Matt Carthy is a Sinn Fein MEP for the Ireland Midlands-North West constituency Something big is happening. Brexit has simply accelerated a debate on Irish Unity that was inevitably going to happen anyway. Irish Unity featured during the recent Westminster election campaign in a way in which it hasn’t in living memory. That is simply a reflection of what is occurring in communities, within civic society and among members and supporters of all the main political parties North & South …
It’s very easy for an outside observer to talk but at least I knew the founding generation of the SDLP pretty well up to the mid 1980s, if a lot less well since then. A long time ago I know. Regardless of political opinion they were way and afar the most able bunch of politicians around, pleasant and by and large pretty well adjusted, despite the pressures they were under. Yes and good for an agreeable jar. To a …
Brexit ‘s revival of the spectre of a hard border and the support of Ireland’s partners for a united Ireland with consent within the EU was the perfect formula for the complete polarisation that has duly happened at Westminster level. Nationalism is now without representation at Westminster for the first time since 1966. The SDLP’s special pleading for an anti-Brexit pact failed and their attack on Sinn Fein for abstaining from Westminster as if it was a new idea left …
Say what you like about social media but the old fashioned papers are hard to beat to bring you the feel of the last minute election atmosphere. They’re all the more frantic for the polls being all over the place and late tragic dominance of “ keeping us safe.” Later still, the Guardian’s monster montage of the right wing tabloids Later, after Mail on Line posted their attack on Corbyn etc True to form the Daily Mail devotes …
Underneath the lacklustre NI General Election campaign is there really a grassroots movement to maximise the number of DUP votes and counteract Sinn Féin’s impressive performance in March when just 1,168 first preference votes separated the top two parties.
There is no point in denying the appeal of a united Ireland within the EU, even if the threat of a hard border turns out to be exaggerated for its malign effects on trade, integrated agriculture and ease of movement and Theresa May’s team returns from Brussels in triumph. It transcends narrow nationalism and reflects the Remain verdict in the EU referendum which put nationalism on the winning side, courtesy of quite a few on the unionist side. For the …
In their manifesto, the SDLP have now joined Sinn Fein in calling for a unity referendum, albeit on slightly different terms. Both are linking it to Brexit. If the combined nationalist share of the vote next week reaches 40+% which is highly manageable, can a unity referendum or border poll, reasonably be denied? If not, what is reasonable? By one reckoning a 50% threshold would seem unreasonably high for our divided community. By another, a referendum should wait until nationalists have …
To my nationalist and republican friends… I think you should reconsider your opposition to the Union, and here’s why… A friend of mine recently threw out a question which stopped me in my tracks. “Do you think there will ever be a united Ireland?” She asked. She knew I was a member of a unionist party and most who do see no point in asking me such a question, but ask she did. Her voice suggested she was asking the …
Mick has just credited Arlene Foster and the DUP with making moves toward nationalists which Sinn Fein is struggling to answer. I see very little that the DUP have done yet that needs an answer. It is not news that the DUP don’t want a hard border or that there is a case for some sort of Irish Language Act, totemic as it is, particularly when your own contemptuous rejection whipped up demand for it. How to answer SF effectively …
One sign of changed times is leading commentators such as Alex Kane Tom Kelly and Newton Emerson ranging across newspapers that not so long ago would have stuck to simple uncomplicated messages for well understood and stable readerships. Times have indeed changed for us all. From my remote position in London however, Alex and Tom are making very heavy weather of the issue of electoral pacts on both sides of the divide. They’re doing so for the best of reasons, …
Brian WalkerFormer BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London
Showing good timing and a big bunch of confidence, a warm house for Unionists in a united Ireland within the EU has been imagined once again by Matt Carthy of Sinn Fein. Political positioning, based solely on opposition to Irish unity, is unsustainable. Although he can hardly expect an immediate favourable response, his pitch is directed towards the other participants in the interparty talks. People in Belfast, Derry or Fermanagh need answers to everyday social and economic problems. As the …
Newton Emerson has clearly been doing some thinking about the future beyond the Hokey Cokey of the last few months. In yesterday’s Irish News column he makes two seminal points about SF’s strategy (or lack of it). Firstly, SF as a good negotiator. It seems to have escaped the notice of the press (but not I suspect of some of their former SpAds), that SF has a tendency to come up empty handed from encounters with the DUP. [What, not …
Theresa May’s tour of the devolved territories ( I wish we had a better collective noun) turned out to be a jaw- droppingly empty gesture, quite apart from the inevitable omission of Belfast. Her semi-clandestine meeting with Nicola Sturgeon in a Glasgow hotel yesterday was a stiff little ritual to confirm that Article 50 was being triggered today on behalf of the whole UK, Scotland naturally included. There was no pretence at accommodating the SNP. Indeed there may even be …
The imminence of triggering Article 50 has at last woken up the British government to the reality of the threat to the Union. In a reported forthcoming tour of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to explain a negotiating position that has seemed to ignore them, propping up support for her “beloved Union” has become Theresa May’s priority. Her first line of defence will be to convince the massed ranks of critics that a “hard Brexit” is a misnomer which does …
Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London
Nationalism stands strong in the new Assembly with more seats, more votes and is now in a position to deliver more. I watched from the Titanic Count Centre on Friday, victory after victory for the Nationalist parties. Sinn Fein’s tsunami started in West Belfast and swept the province leaving opponents from People Before Profit to the UUP reeling. The SDLP also had some resilience and managed to gain a seat in Lagan Valley and came close to winning another in …
While the world is transfixed by Trump, we made a little quiet progress on the interlinked politics of Brexit and the future of the Assembly. What did we get from Theresa May’s immersion in the generally anti-Brexit atmosphere of the joint ministerial committee and a summit with Enda Kenny? A warm gesture of commitment, that’s what, riding above the divisions which leave her unfazed for now and rather more than we might have expected, in the form of an article …
So the political establishment and the media are in rare unison praising Martin McGuinness. Illness and the shadow of death – ordinary decent, natural sickness and intimations of mortality – bring out the sentimentalist in all types of the Irish people. Let’s not be too starry eyed. In a longish apologia for the different phases of his career, Martin McGuinness had no apology to make for the armed struggle. It was left to Gregory Campbell from across the Foyle – …
I’ve never been quite sure if we can call John Hume an unvarnished nationalist, but if we do, he was a great example of a leading nationalist who wanted to reach agreement more than attain the goal of Irish unity, as expressed in his wonderful oxymoron, “ an agreed Ireland.” While he enjoyed his hard- won international contacts, he remained unassuming, friendly and well grounded. Like many accomplished politicians he was less well regarded in some places where it mattered. …
