Unionism

The 70th anniversary of the 1947 Education Act has lessons for the DUP

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On a different tack the Bel Tel recently published a second article showing unionists in government in a more favourable light. This time it’s an article by Prof Graham  Walker of QUB  on the 70th anniversary of the the passage of the 1947 Education Act.  Would that today’s Stormont could agree on effective measures to replace that Act’s 11 plus and advance the cause of genuinely secular integrated education. But in its time the ’47 Act was a real advance …

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“in just the same way that nationalists in Northern Ireland can’t permanently settle for their Irish/nationalist identity being simply recognised and accommodated in part of the United Kingdom…”

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In yesterday’s News Letter, Alex Kane, in effect, calls ‘bullshit’ on Sinn Féin’s latest pronoucements on a new united Ireland…  and, perhaps, the political psychosis that underlies their thinking.  That’s without addressing the question of the authority to offer any such constitutional guarantees and/or the willingness, or ability, to deliver them.  [It’s ‘Blue Sky’ thinking! – Ed]  Of course it is…  From the News Letter article I was on a Féile an Phobail panel with Michelle O’Neill last Wednesday evening, …

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More than a wider vision of unionism is needed to take us through Brexit

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This article in the Belfast Telegraph by John Wilson Foster is an honourable fret about unionist identity in the light of Brexit.  Foster’s answer to the problems of Brexit appears to lie in the creation of  a wider unionism closer to British norms. So far so good, but only so far.  In his own terms Foster poses the familiar question that has puzzled unionists forever: why is Irish nationalism viewed as   “good” and Ulster “nationalism” bad? One sentiment is permissible, …

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Active north-south cooperation would be the intelligent unionist response to Sinn Fein’s vision of unity out of Brexit

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There has been a delayed reaction of critical comment on the Oireacthas report on the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement in the light of Brexit. The report called for special status for Northern Ireland within the EU but coupled it with a drive to work for unionist consent to a united Ireland. This would include a new New Ireland Forum of the type held in the early 1980s which recognised unionist Britishness but was repudiated by Fianna Fail and …

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“We cannot complain about the Irish State or its Constitution. It protects our rights.”

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From the Irish Times which is worth reading about the Orange Order and how they operate in the South. The entire article is worth a read but this comment about the Irish constitution is worth highlighting A past master and current chaplain of the lodge, he says he could not ask for more protection from the State for his freedom of expression. “It’s fantastic. See the Irish Constitution, article 40.6.2: free assembly under the law without bearing arms. We can assemble …

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“it is tempting to conclude that SF has no strategy…”

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From yesterday’s Irish News, Patrick Murphy, once again, making direct contact with the head of the nail. While the DUP’s future role in Westminster is far from predictable, it is easy to understand. Sinn Féin’s strategy, however, is less clear. Indeed it is tempting to conclude that SF has no strategy, other than to prolong the talks and hope for a lucky break, similar to the one the DUP received in Westminster. Sinn Féin collapsed Stormont because of the RHI …

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“Look, this Carthage obsession of yours. For Jupiter’s sake, let it go, man!”

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With the Scottish First Minister, the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon, backing down, for now, from her previous strident position on indyref2 the BBC’s Scotland editor, Brian Taylor, detects the “scunner factor” at work. Voters in Scotland have thrilled to seven electoral tests in three years. They are already anxious over the uncertainty attendant upon Brexit. Are they ready for yet more eager talk from the SNP and the Scottish Government about the prospect of indyref2? Nicola Sturgeon has concluded that they …

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What does the British government think its proper role is?

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Until last week, remarkably little attention had be paid to how this government  views  its obligations under “Constitutional Issues”  (v) of  the Good Friday  (Belfast) Agreement: (v) affirm that whatever choice is freely exercised by a majority of the people of Northern Ireland, the power of the sovereign government with jurisdiction there shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all the people in the diversity of their identities and traditions and shall be founded on the principles of …

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“Anyone for more opium?”

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The empty rhetoric of the Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, in Downing Street last week… Speaking at Downing Street, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said that the party told Mrs May “very directly that she was in breach of the Good Friday Agreement” over the Conservative negotiations with the DUP. …is neatly summed up in Ed Moloney’s blog post title, “Sinn Fein Meet May, Complain And Then Go Away……Move On, No Story Here“. The party’s impotence, in relation to any arrangement …

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Election eve is hardly the time for calm consideration of the future

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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 …

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Two coffees and a Highland wedding

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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 …

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It’s easier to get rid of a hard border

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Vincent Boland has written a major piece for the FT magazine (£) entitled “Dividing Line: Brexit and the threat to the Irish Border“. The article is all more absorbing for being written for the casually interested globalised audience that is the FT’s typical readership. Boland doesn’t deal in economic statistics or confusing politics but on the intense, often harrowing experience that remains the living legacy of the Troubles on both sides of the physical border. And here he identifies the …

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Conservative manifesto very warm on the Union, cool and correct to the Republic, no mention of special status in ” a comprehensive free trade and customs agreement”

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TORY LAUNCH: Here I concentrate on those matters of specific interest to Northern Ireland. Remember that while manifestos tend to be mainly broad brush, they convey a sense of direction. The rhetoric of this one is modern British Unionist, as would be expected with the Union under threat but it avoids Rule Britannia jingoism.

Are the DUP sounding “generous and smart” or have they just lost their mojo?

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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 …

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Citizens’ assemblies in Northern Ireland planned to influence the Brexit debate

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Three academics, John Garry and John Coakley of Queen’s and Brendan O’Leary of the University of Pennsylvania are planning citizens’ assemblies to feed into the Brexit debate in the absence of the elected Assembly. Good idea. We await an announcement which I hope will not be confined to academe, which is where I picked it up – you know, the liberal elite and all that. Their pitch is: How NI voted in the EU referendum – and what it means for …

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The EU summit’s declaration on a united Ireland exposes British isolation

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EU prepares for post-Brexit united Ireland membership Summit endorsement would raise fears over fragmentation of UK The Financial Times  is getting  excited about today’s  EU summit endorsing special treatment for Ireland  in the Brexit negotiations and raises “ fears for the fragmentation of the UK “ The Irish Times political editor Stephen Collins is equally excited that a declaration on Ireland gives Enda Kenny the dignified farewell he’s been seeking. What does it amount to? The Irish Times gives a …

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The saving grace of electoral pacts is that they’re short lived. There’s a longer and bigger game to play afterwards

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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, …

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If they let it drift too long, we could be back to 1969

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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

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

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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 …

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