An attempt by hundreds of PSNI police to remove a bonfire in a
deprived republican area of north Belfast has erupted in a riot this
morning. Amid a standoff, one riot policeman has fallen to the ground
after being struck by stone-throwing youths.
Youths stayed on top of the bonfire as dozens of armoured vehicles and
riot police invaded the New Lodge area this morning. The bonfire is due
to be lit tonight, the anniversary of the introduction of internment
without trial.
The largest remaining nationalist bonfire in the north of Ireland is
broadly opposed by New Lodge residents themselves. The event is blamed
every year by politicians and media on young people they describe as
“scumbags” and “hoods”.
Its construction took place amid small-scale rioting over the course of
last week.
In recent days, “contractors beware” has been written on local walls, an
apparent threat to those hired to remove the wood pile. That echoed a
successful tactic of loyalists last month after their bonfire at Avoniel
Leisure Centre was threatened with removal but subsequently allowed to
proceed.
However, the response of the PSNI on this occasion has been dramatically
different, with scores of regular and riot police, some armed with
plastic bullet guns and police dogs deployed this morning into the heart
of the republican area.
PSNI encircled the bonfire, creating a police line which soon came under
attack from stones and other missiles.
Appeals by grassroots republicans for the PSNI to pull back to allow a
mediated solution have gone unheeded. The situation remains volatile,
with growing numbers of youths are gathering in the area. One member of
the PSNI was seen to fall to the ground after being struck by a large
stone.
Sinn Fein has called for the removal of the bonfire. Local
representative Caral Ni Chuilin said the bonfire “isn’t wanted” and
should be removed, and “all the criminal behaviour needs dealt with”.
Brian Feeney. Irish News. Belfast. Wednesday, August 7, 2019
The philosopher A C Grayling has called Brexit ‘a suicide cult’, though the comedian John Oliver probably coined the phrase first in 2017 after Theresa May invoked Article 50 to begin the two year countdown. Oliver said May and the Brexiteer cult had drunk their suicide potions which would take effect in 2019. Indeed Boris Johnson says, October 31 is ‘do or die’.
There is compelling evidence that the DUP are full (more like ‘fool’?) members of this deluded cult. Jeffrey Donaldson assured BBC Radio 5 last week that he ‘could live with 40,000 job losses’. Of course he could; his job won’t be one of them.
What an incredible statement for a politician to make, even what passes in the DUP for a politician.
Nevertheless, it sums up the attitude of the cult perfectly. They now accept an economic pile driver is descending, but they don’t care because the time for their magic potion to take effect rapidly approaches so they can dispense with all the lies and subterfuge.
You might have noticed the change in the past few weeks after the departure of Theresa May. Until recently Brexiteers, and our own mini- me version, the DUP, have been inventing nonsense, spotting unicorns, misrepresenting, mis-describing and misreporting the economic and legal facts and figures which indicate the inevitable catastrophe of no deal.
From 2016 to 2018 Donaldson, the DUP self-appointed expert on Borders, assured every media outlet he appeared on that technology would solve the backstop question the DUP had created in December 2017. That’s technology which doesn’t exist and which neither Donaldson, nor any of his fellow cult members could name.
Donaldson and cult arch-priest Owen Paterson assured people that the US-Canada border and Norway-Sweden border were ‘frictionless’. They’re not. Sammy Wilson treated us to repeated characteristically foam-flecked versions of the same fantasies.
Now, all has changed. As Johnson’s government lavishes £2.1 billion on no deal preparations to add to the £4 billion already, in Johnson’s elegant phrase, ‘spaffed up the wall’, cult members are thereby implicitly accepting that it’s going to be dreadful. The markets are pricing in a no deal Brexit, just as they priced in Brexit itself in 2016 by immediately dropping the pound 15 per cent. These days it’s at parity with the Euro in airport exchanges and will sink towards parity with the dollar. Still, the cult’s millennial rapture is coming into sight so they don’t care. Nothing is more important than leaving the EU.
Economists and think tanks and the Bank of England ask when will reality catch up with Johnson? When will he see sense? Futile questions. Johnson drank the potion in spring 2016, a year before May invoked Article 50. For him, ‘sunny uplands’ are in view. Only a malign conspiracy of Brussels and Dublin prevents the enjoyment of this bounty after October 31. They are the scapegoats for the economic crash he’s going to cause. Pathetically the DUP pygmies toddle along behind him chanting ludicrous attacks on Leo Varadkar and the Irish government which gets them coverage in the Tory press which has also mounted an onslaught on all things Irish.
The DUP have overplayed their hand and they know it. Last week twenty-seven civic bodies, including traditional DUP supporters in business and farming, issued a joint statement opposing no deal. Remember, they all support the backstop which the DUP’s stupidity and intransigence called into existence in the first place.
What’s extraordinary for a backwards looking, supposedly historically conscious party like the DUP, is that they have learnt nothing from Carson’s speech in the Lords when he lamented what a fool he’d been to be lured into playing the role of a puppet ‘in the political game that was to get the Conservative party into power’.
Amid the wreckage of Brexit, the DUP cult members are careless, as Donaldson admitted, of the impoverishment inflicted on people here. They’re supporting making people poorer.
Boris Johnson meets with DUP Leader Arlene Foster at Stormont Parliament in Belfast. Pic: Niall Carson
Arlene Foster has said that the DUP will “always speak up for the unborn child” as she has warned that despite recent legislation being passed at Westminster, abortion reform is not a done deal in Northern Ireland.
On the same day that the DUP leader met with newly elected British Prime Minster Boris Johnson, Mrs. Foster released a statement saying that “abortion is one issue where alliances have developed across the main traditions in the community”.
A DUP spokesperson has confirmed that in recent weeks Mrs. Foster has received over 5,000 emails, letters and petitions from constituents who have voiced their concern over the introduction of abortion measures in Northern Ireland.
A landmark vote was taken in Westminster in July aimed at implementing abortion and same sex marriage legislation in Northern Ireland by 21 October this year.
The caveat to the legislation is that it will not come into law if the Northern Ireland Executive has been re-established by that date.
“I remain determined to reach an agreement that will restore the Northern Ireland Executive. Therefore there will be no requirement for the implementation of the Northern Ireland Executive Formation Bill,” Mrs. Foster said.
She said that the “drastic approach” taken by the passing of this legislation at Westminster “would be unacceptable for Northern Ireland and leave no effective legal framework in place”.
Mrs. Foster also stated that her party’s confidence and supply agreement “does not extend to abortion”.
“The Conservative Party does not whip their MPs on this matter,” she said.
Ms Foster also said that there has been a development of cross community “alliances” on the issue of abortion.
“As the Party Leader, I feel that abortion is one issue where alliances have developed across the main traditions in the community. As I have been indicating, research by the Both Lives Matter campaign highlights that at least 100,000 people are alive in Northern Ireland today who wouldn’t have been if the 1967 Act had been extended here.”
The DUP leader is adamant that decisions on abortion should be taken be elected representatives from Northern Ireland and said that her commitment is to see the restoration of power to Stormont:
“I remain determined to reach an agreement that will restore the Northern Ireland Executive. Therefore there will be no requirement for the implementation of the Northern Ireland Executive Formation Bill. We strongly believe that it should be elected representatives from Northern Ireland, taking decisions on issues of life and the protection of the unborn child.”
Ms Foster also spoke about the concern that has been voiced to her by constituents.
“Over the past week I have received a huge number of emails and private messages of concern about the legislation being passed via Westminster that would introduce abortion measures here in Northern Ireland. I wish to personally thank each of you for your correspondence on an issue that is causing great concern and worry within our constituency. The DUP have consistently advocated a strong pro-life position. We will always speak up for the unborn child.”
The family of hunger striker Kevin Lynch has cut all ties with Sinn Fein and accused one of the party’s senior figures of dancing on the graves of the men who died.
It follows a row over a band named after Lynch appearing at a weekend commemoration.
Less than a day after party members stood alongside the Lynch family in Dungiven to commemorate the anniversary of his death, Sinn Fein MLA Raymond McCartney visited Mr Lynch’s sister to tell her the band named in memory of her brother was not welcome at a commemoration in Strabane – or any future Sinn Fein event. The band said this is because it had marched with dissident republican bands in Scotland recently.
Thousands of republicans attended Sunday’s national hunger strike commemoration in the Co Tyrone town. The Lynch family boycotted the event and removed all artefacts belonging to the former INLA prisoner who died in the Maze prison on August 1, 1981 from Sinn Fein’s Dungiven office.
A source close to the family said: “Kevin’s sister has been left deeply upset by all of this, the whole family have because it came out of the blue. The commemoration for Kevin went ahead in Dungiven as it does every year, but then Raymond McCartney called to the house and told Kevin’s sister and brother that the band wasn’t welcome at the hunger strike commemoration in Strabane. He said it was a decision taken by the bands association and not Sinn Fein, but he was there doing their work, so Kevin’s sister knew it was Sinn Fein.
“The family were deeply disappointed that Raymond McCartney agreed to deliver this message because they felt as a hunger striker himself he’d have known the hurt he caused them.
“Kevin’s family were also hurt by Sinn Fein in Dungiven, who clearly knew this was going to happen because the meeting with Raymond McCartney was supposed to take place before Kevin’s commemoration, but they got it put back.
“The family have removed everything belonging to Kevin from the Sinn Fein office in Dungiven and will have nothing more to do with them.”
The family also hit out at Sinn Fein MEP Martina Anderson dancing in a street in Strabane during the commemoration. Declan McGuinness, brother of the late Martin McGuinness, also voiced his disgust at Ms Anderson’s antics, describing them as “stratospherically beyond inappropriate” on social media.
The Lynch family source added: “I know that Kevin’s family thinks Martina Anderson dancing at the commemorations was the most totally inappropriate thing they ever saw and were sickened by it. They said it looked like she was dancing on the graves of all the hunger strikers.”
Foyle MLA Mr McCartney declined to comment.
A Sinn Fein spokesman said: “This was an issue between the bands association and the Kevin Lynch band. Sinn Fein worked to attempt to resolve the issue. We hold the Lynch family in the highest esteem and we deeply regret the family’s decision.”
