Sunday, January 25, 2009
“I think preference should be given to people from Northern Ireland..”
Previously Sinn Féin argued that some migrant workers were the wrong sort of Catholics for the purposes of monitoring workforce equality. Now the DUP’s Sammy Wilson, MP, MLA, Northern Ireland Environment Minister, is arguing that they should be discriminated against in favour of “people from Northern Ireland.” Below the fold his party colleague, Jeffrey Donaldson, MP, MLA, NI junior Minister, chips in to claim that “I think Sammy has a fair point.. we’re not talking about discrimination, we’re talking about economic reality.” Except that, as Kevin Sharkey notes at the end of this clip - his full report on the NI economy is here - the Equality Commission has pointed out that discrimination on the basis of race or nationality is unlawful. And doesn’t the NI junior Minister’s brief cover equality issues? Or is that the wrong sort of equality.. Of course within the EU freedom of movement of goods, persons [including workers], services, and capital are fundamental to the common market. Or, as the European Commission website puts it, “Every citizen of the EU has the right to work and live in another Member State without being discriminated against on grounds of nationality.”
NI junior Minister, the DUP’s Jeffrey Donaldson, backs his party colleague, Sammy Wilson.
Pete Baker @ 04:38 PM
SF are constantly assuming that Catholics want to be part of their parish view, and increasingly we just don’t.
A Catholic is a Catholic, 10 Poles in the PSNI counts as 10 Catholics.
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 05:44 PMNot quite. Article 39 (4) EC allows a state to prefer its own citizens to EU citizens (i.e. to discriminate on grounds of nationality) in relation to public sector employment. In regard to the “specific functions of the State and similar bodies such as the armed forces, the police or other forces of the maintenance of order, the judiciary, the tax authorities and the diplomatic corps.”
At any rate, perhaps folks will now begin to grasp the negative consequences of conceding sovereignty to the EU.
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 06:03 PM“A Catholic is a Catholic, 10 Poles in the PSNI counts as 10 Catholics.”
Except that Patten was quite specific in conflating Catholic with Nationalist and Unionist with Protestant. Clearly, a Polish catholic is not the same as a member of the Irish nationalist community, and therefore breaches the requirement of the Patten report that the police should be representative of the community it serves.
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 06:08 PMI suspect now that things have gone tits-up we’ll be hearing a lot more of this kind of talk. Kristallnacht here we come!
BTW Pete, the comparison with SF on the policing issue was totally spurious. Employing mercenaries will not establish trust in the police in places where it is most lacking. But I suspect you knew that.
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 06:14 PMDave
So why shouldn’t PSNI be representative of Poles and Chinese too? On your analysis, Southerners would also have to be excluded to as they do not form part of the NI community? And by definition if we adopted your line it would be even more discriminatory towards Protestants than it is now by forcing them to accept all ‘foreign’ candidates out of their quota. That too would then breach Patten.
And what are you going to do to actually enforce this? Should we adopt the Pass Brook system so beloved of South Africa or perhaps we could classify everyone on racial and community lines in the UK national ID card. I think the Germans once did that sort of thing.
Someone also once told me that under ECHR everyone has the right to self definition ie if I choose to classify myself as Protestant or Catholic or Jewish it is unlawful for the state to challenge that. I am what I believe I am.
The truth is Patten was flawed. It made no allowance for any of these things or for children from mixed marriages (who should also come out of the Protestant quota as they are not pure ayrian stock). Why, some of them might even have claimed to be catholic because one of their parents was and they were brought up in that faith. The naughty things. It might even have got them into the Police when otherwise they would have been rejected.
Crazy, mixed up old world isn’t it.
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 06:23 PMEmploying mercenaries will not establish trust in the police in places where it is most lacking. “
So only Catholic trust matters?
Sorry ‘nationalist catholic trust’?
Or should it be ‘republican catholic trust’?
Just where do you stop on this? And who has the right to classify us all as one of ‘them-uns’ or ‘ours-uns’
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 06:27 PMoh yes Picador, and forgive me but don’t you think that calling Poles who move here for a new life and join the police’mercenaries’ is, well, a little Racist in your assessment of the rights and motivations of other EU Citizens who may just want a job and to serve the community?
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 06:31 PMPic, discrimination on the basis of nationality is at the core of the EU project, so there is no supranational pseudo-moral basis for its complaint. It is purely self-serving, regarding the citizens of member states as being the citizens of the engineered state of Europa (as stated in the Treaty of Rome) and regarding 98% of the world’s population who are not citizens of Europa as foreigners who are to be kept out of Fortress Europa by consolidated EU borders.
Cynic, Poles are foreign nationals. There is no obligation under EU law to employ them in the public sector of policing, and solid reasons why a state should not do so. If, however, they become British nationals, then why not employ them in porportion to the percentage of the Polish population in NI who are also British nationals? Indeed, if you excluded them, how could you comply with the requirement of the Patten Report that the police should be representative of the community it serves?
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 06:34 PM91%* rather
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 06:38 PMThe shinners haven’t much left to impress us with. Maybe They’ll sell us the GPO in Christmas wrapping paper
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 06:53 PMAs the economic crisis hits xenophobia will rise, here, throughout the rest of Britain and Ireland and throughout the world. It’s essential that proto-Brownshirt remarks like these are recorded. There will be many more of them before the crisis ends.
This could have been an important thread, Pete. Such a pity you had to preface the detail of the Minister’s remarks with a cheap, irrelevant attack on Sinn Féin. Perhaps you are as narrow-minded as Sammy.
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 07:18 PMI can’t get over the bare-faced cheek of Sammy in what could be viewed as a nakedly racist pose on his part(s).
He has a chek going on about the length of poles in the job queues.
Would Sammy strip the labour market of undesirables? Does a bear strip in the woods?
Sorry, I’llget me coat on the way out..
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 07:22 PMMembership of the EU allows for the freedom of movement of peoples, goods, monies and services. What Sammy has suggested is nothing less than xenophobic clap trap. The DUP are nothing but a bunch of bigots with a retarded 17th Century view of reality. The south is run by Rome, the earth is flat and global warming is an old wives tale. Now, where do I put my “x”?
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 07:24 PM‘He (Wilson) said it made sense to give PREFERENCE to people “with roots here”.
By endorsing giving preference to people ‘with roots here’, whatever the fuck that means, Sammy is encouraging employers to discriminate on the basis of race and nationality. Such discrimination as practiced by employers or service providers is against the law. End of story.As we all know the public sector is the largest employer in norn ironland. is the minister implicitly suggesting that recruitment in the public sector should give preference to the,uh, natives? Why stop there? Why not give preferential access to healthcare and education to the natives?
... Does Sammy have the ministerial perogative to ensure that all us pesky ferinors sit at the back of the bus?
Any bets on what the Equality commission does with this one? answers on a postcard please. a blank card will be taken as a valid and meaningful response.
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 07:48 PM‘The south is run by Rome, the earth is flat and global warming is an old wives tale’
2 out of 3 isn’t bad!
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 07:50 PMI do not agree with Sammy Wilson for the simple reason that in a meritocratic economy, the BEST candidate should get the job, and in that regard David Ford is correct in what he says.
Why would an NI employer settle for a third rate local when there is a better candidate available who is non-local?
Of course this then raises the sheer immorality of those who support the religious discrimination against anyone not a Roman Catholic if they seek a career in the PSNI. In this case, taking a third rate candidate is not only lawful but seems to meet with the support from certain people who now whinge when Sammy seeks de facto, if not de jure, discrimination?
Of course were we blessed by not being the EU, employers could indeed support the local workforce. But hey, we’re all Europeans now…
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 08:14 PMDavid,
It appears to me that you are trying to have it both ways.
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 08:42 PMJust like to point out that saying that something is against the law is not a political argument against it. After all, the current recruitment policy of the PSNI would be against the law but for the fact that a specific law was expressly created to make it not so.
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 08:46 PMtheres an easy solution, let us leave Europe, retreat behind our own borders and send all non-UK nationals, those who are classed as economic migrants, back to their home of origin within Europe.
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 08:48 PMNote that Sammy specifies people from ‘Northern Ireland’. Does this mean English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish people from the Republic should also be subject to Sammy’s proscription? Does he think these countries should reciprocate by discriminating against Northern Ireland folk?
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 08:49 PMWow, what a gift to all pro-Europe candidates in the forthcoming European Parliament election. Wilson himself said that most foreign nationals are returning to their homelands, in the face of economic downturn, and a la the free movement of peoples in an enlarged Europe. This itself should better position NI “natives” for the recovery. Why then snatch defeat by getting xenophobic (or hyper-nationalist)?
Personally, as a mortgage-holding, full-time working immigrant myself, when would Wilson deem me worthy of a job? I’m a proud devolutionist, but not this “little Ulster” thinking; Mr Ulster is for an outward-looking Northern Ireland!
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 08:54 PMDitto - as another economic migrant - from England - it seems as if myself, or my US born wife, are not welcome in Sammy’s ethnically pure Ulster.
Sammy purports to support the Union, yet seems to exclude the vast majority of its peoples.
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 09:10 PM“Why would an NI employer settle for a third rate local when there is a better candidate available who is non-local?”
Here here
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 09:43 PMSammy purports to support the Union, yet seems to exclude the vast majority of its peoples.
Don’t mind Sammy. He is only here on holiday
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 09:52 PMdosser
Are you suggesting that the DUP’s finest intellectual has not thought his argument through?
Think on this….
If England had not invaded and run India for 200 years would we have English speaking call centres in Bangalore?
The problem Sammy has is that many non-natives can express themselves better in English than native Ulsterpersons.
Posted by on Jan 25, 2009 @ 09:57 PM
