Future of Unionism – Page 2 – Slugger O'Toole

Dodd lays into the Tories for laying into the SNP’s mandate (and side-slaps the SNP)

Mick Fealty on April 27, 2015, 11:32 am | Readers 1881

Those who heard this morning’s #SluggerReport will have noted the major item was Nigel Dodds’ extraordinarily adept intervention in the Westminster debate this morning in the Guardian. It surely cannot be a coincidence that Jim Wells’ has been dispatched so quickly (hint: it was nothing to do with our toothless Ministerial code) in order to clear the air and political space for this… Listening to Nicola Sturgeon’s progressive pan-British rhetoric, you could have thought you were listening to one of …

#SluggerSoapbox: An electoral pact may be pointless but it’s all political Unionism has left…

Soapbox on March 23, 2015, 11:55 am | Readers 3076

Our support for the DUP in East Belfast should ensure an additional pro-Union MP for the City of Belfast in the next mandate. – Mike Nesbitt I am calling on all unionists to unite behind these agreed candidates and maximise the pro-union voice in the House of Commons. – Peter Robinson What’s the point of the latest electoral pact between the DUP and UUP? If the two party leaders are to be taken at their word then it is to …

Robinson’s plan for the consolidation of unionism appears to be working

Stephen Warke on February 26, 2015, 3:15 pm | Readers 1651

As we approach the end of February 2015, the window for electoral pacts is all but shut, with candidates having precious little time to build profile let alone momentum in a campaign. To this end I’ve decided to look at the potential future for the two main Unionist Parties over the next 15 months, leading into the Assembly Elections of May 2016 and after. May 2015 – All eyes are on South Antrim and Upper Bann. Nesbitt needs a win …

Is it time to consider a new confederation of the Islands?

Willie Drennan on February 15, 2015, 6:46 am | Readers 1990

Slugger O’Toole is undoubtedly the most successful blog site and the ultimate soapbox for debate in Northern Ireland at the moment: a Speaker’s Corner in downtown Cyberville for New-Age ranters. Not too sure if Slugger would let the likes of me have a blog on this site or not? If I could get on there I would have to be very careful what I said as Slugger’s followers love to challenge and even ridicule: especially anything that might be from a …

Does our future belong to strategic optimists or endlessly tactical ‘passive aggressionism’?

Mick Fealty on December 17, 2014, 10:35 am | Readers 769

I was talking to a friend the other day about the latest online craze Candy Crush. His advice was pretty direct: never get involved with any game in which there is no finite end. The trick to Candy Crush, apparently, is that it lures you in at the low skill/easy entry end with a series of compelling short term tactical plays. At the same time the developers keep adding more and more layers at the farther, inaccessible side. This means that no matter how …

Unionist Pacts: More engagement is required in order to maximise the vote

Richard Cairns on December 8, 2014, 7:00 am | Readers 2094

Mike Nesbitt somewhat overshadowed the UUP Party Conference with his call for a UUP-DUP Pact. At the DUP Party Conference Alderman Gavin Robinson was unveiled as their candidate for East Belfast in the General Election. And Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness attempted to derail the SDLP Party Conference with his call for a ‘pro-agreement’ pact with the SDLP which was rejected. Everyone has their own opinion on the use of political pacts, and within internal political party discourse there is inevitably debate, …

‘Unionism’ isn’t about the Union Flag, the 12th and ‘Britishness’

Eastern Exile on December 2, 2014, 12:45 pm | Readers 2136

Belfast Barman’s tongue-in-cheek look at what a United Ireland might look like got me thinking. Humourous as it was it perhaps wasn’t far from the truth on some counts, but of course nobody really knows what a United Ireland would look like. Plenty of people have their own visions, but Sinn Fein and the SDLP do not (quite understandably) offer voters a blueprint for what an all-island state would look like. There is no need of course. Their voters want …

#IndyRef: An Open Question to Northern Irish Unionists (Only)…

Mick Fealty on September 5, 2014, 12:26 pm | Readers 2815

In my experience Unionists tend to be the quiet men and women of the internet. Those unwise enough to put their heads above the parapet tend to be, erm, let’s just say, those of more incautious personality type. In that silence lots of non unionists end up speaking on their behalf. So, I come to a question. And it’s a fairly open one, but I’m going to put a rigid caveat on who can answer it. That is, no non …

How might a Republican future unfold, who or what might shape it, and what can it achieve?

Mick Fealty on July 25, 2014, 10:21 am | Readers 2766

There’s a very good interview with Anthony McIntyre on Vice, not least because it provides rather more light than we normally get on the Boston College project. But one aspect relates to Anthony’s characteristic pessimism when it comes to the future of Irish Republicanism: To me, republicanism is over, but can I see a future for republicans if they behave in a rational manner and pursue justice and politics. Unfortunately, there are still people who think that political violence is …

Unionists! “Surprise us with original thinking and sensible strategies: and surprise Sinn Fein, too, while you’re at it!”

Mick Fealty on June 19, 2014, 3:01 pm | Readers 107

I’m not sure there is much that anyone else (in any other political party I mean) can learn from Sinn Fein. Their sheer corporate autocracy is something even a party with the DUP’s history of demagogic leadership cannot match (and, as Chris Dillow notes, history really does matter) can match. But Alex Kane has a point in one particular regard with respect to unionism’s abysmally poor pitching of its own project… There is a pro-Union majority in Northern Ireland – a …

“Merely reflecting this majority view is the easiest form of leadership….”

Mick Fealty on April 11, 2014, 1:34 pm | Readers 66

So for those of you itching for a blog which takes Peter Robinson to task for poor leadership, here’s Warren Little with a usefully proportionate analysis of a missed opportunity: So here we have a golden, gilt-edged, how-could-it-possibly-go-wrong opportunity for the unionist leadership to step beyond the traditional tribal boundary. God knows they don’t get many, because most other calls for them to ‘reach out’ present genuine ideological barriers: Unionists can’t support an Irish tricolour at the City Hall because …

With all this regressive hyperbole about NI’s past, is it time for a new sustainable narrative?

Mick Fealty on October 28, 2013, 9:57 am | Readers 86

Good piece from Tom Kelly in the Irish News this morning, which subtly identifies the problem with the exaggerated claims of recent stories in the media. At a time when voter registration is falling right across the board, it’s an impoverished narrative to be offering voters who are already switching off from Stormont in droves. He tops out his analysis with a reference to the enormously useful pre publicity Gerry Kelly’s been getting on the 1983 break out from the Maze …

Accepting Northern Ireland is part of the UK is what nationalists signed up for…

Mick Fealty on September 25, 2013, 11:37 am | Readers 243

It’s worth noting Vernon Coaker’s intervention, which is a reminder to both sets of ‘leaders’ in Northern Ireland of the basis of the Belfast Agreement back in 1998: “I can’t help but think that to overcome the setbacks, we almost need to establish first principles again, the sort that were enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement. “Nationalists and republicans need to show that they accept Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom while the majority of people who live …

Despite the hostility of the press “…it’s still the DUP which has the muscle to get things done”

Mick Fealty on September 10, 2013, 2:49 pm | Readers 60

Interesting observations by Alex Kane on the internal life of Unionism… …the Orange Order’s decision to support Gibson’s participation is a very clear signal of their recognition that it’s still the DUP, rather than the smaller unionist parties, which has the muscle to get things done. The PUP also has some big choices to make in the next few months. The announcement that they will be contesting the 2014 Euro elections (first time since 1999, when David Ervine got 3.3 …

10 things that political unionists get wrong…

Mick Fealty on July 31, 2013, 9:48 am | Readers 315

From our good friend and diligent commenter, Am Gobsmacht… Choosing ramdonly, here’s number four on the list, living in denial… Everyone knows that Northern Ireland needs the Catholic vote to survive. But the people who can make a difference such as the Loyalist bands, the Orange Order and indeed the IFA (see above) do nothing about it. Feel free to make a suggestion but be prepared to be told why they can’t (won’t) do anything till Sinn Fein do something. …

Does Robinson’s move to the right on #flegs open a viable space on the Unionist ‘left’?

Mick Fealty on January 23, 2013, 11:53 am | Readers 97

How long ago was Peter Robinson’s speech of hope? I want us to use our powers of persuasion here at home, where it matters, to expound the benefits of belonging to the Union. That means challenging ourselves as well as challenging others and it means building a society where everyone feels equally valued. In promoting the benefits of the United Kingdom, unionists have a product that none of our political opponents can match. Saturday, 24 November 2012. A lot of …

A Northern Ireland that cannot govern itself will always be brittle and unstable

Mick Fealty on January 15, 2013, 9:19 am | Readers 74

Okay, Nuala McKeever’s piece for the Belfast Telegraph put me in mind of the paper we pulled together and published ten years this May on, as it happens, the future of unionism: This is not about making unionism more yielding. A ‘long peace’ will not be an easy peace and unionists will often need to be tough in their projection of power. But ‘no’ should never be their final answer. Defensiveness is far too predictable a strategy. A genuinely disruptive …

“[The DUP] had come to terms with what it has done since 2003…”

Mick Fealty on November 30, 2012, 12:38 pm | Readers 233

So, why not. Let’s have another go at the Catholic Unionist trope that’s been doing the rounds. Gareth Gordon looks at the idea of Unionist Catholics, or unicorns as Alex Kane once put it. Of all the respondents in this piece, Steven McCaffrey of The Detail is the one that has it down pat. Robinson’s tactic is about switching nationalist voters off from voting for a united Ireland. Although according to one senior political source in the party that Slugger …

“To reach out to a generation very largely shaped by similar values”

Mick Fealty on October 3, 2012, 3:43 pm | Readers 52

Alex Kane has been ruminating on the Convenant, what it means for Unionists but perhaps more importantly, what’s their next challenge. First, the past: The Covenant is clearly worth celebrating. It was one of the pivotal moments of unionism, a moment when they proved to themselves that they were capable of getting their act together, coordinating a collective response and orchestrating massive support. It’s worth remembering, too, that in 1912 there weren’t emails, mobiles, texts, Twitter, television or radio. Keeping …

Whilst Scotland moves towards its big national debate, we’ve already had our political ‘big bang’…

Mick Fealty on July 4, 2012, 10:36 am | Readers 60

James Maxwell alludes to an interesting aspect of the burgeoning of the Scottish nationalist cause, and it’s likely runners off in Northern Ireland. Whilst Irish nationalism has become synonymous with Republicanism, the SNP is and remains a soft monarchist party. These difference are as much historical as geographical. Since James VI took up the English title of James I the British monarchy has been as much a possession of the Scottish estate as the English. The siting of the Scottish …