St Andrews Agreement

High Court finds the DUP and Sinn Fein government in breach of promise over Irish strategy…

Mick Fealty on March 7, 2017, 8:27 am

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I saw this story tweeted when I was in the count centre in Belfast, and only how have a chance to blog it. The journalist I was sitting next to did think it was relevant to the business in hand (he had copy to file, and thanks to Gary on the live blog I didn’t). Irish language group Conradh na Gaeilge took the last administration to court over their failure to bring forth an Irish language strategy as agreed via …

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 …

Will the (good old) St Andrews Agreement come to Arlene’s rescue?

Mick Fealty on January 26, 2017, 10:20 am

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I’m not on social media (for the purposes of the job and the time that’s in Slugger’s the single exception) for this week. Out in solidarity with a younger member of the family who is doing it through school. It’s liberating to be relieved of the urge to share or express an opinion every passing piece of flotsam or jetsam (however fleeting) as it goes past. But I thought this was a good question from Alex Kane to fetch out …

Soapbox: The shameless fear politics being deployed by the DUP

Soapbox on March 10, 2016, 11:40 am

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Jamie Bryson is a well known anti-agreement Loyalist activist with an interest in law, politics and writing. He is author of “My Only Crime Was Loyalty”, an account of his role in the Union Flag protests and his subsequent lengthy and complex criminal trial. In an interview with Danny Morrison from the Andersonstown News just over a month ago, the former Republican prisoner remarked that surely the DUP would say that by Ruth Patterson- and other independents- standing in hotly …

UUP leaving the executive: anti agreement unionism for slow learners

Turgon on August 28, 2015, 5:58 pm

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So the UUP have finally done something exciting and left the Executive (or at least will once their own party executive rubber stamps the decision). The internal unionist politics of this: both why it was a politically good idea and the potential ramifications are significant and worth a separate blog (which I may get to at some point). For the meantime, however, looking from a pan unionist point of view why this matters is also important. There have always been …

Hyde Park bombing suspect will not be prosecuted

Turgon on February 25, 2014, 8:49 pm

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The BBC are reporting that John Downey who was arrested and charged with killing four soldiers in the 1982 IRA Hyde Park bombing will not be prosecuted because he was given a guarantee he would not face trial. Downey was arrested in 2013 at Gatwick whilst en route to Greece. From the BBC: ..over the course of legal argument, he asked the Old Bailey to halt the prosecution – saying he had received a clear written assurance from the government …

Welcome to our new and urbane tribalist politics…

Mick Fealty on May 13, 2011, 8:40 am

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Interesting thoughts from Brian Feeney on Hearts and Minds last night. He pretty much suggested that the two smaller parties had reduced roles in the new dispensation, and they should think themselves lucky to have that much. Interesting because, by and large, it’s true. Why? Because, since the St Andrews Agreement, gaining or keeping the office of First Minister can now be flagged up as the only thing that matters. Theoreticians tell us it doesn’t matter. The voters seem not to agree. …

Why further tinkering with the NI settlement could be politically dangerous

Mick Fealty on April 13, 2011, 9:19 am

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In the Irish News this morning Brian Feeney takes aim at those who, like Mark Durkan, have highlighted the ‘ugly scaffolding’ set in place (if modified by the St Andrews Agreement) as a key problem in the move towards settled politics. He argues that “any political scientist worth his salt can recognise the north for what it is, an ethno political problem”. And from that axiomatic premise he continues, “the key feature of all such ethno political solutions, imperfect though …

Tony Blair: “I took horrendous chances in what I was telling each the other had agreed to…”

Pete Baker on September 1, 2010, 10:58 am

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From Mick’s linked chapter on Northern Ireland in Tony Blair’s memoirs [pdf file] Such tactical manoeuvres were the warp and woof of the Northern Ireland peace process. Again at the last minute, after the negotiation over the St Andrews declaration of October 2006, up popped the issue of what oath would be sworn by those taking office in the reconstructed Assembly and Executive. All manner of permutations were gone through to find a mutually acceptable formula. Naturally the DUP wanted …

“Leading Sinn Féin members had been arguing that its justice programme was a “viable alternative” to conventional policing and justice systems.”

Pete Baker on August 10, 2010, 10:39 pm

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I’ll be reviewing political scientist Mary-Alice Clancy‘s new book, Peace Without Consensus – Power Sharing Politics in Northern Ireland, in due course. But, for now, The Guardian‘s Henry McDonald has highlighted some of the content White House staff and Irish officials were exasperated that Blair and his Downing Street chief-of-staff, Jonathan Powell, were prepared to allow Sinn Féin to run community restorative justice programmes and effectively establish a parallel justice system, according to a new book on Bush and the …