northern ireland politics

Strange outbreaks of positivity over Northern Ireland

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I was published in Unherd over the strange emergence of good vibes about breaking the EU-UK bad blood over the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Headline in Unherd from Gerry Lynch's article on the Northern Ireland Protocol

“After nearly two years of ugly in-fighting over the Northern Ireland Protocol, there has been a sudden outbreak of positivity from key players in London, Dublin, and Brussels about the possibility of a deal to amend or replace it. Even self-styled “Brexit hard man” Steve Baker, now a UK government minister in the Northern Ireland Office, told Tory conference-goers he was “sorry” his behaviour had weakened Anglo-Irish relations. He later asserted to BBC Radio Ulster his willingness “to eat a bit of humble pie” to achieve a deal.

[…]

“Although real gaps remain to be bridged, most parties have an interest in a deal being done. Above all, it would remove the risk of a UK-EU trade war erupting during a winter where it would be of primary benefit to Vladimir Putin. More subtly, it would be of assistance to both London and Brussels in the war of values, hard evidence that free democracies are better than autocrats at finding solutions in messy territorial and ethnic disputes. An agreed and flourishing post-Brexit Ulster would be a fine counter-blast to the hell Moscow has made of the Donbas.”

To read the rest, please click through to Unherd – it’s free.

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On Current Trends, Northern Ireland Will Leave the Union

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I was published in Unherd on the 2021 Northern Ireland Census figures. Demography isn’t destiny but it contributes powerfully to it. This week’s Northern Ireland 2021 Census release, showing Catholics outnumbering Protestants for the first time, does not in itself doom the Union. It should, however, represent a major warning to Unionists on both sides of the … Read more

IN MEMORIAM GERARD BENEDICT NEWE 1907-1982

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Where Layde’s old tombstones tell the taleOf time before we felt the flailOf England’s “for your own good” yokeYou must have stood on many a mornAnd blessed the day when you were bornIn May’s bright sunshine and turf-smoke.  As the dog clambered on your kneeYou looked at Scotland past the seaWhere flew the exiled childer Lir. Framed by hedges … Read more

Who Benefits from the Collapse of Power Sharing?

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Cross-posted at Slugger O’Toole…

We’re unlikely to know for a long time exactly why talks on restoring devolved government collapsed in such spectacular fashion last week. It’s always worth asking, in those circumstances, ‘cui bono?’

A long-term collapse in devolved arrangements, and a return to Direct Rule, whether or not it is acknowledged as such, would seem at first blush to benefit the DUP, at least in the short term. It also represents a significant shift in power within the DUP, away from Foster and the Assembly group with its stratum of moderates like Simon Hamilton, and towards the consistently hardline Westminster group, which is currently keeping Theresa May in power.

That in turn gives the DUP Westminster group a free hand to push for a hard Brexit with a relatively hard border, not tied into any Executive or wider Assembly approach which would see the DUP constrained by the need for consensus with Sinn Féin and a broader majority of pro-European opinion in the Assembly.

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First Past the Post is now harming unionism because it is concentrated around Belfast

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This article appeared in the News Letter of 9 September 2016 With Northern Ireland’s healthy population growth in recent years, the province is set to lose only one of its existing 18 seats. Additionally, some large differences in electorate size have developed, and the Boundary Commissioners are required to keep these variances below 5%. No … Read more

“A Battle A Day” Is Creating A Political Wasteland

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This blog was originally posted on Slugger O’Toole…

“It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo”. Recognise the quote? It came from Gerry Adams’ speech calling for the IRA to permanently abandon violence in 2005.

Just a few days before the 2007 Assembly Elections that restored devolved government, Peter Robinson concurred with Adams’ assessment in a BBC Radio Ulster interview. Asked whether a government jointly led by his party and Gerry Adams’ could work in practice, Robinson continued ominously, “This cannot be a lasting and enduring form of government.”

Eight years into a power-sharing experiment that has never worked well and is now at risk of collapse, it’s worth remembering that the leaders of its two main parties were sceptical before it even began.

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Anna Lo, and the Myth that Northern Ireland Politics is about the Border

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Cross-posted at Slugger O’Toole…

I very much doubt Anna Lo’s Irish News interview was in the Alliance Party’s 2014 elections gameplan. While almost all members of the party will remain loyal to her in public, I have equally little doubt that a number are privately fuming. Even some of them will have little problem with what she said, rather with its timing two months before local elections and little over a year before Naomi Long has to defend East Belfast. Others will regard it as a genuinely positive step, creating space for Alliance to expand beyond Belfast suburbia.

All political parties have internal ideological faultlines. Nearly twenty years ago, Nicholas Whyte identified Alliance’s primary faultline as being between the Liberal Unionists and the Liberal Liberals. I think that was spot on back then, although there were always a few Liberal Nationalists in Alliance – remember that one of Alliance’s first Stormont representatives was the Tyrone Nationalist MP Tom Gormley.

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Steven Agnew cleans Arlene Foster’s clock on gay marriage…

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Well done to Green Party MLA Steven Agnew for setting DUP Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster straight that civil partnerships are NOT equal to marriage and that all religious symbolism or language in civil partnership ceremonies in the UK is banned – by civil law. The scary thing, Arlene is about as gay-friendly gets in the … Read more

The youth vote: Cynicism of the first post-Troubles generation of voters

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This article appeared in the Belfast Telegraph of 16 June 2012 Northern Ireland’s youngest adults have no memories of the worst of The Troubles. From September, new voters coming onto the electoral register will be people who were not even born when the first IRA ceasefire was declared. Our 18-24-year-olds showed some surprising differences from … Read more