Parties – Page 10 – Slugger O'Toole

Brokenshire’s line on a border poll won’t do. Straight after next week’s election, it will be incumbent to spell out terms and conditions for holding a unity referendum. And Dublin cannot be left out

Brian Walker on May 30, 2017, 4:22 pm

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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 …

DUP needs to watch its advocacy of what’s becoming its own minority enthusiasms

Mick Fealty on May 19, 2017, 10:01 am

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It’s been a rough week for Arlene and the DUP. Newton Emerson is clearly losing patience with the DUP leader’s impetuosity… After his career almost imploded in 2010, Robinson displayed convincing signs of humility and reflection, at least for a while. Foster has met a few Gaelgoiri but she is still triangulating her position to imply she has not moved an inch. It is clear she feels herself to be the victim of a cunning republican plot – and that …

London View of #GE2017: Quick thoughts on the latest polls and manifestos…

Steve Moore on May 19, 2017, 6:51 am

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The poll trends remain good for May and Labour. The Tory strategy to liquidise UKIP and neutralise the Lib Dems could hardly have gone better. They have an average 17 point lead over Labour in all the polls in May. The perception which has concreted is that they will not just win but do so by a landslide. That still seems the most likely outcome. However their colossal leads have precipitated two unexpected events; a bolder than expected Tory manifesto …

“So let nobody speak of a progressive or anti-Brexit pact either…”

Pete Baker on May 14, 2017, 6:38 pm

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In Saturday’s Irish News, Newton Emerson with some impertinent points about electoral pacts in the forthcoming General Election on June 8. From the Irish News Sinn Féin has ordered the SDLP to stand down, although sadly not to dump arms, in North Belfast and Fermanagh and South Tyrone. Let nobody call this a nationalist pact, as that would involve reciprocation and Sinn Féin has not offered to stand down anywhere. Sinn Féin’s stance is doubly impressive when it risks handing …

The fault lies in ourselves, not just the politicians

Brian Walker on May 5, 2017, 1:23 pm

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Slagging off politicians is so often the default of Slugger comment, sometimes down to the level of that useful word “trolling,” which for me recalls the fate of the troll in “ The three billy goats gruff,” when the troll richly deserves to get crushed to bits. It ought to occur to people by now that life demands a bit more than a bilious attack, a rant or a sprint down a favourite cul de sac. Hand on heart I …

“…if you want trouble again in the north play that game. It’s a dangerous game”

Pete Baker on May 1, 2017, 4:04 pm

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There’s been some focus on the comments at the weekend by former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern warning about any attempt to “force” a border poll in the aftermath of the Brexit vote. His remarks are placed in a wider context by the fuller quote in the Belfast Telegraph. Speaking on Newstalk radio, the former Irish prime minister said: “The idea of a border poll… was put there when when I was conceding Articles two and three of the constitution and we were giving …

Amnesty for soldiers and police officers appears imminent after the election. And the effect on prospects for restoring the Assembly?

Brian Walker on April 27, 2017, 1:27 pm

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The government appear to be on the brink of taking the legacy of the Troubles out of the hands of the Assembly. The only question remains if they would entertain an agreed counter proposal from the Assembly parties . You can work out for yourself the prospects of that The Times (£) are reporting that The British government has moved one step closer to shielding British soldiers who served during the Troubles from murder prosecutions despite concerns that it could …

The republic is pointing the way to solving the health care crisis throughout the island

Brian Walker on April 27, 2017, 10:34 am

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Here I join Mick in commending Newton Emerson for giving a new twist to a familiar theme. He describes a linkage between a religious ethos north and south and a lack of resources not due to funding alone, that stands in the way of providing a better health service. In the republic a partial solution has been reached for transferring the National Maternity Hospital to a new 300m euro building on the St Vincent’s Hospital campus. The governing …

Brexit (in the short term) re-engineers the environment around Scotland’s political trilemma

Mick Fealty on April 25, 2017, 6:26 pm

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Brexit is changing the terms under which the UK’s internal politics are played. If you thought it could only drive Scotland out of the UK let me re-introduce Dani Rodrik‘s Political Trilemma: …economic globalization, political democracy, and the nation-state are mutually irreconcilable. We can have at most two at one time. Democracy is compatible with national sovereignty only if we restrict globalization. If we push for globalization while retaining the nation-state, we must jettison democracy. And if we want democracy along …

Out of respect to the voters, the governments and parties must spell out in detail where they stand on the Assembly by next week. Otherwise the election is an insult to democracy.

Brian Walker on April 20, 2017, 11:04 am

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Although only one of 13 MPs to deny Theresa May the green light for calling a Westminster general election, Mark Durkan MP surely got it right for Northern Ireland. I was not asking for an election last week or the week before; I was arguing that any move to an election in the near future would not help the negotiations in Northern Ireland. My mind has not changed, so why should I pretend that it has? Of course, this …

A centrist alternative to the UK Labour Party?

Mick Fealty on April 11, 2017, 7:47 am

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It’s worth reading this first… …being an equidistant centre party is good for winning votes and terrible at winning seats. That’s three questions anyone wanting to set up a new centre party has to answer, just as a preliminary: What does your proposed party stand for? How are you going to build an actual party, not just an HQ? How are you going to win Parliamentary seats and not just accumulate wasted votes? Once they’ve got the answers to those, …

Left to themselves, the parties won’t agree. The time has come for the governments to bring forward solutions which involve the people directly

Brian Walker on April 9, 2017, 11:11 am

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Observed from London, the political atmosphere at home is surreal. The volume of comment on the talks is in inverse proportion to hard information. Expectations of agreement by Good Friday are so low that the local media can barely be roused from torpor. Emergency action for feeding the Stormont cats occupied more space in the Belfast Telegraph the other day. Further emergency action to fund the regional government must be taken within a week followed by the crunch decision to …

Bertie Ahern the voice of sanity on a border poll and Brexit

Brian Walker on April 6, 2017, 11:21 pm

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It’s the prerogative of elder statesman to tell it as it is without looking over their shoulder at the opposition inside and outside their own party. Bertie Ahern gave a reminder of just how good he could be. He spoke the language of stability in the fevered atmosphere of Leinster House. Micheal Martin please note. Speaking in the Seanad: The last thing I want out of Brexit, the last thing, the very last thing, is anyone on about border polls. …

Will unionists ever imagine a more generous vision than Orange culture to match Sinn Fein’s on unity?

Brian Walker on April 5, 2017, 9:37 pm

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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 …

Is Sinn Fein planning to make a virtue of its inability to ride two horses north and south?

Mick Fealty on April 3, 2017, 3:03 pm

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One of the most enduring political quotes of 20th British politics is attributed to the Independent Labour MP John Maxton for Glasgow Bridgton, which goes to the effect that “if you cannot ride two horses at once, you shouldn’t be in the circus”. When you consider from a distance what’s been occupying Northern Ireland’s columnists, ie Sinn Fein’s dilemma over how to build a coherent all island political project over two separate political entities with rapidly diverging and after Brexit, potentially …

The Assembly crisis is costing £300 million a year in Health alone

Brian Walker on April 3, 2017, 8:38 am

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The Belfast Telegraph has an exclusive on the depth of the health crisis. It shows the real world gap between the obsessive zero sum game that dominates politics and the practical need for regional government of some sort. If the RHI scandal broke the Executive, will the long-term health scandal remake it? Northern Ireland’s health service is facing a potential overspend of more than £300m this year – which will worsen already unacceptable hospital waiting lists, a former Northern Ireland …

Gerry Adams dons the mantle of McGuinness and holds out his hand to unionists

Brian Walker on April 3, 2017, 12:58 am

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In an interview with Sky News on the eve of the resumed interparty talks, Gerry Adams addresses familiar charges levelled against him by more than unionists. In a move clearly designed to win greater trust, the Sinn Fein president is at pains to deny that he is raising the bar so high as to guarantee that the talks will fail, with the ulterior motive of abandoning the Assembly and exploiting Brexit to pursue a strategy of Irish unity based …

At last! The British and Irish governments have produced an agreed plan to put to the Assembly parties from Monday 3 April

Brian Walker on April 2, 2017, 2:47 pm

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Not before time, a detailed talks plan agreed between the two governments has been presented to the Assembly parties and will form the basis of talks over a 10 day period beginning tomorrow. Brian Rowan, former security correspondent and Assembly candidate, has got sight of it and has summarised it in EamonnMallie.com As I’ve been arguing for weeks this is the essential move if the talks are to stand any chance of success. At worst it shifts part of any …

The political parties should not deceive themselves that the lessons from demographic change are simple and obvious

Brian Walker on April 1, 2017, 11:26 am

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“ The morning after the Brexit vote, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party said that “the constitutional question has been reopened, and we now have people who were content in Northern Ireland thinking again about a united Ireland” Has this development become the new driver of politics or is it still in the background? At this moment the answer cannot be known. Yet it has set the climate for the interparty talks which resume on Monday. The words come from …

Should the other Dublin parties denounce Sinn Fein if they’re gaming the Stormont talks?

Brian Walker on March 30, 2017, 9:40 am

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The Irish Times political editor Stephens Collins enjoys an unusual dual role of senior political reporter and opinionated commentator. It’s not always clear if he’s getting a bead on emerging trends of opinion in politics or simply speaking for himself. Perhaps what Stephen thinks today, many of the guys in Leinster House think tomorrow? Today, he asks the blunt questions about Sinn Fein’s real intentions towards the Assembly. While most of us were struggling with conflicting feelings, he writes off …