Parties – Page 12 – Slugger O'Toole

Scotland and Northern Ireland move centre stage, says Downing St. ” Save the Union” is the mission

Brian Walker on February 27, 2017, 9:35 am

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Well what do you know? At the beginning of a very busy news week, the Times leads with a real revelation from right under their noses. After months of patting the wee Celts on the head with bland assurances that Brexit will be fine all round, “sources “ now say that “concerns about Scotland and Northern Ireland were discussed at last week’s cabinet.. and the impact of Brexit on the UKs devolution settlement is the government’s greatest concern about the exit …

Sinn Féin’s red lines? : “So you had the Irish language act, there was a thing called the bill of rights and there was another issues.”

Pete Baker on February 26, 2017, 8:26 pm

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Launching the Sinn Féin manifesto for the Northern Ireland Assembly election a couple of weeks ago, the party’s appointed ‘leader in the North’, Michelle O’Neill, declared that “You’d be very aware that I won’t be drawing any red line issues…” Since then she has allowed the impression to be created that the one ‘red line’ the party does have is the nomination of the DUP leader, Arlene Foster, as First, or deputy First, Minister before Judge Coughlin’s inquiry into the RHI scheme …

Martin McGuinness (not Michelle O’Neill) describes the DUP as bigots in Mid Ulster

Mick Fealty on February 25, 2017, 7:01 am

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My analysis of Mid Ulster is a little harsher for Sinn Fein than most. But I can’t see much bounce for the new leader since last June since Mid Ulster was the constituency of the previous SF leader, Martin McGuinness. They’re significantly short of three quotas too. In their favour, they have an election machine second to none. Nor are they afraid to use marked registers to help them figure out who has voted and who hasn’t. Despite the fact that it’s not, …

“The potential to be the most important election in NI’s history?” A neck and neck result could be just what we need

Brian Walker on February 24, 2017, 12:35 pm

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“The potential to be the most important election in Northern Ireland’s history,” claims the peripatetic columnist Alex Kane, writing this time in the Newsletter today. Alex is reflecting unionist collywobbles at the prospect of DUP/SF neck and neck. It raises the existential fear of the “known unknown” of unionist nemesis which is paradoxically more nerve wracking for many of them than waiting impatiently for the conclusive end of their long period as a minority is for nationalists.

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

“is Gerry the Genius sure he has thought all this through?”

Pete Baker on February 18, 2017, 4:22 pm

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In today’s Irish News, Newton Emerson asks the impertinent question… Remarks by Mike Nesbitt about cross-community voting distracted from what should have been the major story of the week. Northern Sinn Féin leader Michelle O’Neill has said her party will not return to the executive with Arlene Foster as first or deputy first minister until the DUP leader has been cleared by the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) inquiry. O’Neill added this was a red line issue – something Sinn Féin …

If Stormont works on the basis of stoking fear or loathing of the other, is it time for ambitious change?

Mick Fealty on February 18, 2017, 2:39 pm

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Some useful thoughts here from Northern Ireland’s one man think tank, Newton Emerson, on the business of how the UUP and SDLP might provide a credible challenge to the new establishment parties of the DUP and Sinn Fein: What really stops the UUP and SDLP offering an alternative is that a Stormont executive must be led by the largest nationalist and unionist parties and there is no guarantee of the “moderates” leading both blocs. If the requirement instead was for …

Where did the DUP get £250k for that Brexit Metro wrap around? (Answer: NI law says they don’t have to tell us)

Mick Fealty on February 16, 2017, 9:12 am

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When it comes donations and party funding, Northern Ireland is to the UK political world, what Panama is to tax. Peter Geoghegan and Adam Ramsay with a nice piece of investigative journalism at Open Democracy: A quarter of a million pounds is unlike anything the DUP has spent in the past. Just a month before the EU referendum, the party won 38 seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections and retained its position as the largest party there. To do …

Dail takes note of the nature of Sinn Fein’s bargain basement ‘win’ in the #EUReferendum…

Mick Fealty on February 16, 2017, 7:59 am

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It’s a bit of a red letter day when Slugger gets read into the record of any of our legislatures. So far we’ve made it into the Seanad, and the House of Lords, now we’re in the official record of the proceedings in Dáil Éireann. This snippet (and it’s exchanges) is worth sharing: Deputy Brendan Howlin: The people of Northern Ireland voted to remain part of the European Union. The largest nationalist party in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin, failed to register for …

Mike Nesbitt is pitching to his voters to use their judgement, not to his candidates. It makes perfect sense

Brian Walker on February 15, 2017, 4:30 pm

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Most commentators have stated the obvious. Whistling through their teeth as they praise him for being brave in classic Yes Minister mode – .i.e. suicidal – the best that can be said for him is that he should have looked forward to cooperating with the SDLP after the election and left it at that. But that was to miss the point. What Mike Nesbitt did was break a taboo by daring to propose voting outside the big tent. If not …

Obsessing about vote management is inevitable but shouldn’t distract us from what happens afterwards

Brian Walker on February 14, 2017, 12:40 pm

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Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt has predictably taken a hammering over his personal choice to vote SDLP next. The Newsletter has helpfully quoted 8 UUP candidates who think otherwise. They can hardly be blamed. Most of them rely on DUP transfers to get elected and aren’t expecting SDLP transfers anytime soon. They mortally fear a DUP plump that leaves them high and dry and in some cases, Sinn Fein cosy and warm and elected instead. So why did Mike do …

For our uncivil politics, an Irish Language Act is part of the solution

Brian Walker on February 6, 2017, 5:22 pm

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Among Sinn Fein’s list of grievances claiming lack of unionist respect is the failure to introduce an Irish Language Act. It is an important but seemingly not a red line issue. Oddly enough this may make it more amenable to settlement. It is among the SDLP’s desirables. It looks as if Enda Kenny will back it in whatever happens after the Assembly election.

At first glance the chances of any sort of development are unpromising. It raises all the hackles and is easy campaign fodder. As David has reported below, with her familiar lightness of touch Arlene Foster has borne down on the language issue in her undiplomatic reply to Sinn Fein’s “diplomatic offensive.” We need not take this as the last word after 2 March. As she knows, Mrs Foster misses the point while Ms O’Neill has declined to lock horns on the issue.

We know how on this as in many others, rival parties make a battlefield out of the fine print of legal entitlements and equality impact assessments. This gets us precisely nowhere.

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

Pressure for special treatment for soldiers would kill any chance of agreement on the past. Obviously.

Brian Walker on February 3, 2017, 11:26 am

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Flaws in the system of investigation into charges of British army misconduct “on the battlefield “ have been dramatically exposed in the disgrace of the solicitor Phil Shiner. In the Commons and in the press, it has reinforced calls for Theresa May to speed up the promised reform of how human rights law applies to ex-soldiers who served not only in Iraq but in Northern Ireland. The Shiner case will no doubt boost her well established scepticism about how human …

Stephen Donnelly (late of the Social Democrats) joins Fianna Fail…

Mick Fealty on February 2, 2017, 1:26 pm

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Interesting breaking news in the south concerning Wicklow/East Carlow Independent TD Stephen Donnelly. As The Journal notes “sources say the Wicklow TD had been “actively interested” in joining a political party.” He had been a founding member of the Social Democrats till last summer. He’s shown an impressive grasp of policy ever since coming into the Dail in the wake FF’s defenestration in 2011, but I suspect his search for a party home is born out of frustration at having …

The DUP and Sinn Fein are neck and neck as Arlene Foster plummets – Bel Tel poll

Brian Walker on February 1, 2017, 4:12 pm

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LucidTalk party ratings in the Belfast Telegraph here and ratings for Arlene Foster and other party leaders compared over time here. They show a continuing downward trend for the DUP leader in less than two months , from 49% before December to 21% now . When only unionists are included into the results Jim Allister comes out on top with Arlene Foster just half a percentage point above Michelle O’Neill who was bottom on 28.9%. LucidTalk concludes that the DUP will …

No reason to think that SF ditching Stormont for a year or until after the southern election will help

Mick Fealty on February 1, 2017, 12:46 pm

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I’ll leave it to David and the panel later in the campaign to compare all the PEBs in this campaign. But last night’s from Sinn Fein was interesting for a number of reasons (and not just because they subtitled Michelle O’Neill the whole way through). It seems to have borrowed tone of the Fianna Fail and Fine Gael PEBs from last year’s general election: in foregrounding ordinary people. The reference to equality with regard to LGB&T rights is in line …

The splits over Brexit in the election campaign distract from bigger realities. As usual

Brian Walker on February 1, 2017, 10:18 am

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So no news in the fact that the DUP and Sinn Fein remain at odds over Brexit. Sinn Fein’s new Northern leader Michelle O’Neill rejects Theresa May’s assurances on an open *frictionless?” border. Mrs O’Neill said: “What we are very sure of is the implications of a hard Brexit are going to mean a hard border – a soft border is a nonsense. Nigel Dodds dismisses this as hot air, adding a twist by reminding the UK government that moving …

The last bastion of Ulster Unionism in Belfast is teetering on the brink…

Stephen Warke on January 31, 2017, 5:01 pm

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At it’s zenith – possibly due to what some might call the electoral dividends of delivering peace in Northern Ireland – the UUP polled 25,272 across the 4 Belfast Constituencies, polling 9,620 and 9,533 in East and South Belfast respectively. However, by 2007, the UUP had shed over 10,000 votes in the Belfast Area with sharp declines in East and South Belfast bringing the vote share across Belfast to 15,145. Just last May, the UUP share had fallen to it’s …

“on behalf of all those other people you let down by not being good enough to win the election…”

Mick Fealty on January 31, 2017, 9:02 am

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With kind permission of Tom Harris, the former Scottish Labour MP for Glasgow South, this is a posting from his Facebook page. It’s an important ‘dry your eyes’ corrective to beaten political parties, to get over themselves and a reminder that politics is competitive for good reason: There’s a lot of anger among my friends in the Labour Party and in other parties, and among people of no particular party allegiance. Anger at the Tories, their welfare reforms, their budget cuts, anger …

Fine Gael on Sinn Féin: “We couldn’t work with them”

Pete Baker on January 29, 2017, 5:13 pm

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Something to keep in mind when criticising others… There was a bit of a kerfuffle following Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s mid-term non-answer to a question on the potential for any future coalition involving Sinn Féin. The Irish Examiner records Enda Kenny saying While strongly ruling out doing any deal with Fianna Fáil, Enda Kenny said “depending on the result you gave as a member of the electorate, politicians have to work with the result, so, Sinn Féin seem to be converted …

The DUP have a point about an Irish Language Act but it’s smaller than they think – and small minded too

Brian Walker on January 29, 2017, 12:25 pm

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The journal.ie have done a useful bit of fact checking over contradictory claims that the St Andrew’s Agreement committed the DUP to “ an Irish Language Act.” Their verdict: VERDICT The DUP’s claim that they never agreed to establish an Irish Language Act as part of St Andrews Agreement is true, as the legislation refers to the British government’s commitment to an Irish Language Act, not the DUP’s. Although they signed up to the St Andrews Agreement, this includes a …