The whole point of Ulster unionism

Posted by Jim on March 28, 2018

“The whole point of Ulster unionism was to avoid living on equal terms with the rest of the people on the island. What they need to be considering now, is how to ensure in the near future they guarantee their position so they can live on equal terms with the rest of the people on the island.”
Shadow assembly a step backwards

Brian Feeney. Irish News. Belfast. Wednesday, March 28, 2018

The DUP don’t want another Executive, at least not while they hold the balance of power at Westminster. And that dirty deal the desperate Theresa May did with the party has also altered the balance of power in the DUP and in The North, all for the worse.

Most of the DUP MPs were members of the dirty dozen who tried in 2006 to stop Paisley signing up to the St. Andrews Agreement which they correctly saw as a fig leaf covering their embarrassment for operating the Good Friday Agreement which they all opposed. Over the years from 2007,  Peter Robinson managed to offload from Stormont these yesterday’s men, these dinosaur-denying dinosaurs, as some Tory MPs call them, to Westminster. It didn’t count after devolution.

Who would have thought 2017 would see the release of the sequel, The Return of the Zombies? Naturally they want to go back to the future. On a weekly basis, one or other of them,  will call for direct rule by which of course they mean ‘DUP rule’ since our current proconsul—surely the blankest political nonentity since Humphrey Atkins— shamelessly agrees to anything a DUP MP asks her.

A variant on the request for direct rule is to repeat the disingenuous line that they are happy to return to an executive immediately ‘without preconditions’ by which they mean they want to go back to behaving the way they did that caused the collapse of the institutions in The North in the first place. They know it’s not going to happen because Sinn Féin couldn’t agree to it. That’s why they keep saying it,  yet few journalists here ever challenge its inherent nonsense. Both mantras are simply ways to avoid sharing power with Sinn Féin which the MPs never wanted to do.

The latest ploy to avoid sharing power is to ask for a Shadow Assembly. It’s a demonstration of the disgraceful compliance with the DUP that our proconsul even agrees  to consider such nonsense. Apart from avoiding sharing power here it’s an obvious attempt to avoid their MLAs losing £13,000 a year and their extravagantly subsidised nosh up at Stormont.

On previous occasions when northern secretaries agreed to unionist-inspired talking shops, the Prior assembly in 1982 and the so-called Forum in the now demolished Belfast Co-op building both Sinn Féin and the SDLP boycotted them. Why? They were both steps backward from power-sharing and nothing can work in the absence of the representatives of the nationalist community, 41 per cent of the voters in June last year. If you can have power-sharing in 1974 you can have it in 2018. It’s an outrage that a British proconsul should even contemplate anything less, especially to placate those refusing to share power.

In fact there’s an argument that we’ve gone beyond talks about sharing power. The fact that the DUP’s dinosaurs control the party and, on last weekend’s conference performance, fit with their party leader’s tiny political world, means the DUP is incapable of considering the wider picture. One of the reasons for their emphasis on Westminster and refusal to do a deal in The North is that they are in denial, publicly anyway, about the real dynamic in The North; political, social, economic and demographic change which we’ve begun to see in evidence in the last year.

Instead of talking about rules for running Stormont and managing the cruder manifestations of old style unionist supremacy like flags, emblems and marches through Catholic districts,  Unionists should be sitting down to talk about their children’s future on this island, their relations with the Irish government as well as northern Nationalists.

As you’ve read here before it’s better they do it now when they’re on almost equality in numbers in Stormont rather than when they inevitably slip into minority status. The whole point of Ulster unionism was to avoid living on equal terms with the rest of the people on the island. What they need to be considering now, is how to ensure in the near future they guarantee their position so they can live on equal terms with the rest of the people on the island.

Clinging to Westminster only postpones the time when the real talks about future begin.

Official Communication from the UFA

Posted by Jim on March 27, 2018

Martin’s legacy will be a new Ireland – Adams

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Raymond McCartney and Gerry Adams at the Remembering the Chieftain event in the Millemmium Forum.

» Michael McMonagle

“He obviously made his mark and those of us who were privileged and honoured to be close to him share a common loss with many, many people who never knew Martin but felt an affinity with him.” – Gerry Adams

More than 800 people packed into the Millennium Forum Theatre in Derry last night for the ‘Remembering the Chieftain’ event which saw former Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams recount his memories of the late Martin McGuinness.

It was the culmination of a series of events organised in Derry over the last week to celebrate the life and legacy of Martin McGuinness on the first anniversary of his death.

At the event, Gerry Adams was interviewed by Foyle MLA Raymond McCartney about his memories of Martin McGuinness and their long partnership which stretched more than 45 years.

The McGuinness family, including Martin’s wife, Bernie, and their children and grandchildren, were among the large crowd who listed as the Louth TD spoke of his personal and political relationship with Martin.

Over the course of the evening, Gerry Adams recounted his first meetings with Martin, including their first encounter when they were part of a republican delegation and the British government.

Discussing their first meeting, Gerry Adams said: “A meeting of us who were going was held in Dublin in Myles Shevlin’s home. That was the first time I met Martin. We were young guys. The older men there were planning a very formal meeting and I took a different approach and said that’s what they’d be used to, let’s approach this in a different way and Martin made the same point. So even though we didn’t know each other then it was clear we shared common notions of how to conduct ourselves.”

The former Sinn Féin President also said he misses Martin McGuinness every day.

“What is really striking about Martin’s death and the impact that it has is that it was so unfair. He was looking forward so much to coming out of the deputy First Minister position. And he was looking forward to being with Bernie and the kids and grandkids and spending time in Donegal.

“I do miss him everyday now. I thought at the second Ard Fheis (in February) that it was a bit more therapeutic but I found the event at Stormont when the portrait was unveiled very emotional. I found The Chieftain’s Walk event very uplifting, so it is different. It comes at me in all sorts of ways and most of it isn’t political. When the Sunday Game comes on Martin comes into my head because I know he would have been watching it.

“I spent three days on my own in Donegal and I couldn’t get him out of my head for the whole three days.

“If the likes of me is going through those processes I can only guess how difficult it is for Bernie, Fionnuala, Grainne, Emmet and Fiachra,” he explained.

Gerry Adams also said Martin McGuinness had an impact that went far beyond politics.

“When we were fighting the recent two elections in the north I was struck by the number of people, mostly in their 30s or 40s who said to me that they grew up with me and Martin in their sitting rooms on their TVs, including people who were very hostile to us, who were very taken by Martin’s death and the suddenness of it. So he obviously made his mark and those of us who were privileged and honoured to be close to him share a common loss with many, many people who never knew Martin but felt an affinity with him,” he told the audience.

The Louth TD said Martin McGuinness will always be remembered by all those who met him and that his legacy will be a new Ireland.

“Martin wouldn’t like to be singled out and for people to say it was down to him, buta huge amount of it is. What a lot of people take for granted now would not have happened without him. So his legacy is a new Ireland,” he said.

Ex-soldier to stand trial

Posted by Jim on

Ex-soldiers to stand trial over murder of Official IRA man Joe McCann

11

By Alan Erwin

March 27 2018

Two ex-soldiers are to stand trial charged with murdering an Official IRA man in Belfast 46 years ago, a judge has ordered.

The former paratroopers, who cannot be identified, allegedly killed Joe McCann in Belfast back in April 1972.

A judge ruled that they have a case to answer following a preliminary inquiry at the city’s Magistrates Court.

McCann, one of the Official IRA’s most prominent activists, was shot in disputed circumstances near his home in the Market area.

A police investigation conducted at the time resulted in no-one being prosecuted.

But in 2013 a report by the now-defunct Historical Enquiries Team concluded the killing was not justified.

Files were then passed to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS), who reviewed the case and decided in 2016 to bring murder charges.

The defendants, now aged in their sixties, are known only as Soldier A and Soldier C.

They were granted temporary anonymity at an early stage amid fears that identification could put their lives at risk.

According to the prosecution, Soldier A and Soldier C are surviving members of the army patrol involved in the shooting incident. A third member of the unit has since died.

Both defendants were present during last week’s preliminary inquiry hearing, lawyers confirmed.

After examining evidence District Judge Fiona Bagnall decided they should be returned for Crown Court trial.

Arraignment proceedings are expected to take place next month.

Outside court the McCann family’s solicitor called for the trial to get underway without delay.

Rosie Kinnear of KRW Law said: “Since April 15, 1972, it has been the family’s firm assertion that Joe was murdered.

“Nearly 46 years later, the decision of the court to return Soldier A and Soldier C for trial in the Crown Court on murder charges has vindicated that belief.”

Ms Kinnear added: “The McCann family welcome this significant decision and are eager for the trial to take place as soon as possible.”

Belfast Telegraph Digital

Official Communication from the UFA

Posted by Jim on March 26, 2018

March 26^th