Annus Horribilis or Dawn of a New Era?
As the year draws to a close, it is quite mind-boggling to reflect on just what has happened in the politics of Northern Ireland.
If Rip Van Winkle had returned here after a thirty year slumber and been told that there was a power-sharing Executive headed by DUP leader Ian Paisley with Sinn Fein's Martin Mc Guinness as Deputy First Minister, he would have thought that he had arrived in fantasy land.
Let's face it the two northern political leaders who sat in the Oval Office last week have, to put it mildly, a chequered past and their previous deeds and spoken words could easily fill this paper from front page to back.
Two sound bites will suffice. In a BBC programme, Real Lives,' in the mid 1980s, Martin Mc Guinness said "We Republicans don't believe that winning elections will bring freedom in Ireland. At the end of the day it will be the cutting edge of the IRA that will bring freedom." In the same decade was Ian Paisley's defiance of the innocuous Anglo–Irish Agreement: 'Never, never, never, never...' It seems that our political leaders are now living in Never Never Land and that the majority of the general public doesn't seem to be too bothered. Martin appears to have accepted that the constitutional position of Northern Ireland will only be changed through the principle of consent and sure Big Ian is now Bertie Ahern's bosom buddy and finds Dublin more congenial than London! Sadness and anger are the reactions of the families of the victims of the two thousand plus people who died before the extremists came to their senses.
The uncomfortable past has not come back to haunt Sinn Fein or the DUP and the biggest dissidents at Stormont are the SDLP and UUP who do not seem able to accept their new roles as minor players in the new political structures. In this year's assembly Elections the DUP all but decimated their Ulster Unionist opponents while the SDLP saw further haemorrhaging of its vote and its continued existence is dependant upon a few and diminishing number of pockets of support. This year it ceased to have an Assembly seat in West Tyrone, for example, due to internal squabbles and seems to have little appetite or ability to rebuild the party, and has placed its hope exclusively in a take-over by Fianna Fail. Its only plus this year has been the feisty performance of Margaret Ritchie in standing up to the UDA and aggressively defending her position against the attempts to undermine her stance by both Sinn Fein and the DUP.
Dissidents
There are, of course, republican and unionist dissidents on the wings. Many former Sinn Fein supporters of the physical force tradition cannot accept that the present mainstream republican leadership seem to have accepted the state of Northern Ireland together with its institutions and the principle of consent to boot. On the opposite end of the spectrum are unionists who may coalesce around unionist MEP, Jim Allister who has announced the formation of a new unionist party, Traditional Unionist Voice, opposed to power-sharing. As I see it, neither the Sinn Fein or DUP leaderships are exactly quaking in their boots as they survey the political threats around them. The political horizon looks election free for a few years, which should add to the growing stability but that is not to say that relations between the Shinners and the Fundamentalists are rosy. A few weeks ago in London I went along to see Christian Slater in the West End production of 'Swimming with Sharks.' The title of the play is apt for relations at Stormont and woe betide any politician who forgets such words of wisdom!
I wonder if among the Christmas merriment in the Oval Office there was any notice of the almost unheralded move by Bertie Ahern to register Fianna Fail as a political party with the Electoral Commission in Northern Ireland. Charlie Haughey once described Bertie as "the most skilful, the most devious, the most cunning of them all" and the seamless way in which Fianna fail has set up shop in the universities in Belfast and Derry certainly suggests that Fianna Fail is worth watching by the other parties. The Soldiers of Destiny really have to come to terms with the consequences of fighting election in the North, especially Westminster elections. Given that the next Westminster election could result in a hung parliament, David Cameron could do with a few Fianna Fail votes in the House of Commons! The future northern political alliance may well be between Fianna Fail and the DUP, which would please the vast majority of unionist voters who would like nothing better to see than Sinn Fein removed from positions of influence in the Executive. The first moves towards a rapprochement between the parties have already been taken by Paisley and Ahern, the real Chuckle Brothers.
Appalling
This was supposed to be the year of the big break through by Sinn Fein in the Republic's politics with Gerry Adams waxing les than eloquently about the prospect of Sinn Fein ministers on both sides of the Border.
It was not to be, due in no small measure to his appalling appearance
on television and radio in which he was completely out of his depth on economic measures. Since then, Adams seems to be being pushed further into the background. Next year should se him spending more time with the family, the euphemism for being dropped!
Locally, the political accolade for best Westminster MP surely goes to Gregory Campbell for tirelessly voicing his constituents' concerns both in the House of Commons and through judicious courting of the media. Other invisible, fast becoming anonymous, political figures should take note. The rising political star of the year has been Sinn Fein's Martina Anderson who was elected to the Assembly and has been a bit like Gregory in building a high profile on local issues. By contrast, after a good year as Mayor, Helen Quigley's star has dipped, at least temporarily, with her failure to make it to the Assembly. In politics it is a very thin line between success and failure.
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Weather for Derry
Sunday 12 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 5 C to 8 C
Wind Speed: 6 mph
Wind direction: West
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 6 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: North west
