Northern Ireland General Discussion

[Torrain]

The Alliance is to a large extent unionist, yes? I consider the Alliance to be a unionist party even if there are some members who support reunification.

Alliance is not a Unionist party.  It is fundamentally an anti-sectarianism party and its members and supporters hold a range of views on the constitutional issue; I suspect that pragmatic support for the status quo, combined with irritation at the disruption to the status quo caused by Brexit, is the median position in the party, but that is not what is meant by "Unionism" in a Northern Ireland context.

I find Alliance to be an interesting party because of what you're describing. Is it fair to says that its supporters are younger than those of SF/DUP etc, or does it cut across the age divides?

Yes for the DUP/UUP. No for SF. In general, the younger generation recognizes that life in Northern Ireland at present sucks, and really want to move on. Currently those who came from (formerly) Unionist families are more likely to look towards the Alliance for a non-sectarian answer to the regions stagnation.

This I can corroborate with some anecdotal experience. Family and many of their friends are from longstanding Unionist families, who stuck with the UUP until recently (too moderate for DUP), but largely defected to Alliance around 2019.

[Torrain]

Given the likely resignation of the Sinn Fein MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (she’s standing for the EU Parliament in Ireland), we could have quite an interesting race on our hands.

An NI by-election, in a Sinn Fein-UUP marginal? Could be fascinating, and a focal point for parties to lay out their case vis-a-vis Stormont.

[Torrain]

DUP executive is meeting at 7pm tonight, to decide whether to approve the latest iteration of the Stormont deal. Notable because Donaldson had briefed that they wouldn’t convene a meeting like this until there was essentially a finalised deal.

[Torrain]

DUP meeting descending into farce:
https://twitter.com/SJAMcBride/status/1752055898971779372

[Torrain]

Kudos where it’s due - if Donaldson gets this through, he’ll get a modicum of respect from me, despite the chaos and wilful carelessness of the past few years.

Long way still to go, though…

[Torrain]

Hopefully this is just Wilson moaning (which is his default), and not the start of something coordinated from the hardliners:
https://twitter.com/eastantrimmp/status/1752745805256052937

In better news, it sounds like the louder brexiteers will wave it through if there's a Commons vote held on the deal - Rees-Mogg and even Bill Cash seem to be making positive noises, which suggests any rebellion would mirror the Windsor Framework vote, with a dozen Tories against, at most.

[Torrain]

Couple of notes as Stormont reforms.

The ministerial briefs are appointed in a sort of round robin (vaguely reminiscent of an NFL with Belfast accents), and while the shared positions are supposed to be worked out in advance, Sinn Fein have alleged that the DUP blindsided them with one pick on the day - which the DUP deny.

DUP took the education brief, leaving Sinn Fein to pick up Finance, which appears to be a move to take a more active role in the Irish language schools culture war, while letting SF take more of the blame for the imminent cuts expected.

Also - swirling speculation that Jeffrey Donaldson may stand down at this years general election, and take a Lords seat, knackered after the intraparty drama and wrangling he’s had to do, along with threats from loyalists that he’s spoken quite emotionally about in the Commons.

This would let the Deputy First Minister, who’s essentially his protege, seek election to his safe Commons seat. Particularly beneficial for her, given she was essentially handpicked by him for the seat, and ’co-opted’ rather than directly elected, which has triggered some grumbling about an ‘unelected’ politician co-running the executive.

Also somewhat noteworthy, given NI’s approach to social issues - Andrew Muir (Alliance) has been appointed Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, becoming the first openly-LGBT minister in the history of the Northern Ireland Executive.

[Torrain]

As now seems to be tradition for leaders of the devolved nations, Michelle O'Neil had a bit of a 'mare at the COVID Inquiry.

She never quite found a way to justify attending the unsocially distanced funeral of IRA man Bobby Storey, in the midst of restrictions, despite her ongoing attacks on Johnson over similar breaches during partygate. There's a whole other political matter of her attending events lauding such individuals in the first place, but that's a can of worms that I'm not ready to open today. Suffice to say, it happened, it was a big deal that certain family members of mine still moan about, and she didn't apologise until 4 years later.

The most awkward exchange though, came when she declared that, though she had deleted her messages, she could assure the inquiry she hadn't taken legislative decisions over texts or WhatsApp. The KC then immediately produced texts discussing such matters, between O'Neil and Arlene Foster, that Foster had handed to the inquiry.