who is bored and needs bit of a laugh then they should watch this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqChukf1qJY
It makes you want to squirm just watching it, I can’t understand why Chris Stalford needed to read of a transcript at the start.
I remember encountering him canvassing during the 2007 elections, I wasn’t surprised to hear that he recieved an awful vote. He was the epitamy of smugness to me.
Driftwood,
I see where you’re coming from, but I heard the same case made to me nearly 20 years ago.
We are in the age of devolution. As I pointed out earlier, the people of Northern Ireland will decide on the Union – there is no provision for a UK-wide poll. Integration did not happen despite advocates like Enoch Powell, and Jeffrey Donaldson as I recall.
The reality is that influence at local level is what will maintain the Union unless, of course, you’re planning a re-plantation of Ulster from Finchley (which, if you remember, fell to Labour in 1997).
As for your opinion on Labour’s chances of winning the next election….well, I seem to remember the press all but writing off John Major’s government in 1992. I saw his face on election night and the man couldn’t even believe it himself when he won….lol. Anyway, my point was in more general terms, if the UUP get into bed with the Conservatives for keeps, what happens at any time in the future when Labour becomes the government again?
By the way, who is Lesley McCauley when he/she’s at home?
Justin,
I see your point on the DUP videos canvassing opinion in South Belfast – it made me cringe a little too.
However, I have no problem with the sincerity of those taking part. They are real people on the ground and that is what they think. I also believe that they are expressing the majority Unionist viewpoint in that constituency.
I know you do not mean to do this, but making light of other Unionists and their legitimate concerns led to the creation of parties like the DUP in the first place.
Niccolo,
I think it is fair to assume all four being ‘interviewed’ are sympathetic to the DUP, in other words Duppers.
Either that or they were getting paid, why else would anyone willingly be within half a mile of Christopher Stalford?
Justin,
Given that the South Belfast UUP is known to have approached the DUP about a unity candidate, I’m not sure it is “fair to assume”.
Also, personal remarks about Christopher Stalford (or anyone for that matter) do not add anything here.
Niccolo, did you watch all the ‘interviews’? So the gloating about Trimble and concessions and so on is just a coincidence.
Oh and it is a fair comment about Stalford, from people I associate with in South Belfast they can’t stand him. And they are standard middle of the road good ol’fashioned Prods, some who vote DUP but detest his (CS) character.
It’s nothing personal. Trimble had appalling social skills, Doctor Paisley is one of the most civil people you could have a friendly chat with, but Christopher Stalford is smug in his character.
I may not live to see it, but politics here will move away from sectarian headcounts and towards issue led campaigning – the UCUNF project is the first, although fumbling, step towards that.
How on earth is a party which entered talks with the Orange Order, has senior Orange Order members in its leadership, and has proposed a unionist pact, be considered a move away from sectarian headcounts ?
How can a party which has taken an anti-agreement stance attract votes or transfers from nationalists ?
All this stuff about agreement, sharing, ending tribal politics and sectarian headcounts – Alliance was doing that in the 1970s, while the current UUP leadership were goose-stepping for the dear leader Bill Craig in front of Stormont and participating in a paramilitary-led strike to overthrow the sovereign government.
I guess that, over thirty years on, we have seen how ignoring mainstream politics has helped the Alliance party then.
Maybe it’s time for the Alliance Party to get of their moral high horse and start supporting a wider campaign for the benefit of Northern Ireland.
But maybe they are too busy raising motions in the Assembly that they then vote against so they don’t annoy their new best buds in the DUP?
The Alliance has no future in Northern Ireland and would be better deciding whether it wants to be Lib Dems or not, out of the Executive or in, let’s face it, the Alliance Party just need to made a decision on ANYTHING and stick to it.
IR, You mean like sticking to a committment to a shared futre, like sticking to integrated education, like sticking to modern, liberal internationalist politics, like sticking to non-secterianism, like sticking to power sharing and being dismissed as idealists by those who have since come round to our way of thinking?
Alliance have been an awful lot more consistant than Vanguard Reg, Powersharing Pete, never, never Ian, abstentionist socialist Marty or secterian-when-it-suits-me Margaret.
In addition, the Alliance Party is fairly united in its aims, which is more than can be said for the UUP who can’t decide whether they are modern, non-secterian centre right conservatives, or old-school unionists seeing anti-union conspiracies in everything. We are generally consistant with the Liberal Democrats despite not being formally linked to them. Indeed relations between us are much better than relations between the two halves of UCUNF. We are also more constistant than the SDLP who claim to want a progressive shared future with everyone free to make up thier own minds with identity politics being consigned to history, but play the green card at every oppertunity, even claiming that anyone who isn’t a nationalist MUST be a unionist.
Let’s not have anymore of this guff about Alliance inconsistancy, Alliance is the same party today as it was in 1970.
Let’s not have anymore of this guff about Alliance inconsistancy, Alliance is the same party today as it was in 1970.
I was taught at school that initially Alliance was supported the union as long as the majority of the people in NI supported it.
Now however, it seems completely neutral.
It plays the fence sitting card at every opportunity, even claiming that anyone who isn’t a
unaligned MUST be a sectarian bigot.
I was taught at school that initially Alliance was supported the union as long as the majority of the people in NI supported it.
That’s still the position, and thanks to the GFA, that position is now accepted by everyone.
Now however, it seems completely neutral.
Whether the union continues or not (and it, along with the current constitution of the UK, is under attack in ways that NI politicians cannot defend against) there are more important things to worry about. People talk more about the mess in academic selection, or the recession, for example than they do about the union.
I was taught at school that initially Alliance was supported the union as long as the majority of the people in NI supported it.
With slight emendation of grammar, yes, Alliance was a noticeably Unionist party when it started up, and pooh-poohed any talk of a United Ireland. But with the 1st pref Unionist vote down to 48.6% – 49%, that majority is no longer certain, so a more agnostic, neutral stance is called for. At some future time, presumably, there will be a Nationalist majority and Alliance will slip seamlessly into a Nationalist frame of mind.
And whatsoever king may reign, they will be the Vicar of Bray, sir. And should they be blamed? I mean, if you’re a Chinese Taoist, what does it matter to you which brand of mad Paddy you come under? The same goes for people in mixed marriages or of mixed parentage, or who aren’t native to Northern Ireland in the first place.
Yellowsmurf
We are generally consistant with the Liberal Democrats despite not being formally linked to them.
That is the key Alliance problem – you are generally consistant with a lot of things but you are formally linked to nothing.
My respect for Alliance has dropped completely in the last months, the whols charade in Stormont “let’s raise this in the chamber and then vote against it because the DUP tell us to”. The blatent selling of what made you different for a seat on the Executive.
The Alliance party are, in my opinion, no longer relevant to the Northern Ireland political scene, they have no mandate worth speaking of and certainly no chance of power or relevance.
The time for political parties that attract support by doing nothing is over.
The Alliance party are, in my opinion, no longer relevant to the Northern Ireland political scene
But that’s your opinion. Your impartiality is purely in your own imagination. As any opinion pollster knows, people divide into
1) Strongly in favour
2) In Favour
3) Neither for nor against
4) Against
5) Strongly against
Until the arrival of the TUV that covered SF, the SDLP, Alliance, UUP, DUP.
There is a living of sorts to be made from adopting the no 3 slot. People employ you for being neutral, make you Minister of Justice, appoint you to quangos. Alliance will never get a quarter of the vote: but it will always pick up more transfers than other parties, which will give it a presence in Stormont: and if Unionists go on fragmenting, it might even find a place in the Palace of Westminster.
Paddy,
Things have moved on. 40 years ago the RoI was in a bad state and the government was under heavy undue influence by the RC church. Irish reunification would have looked like a bad idea then.
The question is no longer so simple with the modern Ireland, with its dynamic economy, increasing secularism, and real efforts to reach out to unionists. Very few of the (objective) reasons to oppose Irish reunification now exist.
Just as Aristotle pointed out that the youth of today are no good, people have been saying that the influence of the Catholic Church has been broken since the time of Parnell.
Irish Catholics have always heeded the Church only when it suited them. In any case the Irish only exited from the Henrician schism in order to attract support for themselves from Spain.
More to the point, in 1970 when Alliance was formed, Nationalists held only one seat in Westminster.
I think the incident you refer to is the one a few months ago when the assembly team opposed putting one of their motions to a vote because they believed that they’d made their point about executive without forcing the UUP and SDLP MLAs to vote against their own leadership. Don’t forget that a vote against the executive is also a vote against Margaret, Reg and Michael. However the SDLP and the UUP decided that they wanted the vote. The reason why Alliance didn’t let it drop was that the assembly team believed that it was the proposer’s decision, under standing orders, whether or not to proceed to a vote. The speaker disagreed.
I would also take issue with the phrase.
The blatent [sic] selling of what made you different for a seat on the Executive.
We never asked to be on the executive, we never demanded a seat, we never claimed a right to be on the executive. Instead we extracted numerous concessions on our key aims before we agreed to nominate. Progress has been made on a shared future. It may not be much progress, but it is significantly more than has ever occurred under a devolved administration since 1998 and can, therefore, be the foundation for further progress towards a shared society. The minister will now be a full member of the executive, working to an agreed programme which closely resembles the Alliance Party’s proposals on justice policy. That doesn’t look to me like a sell-out at the first chance of power; that looks to me like a situation where it would be churlish to say no. Alliance voters would not have forgiven the party if, when faced with the opportunity to advance a shared future and to shape the policy of a major area of government along the lines that they voted for, we had decided to say no. You said it yourself
The time for political parties that attract support by doing nothing is over.
”More to the point, in 1970 when Alliance was formed, Nationalists held only one seat in Westminster.”
It was actually three: Frank MacManus, Bernadette Devlin, and Gerry Fitt.
Comrade Stalin: The question is no longer so simple with the modern Ireland, with its dynamic economy, increasing secularism,…
You mean the Celtic Crash and the Blasphemy law?
It was actually three
Well it was down to one by 1974. Nothing to write home about.
Reader, I’m not here to defend the RoI, but it has come a long way. I can think of plenty of criticisms of the country – Fianna Fail gombeenism factoring high – but it has done well.
And while we’re on the subject of economics. There are unionists arguing that we should have a lower rate of corporation tax. If this is deemed good economics, and if it is deemed essential, then the logic is clear that joining the RoI is a better option. There’s no way that the UK government is going to create a tax haven in Belfast for the City of London to up sticks and move to.
Paddy, I saw an article in the newspaper a week or two ago about government ministers effectively taking direction from Catholic bishops back in the 60s/70s. Of course, there are those who argue that Stormont took direction from the Catholic hierarchy as well, especially if you look at the way education is run here.
You can’t deny that the RC church is in decline. Especially with the latest scandals.
You mean the Celtic Crash and the Blasphemy law?
Yes I believe the inhabitants of Dublin have started eating each other. Refugees have expired crossing the border from Louth with green stains around their mouths from eating grass, while in Mayo up to 50 people have been burnt alive for blasphemy.
A true Unionist is against uniting Ireland, however attractive the prospect. Alliance unfortunately are not like that.
Now that the UUP are saying they will support the SDLP candidate, will Alliance withdraw and let the mandate of the people decide who is justice minister?
Or is that too much like making a decision?
IR, didn’t I already explain this to you at depth ? Do you really think the party has gone through all this to back down now ?