What care Unionists for the Union?
Following yesterday’s podcast, Adam Maguire has an interesting question: are Unionists in Northern Ireland more supportive of UK unity or simply against Irish unity?
Unionism
Orange music archive online…
This loyalist music site looks like an interesting resource. If you want to know how 2 Garda keep 15,000 Orangemen under control, check out the Rossknowlagh video.
Podcast: On the importance of West Lothian…
Last week we caught up with top Tory blogger Iain Dale to ask him about his party’s raising of the West Lothian question (download from here). He notes that for all the recent furore around West Lothian question it was in the last Conservative manifesto. He argues that if the presentation has not been everything it should have been, the party is right to raise English unease at a perceived imbalance in the wider relationships of the UK. Indeed, he …
“serves nobody’s interests.. apart from the interests of the crazies”
The BBC briefly reports the restrictions on this year’s 12 July parade as it returns past the Ardoyne shops (I haven’t located the actual ruling yet Parades Commission determination here) and adds: “In the past, there have been disturbances in the area surrounding contentious parades.” Hmm.. the Irish Times’ Gerry Moriarty’s eye-witness account of those disturbances last year are worth recalling: “What happened at Ardoyne was as bitter, ugly and raw as you can imagine” Pete Baker
West Lothian solution ‘a constitutional abortion’?
Hmmm, things are hotting up on the constitutional position viz a viz the West Lothian question. There seems to be considerable anger on both sides of the argument within the Tory party, which party’s Unionist credentials must surely be under some strain. Blair’s not for turning, and neither is Brown likely to, despite the goading in his own back yard. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and …
Not just a West Lothian velvet divorce?
David Cameron, reportedly, is to ignore the warnings, noted by Mick, and will continue to attempt to pressurise Prime Minister in waiting, Gordon Brown, over the West Lothian question. A highly speculative thought crossed my mind if the Conservatives ever do follow this through to its, seemingly, natural conclusion – see below.Neal Ascherson’s recent openDemocracy article examined among other issues the constitutional, or rather the parliamentary, issue: The constitution The second problem is constitutional – or parliamentary. At Westminster, Scottish …
All aboard, then?
Not much in the way of statements about the UUP executive meeting on Friday, where the party’s pact with the PUP and the Electoral Commission’s call for the party’s finances to be investigated were due to be discussed, the BBC quotes an anonymous source subtly damping down reports of any possible controversy and notes that “Sir Reg left the meeting without making any comment.” Pete Baker
“politically, strategically and electorally reckless”
David Ervine’s attempt to answer his critics over the UUP’s Faustian pact is still online for now [but if you want to read it for free be quick – Ed] It’s more ill-tempered fingerpointing than answers though, which is why I didn’t note it previously, but it has prompted a response from Alex Kane in today’s paper in which he raises some other questions of not just David Ervine but the UUP leader Reg Empey too Why, Mr Ervine (Sir …
A game of two halves…?
There’s a few things worth returning to in Drew Nelson’s Irish Times interview. This statistic is one of them: “In the first 20 years of the Troubles four Orange halls were burnt, one of which was in Cavan. But since 1989 there were 240 burnt. It is significant that at around the same time the republican movement started to oppose our parades. There was occasional bother before that but not to this extent.” So is it a meaningless coincidence? Does …
Excluding force of a liberal myth?
Madelaine Bunting is one of the Guardian’s writers whose work is causing the largest waves over at Comment is Free. In her last piece as a Guardian staffer, she reflects on the necessity of drawing in people of faith into the ‘national conversation on values and identity, sometimes characterised elsewhere as a discussion of Britishness. In particular she notes how the certainty of some of the left that religion is a unique source of violence and discord could exlude the …
Washing out the unwanted narratives of history
At the weekend Gerry Moriarty did an interview with Drew Nelson (subs needed), grand secretary of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland (although Nelson is not in the least bit scary, the photographer clearly had ‘Hammer House of Horror’ in mind when he set up the shoot). Not unusually for an Orangeman, it turns out he has relations in West Cork. In terms of history, it is redolent with memories of the War of Independence. But one series of incidents …
Unionists should not be on the sidelines of the Britishness debate
I was struck by Fair Deal’s ‘annual’ rant on the nature of the discussion on Gordon Brown’s call for the filling out of a meaningful overarching ‘British’ identity – it’s an early response to the Hearts and Minds discussion. In particular, this paragraph stands out: He went on about how Brown hadn’t done much thinking about what this all meant. This isn’t bad, this is bloody wonderful. A person who will almost certainly hold the highest office in our country …
Electoral Commission accused of “deliberate plan to damage Ulster Unionism”
In the Sunday Times, Liam Clark adds some of the missing detail on the secret UUP account which, as noted here on Friday, led the Electoral Commission to ask the police to investigate the UUP’s finances [actually he adds it twice – Ed]. The account seems to have been in the United States and contained $21,000 (£11,362) from a New York fundraising dinner in December 2004. Also noted in the report is the current suspension, on full pay for undisclosed …
Second secret UUP bank account discovered
The BBC report that the Electoral Commission has asked the police to “examine the discovery of two undisclosed bank accounts linked to the Ulster Unionist Party” – the report interestingly stops short of calling it an investigation – after a second undisclosed bank account was unearthed during the inquiries into an earlier undisclosed account from which £50,000 was secretly funnelled into the party coffers.The report quotes a commission spokesman: A commission spokesman said: “It was brought to our attention by …
Hearts and Minds: Haughey and Brown…
Hearts and Minds is on at 9pm on BBC2 tonight, because of the football (England 2 Trinidad and Tobago 0, btw). Charlie Haughey will provide the nationalist interest, whilst Gordon Brown renewal of British patriotism and flag waving should provide Unionists with a rare glimpse of a UK national issue. Though the programme will no doubt, “remind him of a few of the risks involved when you seek to encourage national fervour”. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He …
“we will know relatively quickly whether those with whom we are engaged with are being disingenuous”
UUP leader Reg Empey didn’t take too long to respond to the Newsletter interview in which the party’s only MP, Sylvia Hermon, publicly criticised the party’s Faustian Pact with the PUP. The BBC report his response here. He seems to be adhering to his official line, also promoted in the Belfast Telegraph today, of needing “time and space” to assess his risky move [Leave Reg alone? – Ed] although that doesn’t necesarily square with earlier reports of other approaches. But …
Get the UVF monkey off our backs!
Alex Kane in his Newsletter column last Saturday was clearly unhappy about the way his party had gotten itself tied into (if only by association, rather than by any executive connection) “all sorts of conspiracy theories involving spooks and ‘those who have agendas of their own’” that arguably has dragged Republican politics through the mire in the last year and a half.By Alex Kane I was interviewed on Wednesday’s TalkBack, about the state of the UUP/PUP relationship following the shooting …
How Reg Empey stumbled upon the high ground…
Roy Garland explores the interesting twist the UUP’s co-option of the PUP leader David Ervine has given to Unionist politics. He believes that the move and the DUP’s apparent abandonment of plans to back Tommy Kirkham for Mayor of Newtownabbey are indicative of the emotional limitations of the DUP and an internal unwillingness to take risks. People throughout the community were shocked at Sir Reg Empey’s courage and honesty about the past deeds of some unionist politicians. Honesty about the …
Empey: unionism has a lot to answer for too…
On Friday, Fionnuala O’Connor picked up a subtly important theme only now emerging from the botched co-option of David Ervine into the UUP’s group at Stormont. For it’s clearest expression she bring us back to last month’s Let’s Talk (Video link, about 29 minutes in). She notes: A telling line on the Let’s Talk programme was his “this isn’t simply an opportunistic thing” admission of the element that blighted his chance of taking the high moral ground in Stormont. On …
UVF/UUP: crisis, what crisis?
There’s quite a few angles on the implications for the UUP of the attempted murder of UVF man Mark Haddock. Henry McDonald muses on how long it can be until UUP meltdown, given the Loyalist paramilitaries (despite the undoubted good intentions of David Ervine) are still acting well outside of both the spirit and the letter of the Belfast Agreement.Empey defends his decision on the basis that no one else is working to bring Loyalism ‘inside the tent’. Given Haddock’s …