Sinn Fein has retained its Westminster seat for the West Tyrone
constituency after 26-year-old solicitor Orfhlaith Begley polled over
16,000 votes for the party in Thursday’s by-election.
She becomes the first female MP for West Tyrone in her first election
outing.
Sinn Fein registered a 4% decline in the party’s vote share while its
nationalist rivals in the SDLP gained 5%, reversing a swing in the
other direction in last year’s election.
There was an overall increase in the nationalist vote share by just
under 1%, due in part to the absence of the Green Party and independent
candidates.
The DUP saw some of its voters turn to the UUP as unionists protested
the party’s support for Brexit and its failure to return to
powersharing with Sinn Fein. The Alliance Party also improved on its
2017 electoral performance.
The drop in Sinn Fein’s vote had not been unexpected following a series
of controversies in the weeks leading up to the election, including a
return by the party to a policy of ‘unionist outreach’ as well as the
strongly pro-abortion stance adopted by party leader Mary Lou McDonald.
Ms McDonald was accompanied by the party’s leader in the Six Counties,
Michelle O’Neill when the result was announced at 2am on Friday
morning.
She hailed the election of Orfhlaith Begley as a vote against Brexit
and a vote for a return to Stormont. She said she was not concerned by
the decline in her party’s vote share, which she blamed on the
relatively low turnout of 55.1%, down from 68.2% in last year’s
Westminster election.
“In the last election, Sinn Fein took a massive percentage share,
winning 50 percent of the total vote in West Tyrone,” she said.
“All the predictions were that it would be impossible to come close to
that result but tonight, Orfhlaith Begley has done just that in her
first election and created history by becoming the first female MP for
West Tyrone.
“That is a stunning victory for Orfhlaith and for Sinn Fein.”
West Tyrone has been a safe Sinn Fein stronghold since 2001, when Pat
Doherty first took the seat for the party. Ms Begley’s father, Sean,
served 26 years as a Sinn Fein councillor on Omagh District Council and
she was heavily involved in the party’s campaign efforts in the area.
Ms McDonald argued the result was a mandate to end the DUP’s blockage
on a return to the power-sharing institutions.
“This election was the first time the people have been to the polls
since the DUP walked away from the draft agreement and collapsed the
talks process,” she said.
“Tonight the people have given their verdict on that and it is a huge
endorsement for genuine power-sharing based on rights, equality and
respect for all.
“The DUP should now end their blockage on a return to power-sharing and
if they refuse, there is an onus on the two governments to urgently
convene the British Irish Intergovernmental Conference to resolve the
equality and rights issues at the heart of the crisis.”
Earlier in the day there was a moment of drama when a man was arrested
on suspicion of possessing a firearm at a polling station in
Greencastle, County Tyrone. There was also a minor controversy after a
Sinn Fein election worker was accused by the SDLP of breaching rules by
operating “an electronic device” — a Kindle — at a polling station in
Dromore.
RESULT
Orfhlaith Begley (SF) 16,346 (46.7%, -4.0%)
Thomas Buchanan (DUP) 8,390 (23.9%, -3.0%)
Daniel McCrossan (SDLP) 6,254 (17.9%, +4.9%)
Chris Smyth (UUP) 2,909 (8.3%, +3.2)
Stephen Donnelly (Alliance) 1,130 (3.2%, +0.9%)
Father Pat Conroy, House Chaplain once again C-SPAN
House Chaplain Father Pat Conroy has withdrawn his resignation as House of Representatives Chaplin and will return to his job.
There was an outraged response when Speaker Paul Ryan, bowing to pressure from the right, who felt he had been too liberal in his prayers.
In a two-page letter to Ryan, Fr. Conroy rescinded his initial offer to resign, explaining that he had believed the Speaker had the power to fire him and has since learned that is not the case.
“I have never been disciplined, nor reprimanded, nor have I ever heard a complaint about my ministry during my time as House chaplain,” Conroy wrote, according to the Washington Post.
Congressman Joe Crowley (Dem-New York) had called for a House investigation while fellow Irish Catholic Rep. Peter King, a Republican, stated he had heard no criticism of the Chaplain.
2
The brouhaha has highlighted the weakness of departing Speaker Paul Ryan who was seen to have caved in to what many believed was an anti-Catholic cabal in Congress.
“Again, more words of wisdom for Members of Congress from noted commentator Brian Feeney on Brexit and how the DUP is all that is keeping Prime Minister May in power:’Remember, a year after the Brexit referendum, the British electorate had a look at Theresa May and her divided party, didn’t like what they saw and removed her majority. However, with the help of the DUP, she plows doggedly on. Foster’s party is supporting a government the British people rejected.’”—Fr. Sean McManus
Foster’s absurd EU comments show narrow world view
Brian Feeney. Irish News. Belfast. Wednesday, May 2, 2018
What’s that song, ‘Small Town Girl Livin’ in a lonely world,’? Taking a train to anywhere to get out of the big city.
It exemplifies Arlene Foster’s attitude to the EU and high politics. She reduces everything to the worm’s eye view of an unreconstructed 1950s Fermanagh unionist. Watch them-uns in Sinn Féin.
Her interview on Monday with the BBC – note BBC London, not BBC NI which it looks like she’s still in a huff with – showed she hasn’t a clue about how Michel Barnier is required to operate, what his aims and objectives are and what’s going on in the big world of politics. What was most pitiable is that she thought unionists had some role in Barnier’s negotiating calculations.
She complained he is not an ‘honest broker’: absurd. Barnier once again reminded journalists in Dundalk that he represents the EU27 and they present him with written guidelines he must follow. As he said, ‘I am not an arbitrator.’ His job is to get the best deal for the EU27 and of course that includes the Republic and definitely does not include Arlene.
Furthermore, negotiations are between the UK and the EU27, not between Barnier and Unionists who are represented or more accurately misrepresented by this UK government. Laura Kuenssberg correctly put it to Foster that she should be telling the British government of her concerns, not Barnier.
Sadly Foster doesn’t accept that she has no role. In her tiny circumscribed world everything is reduced to the fear of Sinn Féin. She complained that Barnier listens to the Irish government and Sinn Féin but not Unionists. Well of course Barnier listens to the Irish government. They are one of the EU27 on whose behalf he is negotiating and whose instructions he is complying with. They are remaining in the EU. Why should he, would he, listen to someone who doesn’t represent a sovereign government and besides, advocates leaving the EU? Of course he will also listen to Sinn Féin, a party with 23 TDs and four MEPs in an EU27 government and who support the EU. Why would he not listen to them? How silly to think otherwise.
Oh yes, of course. On Planet Foster Sinn, Féin are the bad guys, not to be trusted, guilty of “disgraceful behavior” and should never be accorded equal status with Unionists even though Unionists in this case are supporting the opposition in the negotiations Barnier is leading. What kind of a daft mindset is that? Oh yes, of course, a Fermanagh unionist ‘livin’ in a lonely world’. Unfortunately for Arlene she’s a spectator and will remain so.
What never figures in her remarks, is the preposterous position of her own party which does not represent the views of the majority of people in The North but worse, props up a dreadful shambolic government which has no mandate for its actions.
Remember, a year after the Brexit referendum, the British electorate had a look at Theresa May and her divided party, didn’t like what they saw and removed her majority. However, with the help of the DUP, she plows doggedly on. Foster’s party is supporting a government the British people rejected.
As opponents of May’s chaotic rigmaroles point out, no-one in Britain voted in the EU referendum to be poorer yet the DUP encouraged people here, unsuccessfully it should be said, to vote in their own worst interests.
You don’t hear much talk now from the DUP about ‘opportunities’ flowing from Brexit for it has dawned on them there are none. Every report from the British government, Stormont officials and independent economists agrees that The North will take the biggest hit from Brexit no matter what the exit deal is.
Yet despite the Conservatives’ austerity programme making people worse off, the cuts in education, health and welfare and the guaranteed economic downturn the DUP has never produced a plan of its own, never suggested how to mitigate the impact of Brexit on The North. Why? They can’t because it would put them at odds with the government they are keeping in power in defiance of the wishes of the British people.
In a Fermanagh unionist world-view is this the only way to secure The Union [with Britain]?
Distributed by Irish National Caucus Latest example of anti-Catholic strategy is deeply offensive
Letters to Editor. Irish News. Belfast. Published. Wednesday, May 2, 2018
Fr Sean McManus. President Irish National Caucus,Washington, DC
Since 1920, whenever it appeared that Catholics in Northern Ireland might be making a little progress – or being seen as getting uppity – right-wing fundamentalists were magically produced to preach odious anti-Catholic bigotry. It, of course, had nothing to do with true religion but, rather, all about “keeping Catholics in their place” – maintaining the systematic injustice and institutionalised violence of England’s Orange State.
Of course, straightforward political methods, needless to say, were also used. For example, in the recently published book on the modern UVF, “UVF: Behind the Mask,” author Aaron Edwards states (in a not altogether unsympathetic book): “Its [UVF) founding members claimed at the time that it had originally been formed to oppose the perceived threat posed by the IRA, though they later admitted that the UVF was really a tool of political intrigue utilised by a handful of faceless right-wing unionist politicians.”
The ‘two-wings’ approach was thus always used: the ‘religious’ anti-Catholic one, and the political-paramilitary anti-Irish one.
The latest example of the appalling and deeply offensive anti-Catholic strategy appears in the article, ‘The Protestant at Mass’ in the April-June edition of Ulster Bulwark, a right-wing, fundamentalist magazine. The article appallingly describes the Mass as evil. Nothing could be more offensive and shocking – indeed evil – to Catholics.
And, to make it even more atrocious, a co-founder of the DUP – and a key ally of the leader of the DUP delegation in the British Parliament – brazenly defends this appalling anti-Catholicism. This is all the more sad given the wonderful, Holy Spirit-inspired growing agreement between the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the World Methodist Council, the World Lutheran Federation and the World Communion of Reformed Churches on key issues – God help the poor north.
Protestant leaders in Northern Ireland – especially the DUP – must denounce this bigotry. And, I don’t want to hear those – who otherwise say they are for the human rights of all in the north – try to downplay and dismiss this odious religious hatred, no ‘buts’ – as if attacks on Catholicism is somehow not all that important. Anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, anti-Black racism and anti-Muslimism must all be unequivocally and publicly condemned – no ‘buts’.
“Ordinary folk in Scotland, Wales, and England have mostly given up to holding on to the racist British Empire pathology.
But sadly, there are still some holdouts in Northern Ireland. A section of the Unionist/Loyalist/ Protestant community has never fully rejected the discredited inglorious British-Empire thinking.
As the attached Irish Mirror article again reminds us, former unionist MP John Taylor seems to have a real problem with the fact that the new, impressive Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar, whose father is from India.
Winston Churchill appallingly personified the British Empire racist attitude toward India: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion . . . Let the Viceroy sit on the back of a giant elephant and trample Gandhi into the dirt.”
—Fr. Sean Mc Manus.
Former British politician John Taylor calls Leo Varadkar ‘typical Indian’
It’s at least the second time the ex-Ulster Unionist MP has described the Taoiseach with a racial term
Brynmor Pattison. Irish Mirror. Dublin. Monday, April 30, 2018
A former Ulster Unionist politician has been labelled racist after calling Taoiseach Leo Varadkar a “typical Indian”.
John Taylor, who now calls himself Lord Kilclooney, replied to a BBC Newsline post on Twitter that linked to an article about the DUP decrying the Fine Gael leader’s “poor manners” during a visit to Northern Ireland.
He tweeted simply: “Typical Indian.”
A host of people replied to the post, with one describing it as “appalling” and “shameful”.
Mr Taylor added to the post by tweeting: “You fail to understand that racially he is half Indian and legally he is Irish.
“Some day you will learn to know the difference in these terms.
“The Indians are a great race and I know as a Member of the British/Indian APPG helping Indians almost daily.”
When a person asked how Mr Varadkar was a “typical” Indian, he replied: “He does not understand how provocative he is to unionists. Irish politicians mostly know better and that is why we were able to have the Belfast Agreement.”
Mr Taylor further accused Mr Varadkar of “damaging North/South relations by being provocative several times to the Unionist Community in Northern Ireland”.
He also posted: “It is not racially abusive as he himself has confirmed he is half Indian. That is great and not to be dismissed as the Indians are a great race.
“However he has damaged North/South relations by being continually offensive and provocative to the Unionist majority in N Ireland.”
Mr Taylor also added: “You should not reject established practice when a foreign politician enters the UK. The Irish PM does not recognize the damage he continues to do to NorthSouth Relations by his provocative actions!”
The life peer landed in hot water last November when he described Mr Varadkar as “the Indian” in another tweet.
He tweeted: “Simon Coveney is stirring things up. Very dangerous non statesman like role! Clearly hoping to undermine the Indian.”
Fine Gael Senator Catherine Noone soon called out the post and replied: “Disgraceful comment John. Leo is 100% Irish as you well know. The mind boggles.
Lord Kilclooney said: “In which way is he 100 per cent Irish??”
Ms. Noone replied: “Please go back to the 1800’s.”
In other posts explaining the tweet the life peer claimed the offensive nickname was “shorthand for an Indian surname which I could not spell”.
He added: “I should have said PM and not used Indian as shorthand for his name which I must learn to spell correctly.”
