Thursday, May 08, 2008
SDLP suffering from Durkan’s indecision…
If there is a raging debate going on inside the SDLP it is barely obvious to those on the outside. Yesterday we noted Conall McDevitt laid down an elegant case for the SDLP going on its own. in yesterday’s Irish News, Brian Feeney argued that Mark Durkan’s ‘weakness and indecision’ as a leader is the primary political quality currently defining his party’s future:
After the SDLP’s breakfast in bed with Fianna Fail at the Carrickdale, Fine Gael finally woke up to how real the courtship has become. It issued a statement saying any closer SDLP relationship with Fianna Fail would mean a fundamental rethink of Fine Gael’s relationship with the SDLP. Whoo. Scary. Well that wouldn’t take long given that Fine Gael has had next to no relationship with the SDLP.
What there was could best be described as mutual exasperation. In fact Fine Gael in the past has shown more affinity with the NIO’s front party than northern nationalists.
Even so, Fine Gael’s shot across the bows was enough to spook Durkan into remembering that there are two other parties to be reckoned with in the south. He reckoned he’d better give them their place.
In that context Durkan’s afterthought about Labour and Fine Gael was downright insulting so both parties will correctly ignore him.
They will be well aware, even if Durkan is not, that the SDLP committee Durkan set up to consider ‘all political options’ is his admission that the SDLP is dead. The party is over. In the words of the Monty Python sketch, it has ceased to be. A political party doesn’t set up a committee to consider its own position.
Neither does Feeney think that there is any other serious suitors (there are some in Newry who will dispute at least one element of what follows):
There is no ‘Labour element’ in the SDLP. It’s a middle-class Catholic party. The party has no infrastructure in Newry. It has no members at all in most working-class districts of Belfast. We know Derry is just dying to go Fianna Fail. Besides, the SDLP leadership will not go out of business only to become the northern wing of a Stickie-led Labour Party in Dublin. They hope linking up with Fianna Fail will offer life after death to the party leaders but a link with Labour would be what Ian Paisley likes to call “a Sadducee’s grave” – no resurrection.
Finally, he cites a knotty, but not necessarily insurmountable problem:
What’s holding up a decision, apart from Durkan’s inability to act decisively? Timing is one issue. The right moment to announce a FF/SDLP candidate for Europe next year but one who won’t go down in humiliating defeat to Sinn Fein on the first outing. Secondly, since Fianna Fail will not contest British elections what on earth will become of the SDLP’s Westminster seats? Alasdair McDonnell has long been an ardent advocate of Fianna Fail but he couldn’t call himself a Fianna Fail candidate in the next British general election.
Mick Fealty @ 11:10 AM
“For some nationalists/republicans, anything that opposes Sinn Fein’s monoply of power in our areas is to be welcomed.”
It is paternalistic for the most part, one can take the pee out of them quite openly,
I think the Squinter thing was different because it was without humor, it was a cold stab at Big Brother No1
It is a monopoly of power translated via the IRA to SF and a host of community groups.
If one had a public meeting about chewing gum on sidewalks, SF would probably want to be on the panel in case it migrated to something else.
Every vote not tossed at SF, is a step in the right direction, not voting has a lot to be said for it.
G.
Posted by on May 09, 2008 @ 05:03 PMBriso
The natural party of goverment of Ireland will NEVER NEVER NEVER take seats at Westminster for reasons which have nothing to do with Northern Ireland, the oath, or the Gods of Irish Republican history.
I thought FF had grown up. But you think not.
Posted by on May 09, 2008 @ 06:22 PMJohn, there is a good reason why directors of PepsiCo Inc. don’t sit on the board of directors of the The Coca-Cola Company, and it has nothing to do with immaturity.
Posted by on May 09, 2008 @ 06:50 PM“John, there is a good reason why directors of PepsiCo Inc. don’t sit on the board of directors of the The Coca-Cola Company, and it has nothing to do with immaturity. “
Pepse and Coca Cola use to shoot at each other in Asia. It is the real thing.
Coca-Cola ran a competition asking several schools to come up with a strategy for distributing Coke coupons to students. The prize was $500. Greenbriar High School in Evans, Georgia went so far as to call for an official Coke Day, with every one wearing branded T-shirts and listening to the lectures of visiting company executives. 19-year-old Mike Cameron, (wonder what he’s doing now...), was discovered to be wearing a Pepsi shirt, and was promptly suspended.
http://everything2.com/node/911239
I believe that.
Posted by on May 09, 2008 @ 06:57 PMDave
FF/SDLP MPs will never be the directors or ministers of a British government unless they want to be just because they sit in Westminster.
Posted by on May 09, 2008 @ 06:59 PMPosted by Sammy Morse on May 09, 2008 @ 05:48 PM
There have been multinational parties before, Briso. The Greens claim to be, and before you scream they aren’t a natural party of government, what about the Ba’ath Party?Good one Sammy! :-) Just in case your serious, do you think Biffo intends to take Saddam and al-Assad as an example? Remember, the danger is not in being boss in both countries, but in being boss in only the smaller one and tiny in the bigger one.
Posted by on May 09, 2008 @ 07:54 PMJohn, you can’t ride two horses - which is especially difficult if both horses are travelling in opposite directions. The United Kingdom and Ireland are two separate, independent, sovereign and competing states. There can be no conflict of interest. So, even if FF enter the devolved administration in NI, they must do so as a separate party from FF in Ireland, operating under strict codes of conduct and protocols to ensure that secrets of the Irish government, cabinet confidentiality, information about the strategies of the agencies of the state, FDI proposals, etc, etc, are not passed to those who are in the service of the British government i.e. in Her Majesty’s devolved administration (and, indeed, vice versa).
Posted by on May 10, 2008 @ 01:17 AMIn regard to the oath: the SDLP can swear an oath of allegince to Her Majesty’s but no party of government in Ireland must ever do that.
Posted by on May 10, 2008 @ 01:19 AMDave
This is politics not the secret service. Get a grip!
Posted by on May 10, 2008 @ 08:30 AMDave,
The SDLP are a party of government in Ireland. The have one minister in the Northern Assembly, M. Ritchie.Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 04:52 PMDave,
The SDLP take an affirmation, not an Oath of Allegiance.
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 05:17 PM“So, even if FF enter the devolved administration in NI, they must do so as a separate party from FF in Ireland, operating under strict codes of conduct and protocols to ensure that secrets of the Irish government, cabinet confidentiality, information about the strategies of the agencies of the state, FDI proposals, etc, etc, are not passed to those who are in the service of the British government i.e. in Her Majesty’s devolved administration (and, indeed, vice versa). “
Don’t we have that already, I mean if the UUP (as a political party) wanted to see Carmel Hanna’s DEL papers, could Sir Reg Empey get access to them? I don’t think so, leaving aside collegiate solidarity, it may just not be possible.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 01:03 AM“This is politics not the secret service. Get a grip! “
I think you will find that Ruane would never be briefed as to the foundation documents for teacher vetting because, they relate to the security services, amongst other things.
Finucane, Nelson etc. even Bloody Sunday, may amount to less in the over-all scheme of secrets than stuff that could have the NASUEWT out on street across Britain.
Or to have to admit that Margaret Hodge Syndrome multiplied by a hundred, is the glad tidings of what we are talking about.
Use your noggin, why spend 400 million bucks on a vetting system that doesn’t ban sex offenders?
It is Britain’s dirtiest secret.
G.
Posted by on May 13, 2008 @ 01:09 AM
