Posted by Jim on November 25, 2018
A breakaway anti-abortion, nationalist/republican party being set up by
former Sinn Fein TD Peadar Toibin is organising meetings across the
country and has already recruited two councillors, Sinn Fein Kildare
councillor Ide Cussen and former Sinn Fein Cork councillor Ger Keohane.
Mr Toibin said he had experienced an “avalanche of interest” in just the
last week since he formally resigned from Sinn Fein and announced a new
32 County movement.
“Its like watching a pressure cooker have the weights taken off it,” he
said. “There is so much pent up frustration in the Irish political
system.”
While the party has no name yet, Toibin said his new party will be a
grassroots, activist organisation which will take decisions collectively
among its members.
He urged people to be patient. “Hundreds of people have contacted us,”
he said. “We are getting through you expressions of interest as fast as
we can.”
Meetings which have been organised so far include Kildare, Dublin,
Tralee, Cavan, Navan, Dundalk, Wexford, Mayo and Monaghan.
The party’s draft manifesto declares: “We seek an Irish Republic, where
the objectives of the 1916 Proclamation, to ‘Cherish all the Children of
the Nation Equally’, are achieved.”
One of its core values is that it believes “all human life should be
protected and that no mother or child should be left behind”.
The party is a “Euro-critical party” — one that opposes European
federalism and a European army. It also states it will be a party that
protects the freedom of conscience of elected representatives.
Councillor Cussen said she resigned from Sinn Fein due to there being no
freedom of conscience within the party in relation to the abortion
issue. While she said her resignation was a sad day for her, she said
she intends to “stand shoulder to shoulder” with Mr Toibin.
It is the fifth political party with roots in Sinn Fein to form since
1986, the others being Republican Sinn Fein (1986), the 32 County
Sovereignty Movement (1997), eirigi (2006), and Saoradh (2016).
Mr Toibin said other elected representatives will be announced in the
coming days. He says that he is in talks with 20 and is confident that a
“good chunk will come on board”.
“I look for forward to working with them to give a voice to the hundreds
of thousands of people with no voice in the political spectrum,” he
said.
* In a separate development, a Dubliner Brian Kenna has been selected as
the new chairman of Saoradh at the party’s ard fheis [annual conference]
in Dundalk, County Louth, last Saturday. The former political prisoner
replaced Tyrone republican Davy Jordan who served as chairman since
2016.
The incoming chairman told those in attendance it was an honour to be
selected as the new chair. He spoke about Brexit and the impact it was
having on British politics. “What matter to us – if the British
establishment implodes? England’s difficulty will always be Ireland’s
opportunity,” he said.
He said Saoradh members have been active in social and political
campaigns on both sides of the border and vowed the organisation would
“consolidate and move forward with greater strength and vigour.”
Posted by Jim on
Amid a hostile reaction by unionist politicians to a draft Brexit deal,
one TUV politician has warned that the border through Ireland will be
“maintained by the gun”.
Barrie Halliday of TUV (Traditional Unionist Voice) made the apparent
threat of loyalist paramilitary violence in response to a draft
agreement on Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. Published earlier this
month, it seeks to guarantee that the area around the border will not be
remilitarised.
In a video posted to Facebook, the politician and pastor said “men and
women… paid for that line to remain where it is by laying down their
lives. It was defended by the gun and will be maintained by the gun. The
border in 20 years time will be where it is today.”
His comments are at the extreme end of unionist reaction to the
withdrawal agreement, which could see a differential in the regulatory
and customs regimen on either side of the Irish Sea. Unionists fear it
could become the first crack in a political separation of the north of
Ireland away from Britain.
The agreement includes a ‘backstop’ for the Six Counties to retain
future access to the EU Customs Union and an assurance that customs and
other checks will not be required at the border. An ancillary political
declaration, published by Britain and the EU this week, includes a
statement of their “determination” to replace this backstop with
alternative arrangements.
Nevertheless, the DUP has continued to threaten to collapse Theresa
May’s minority government in London, which depends on their support. As
part of an escalating response at Westminster this week, the DUP
abstention on a number of divisions, forcing the Tories to accept a
series of opposition amendments.
DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds said that in the coming days and weeks his
party “will be tried and tested like never before”. He was speaking at
his party’s annual conference, with senior Tories Boris Johnson and
Philip Hammond in attendance.
Escalating the party’s rhetoric, he declared it would “require the
collective will not just of this party but of all who value and cherish
our precious union to stand firm in the face of the inevitable
onslaught.”
Mr Dodds said that those who supported the backstop must consider “the
effect of the trade barriers and growing divergence that would
inevitably emerge – some immediately, most in future years – between
Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK”.
He vaguely threatened that there would be “consequences” for the British
government if it pressed ahead with the withdrawal agreement.
Earlier this week, Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald said the DUP had got it
“catastrophically wrong” by pursuing a hard Brexit and rejecting the
withdrawal agreement.
“They’re wrong about the draft agreement,” she said. “It’s not perfect
but it is certainly a baseline to protect our economic interests and
agreements.
“It’s now very clear right across Ireland, North and South that that key
voices from business, agriculture and other sectors are coming out and
facing down the very negative politics advanced by the DUP and the Tory
Brexiteers.
“Now is the time to ensure that the bottom lines around no hard border,
the protection of the Good Friday Agreement and citizens’ rights are
met.
“This is vital to protect everybody who lives and works on the island of
Ireland.”
Posted by Jim on November 23, 2018
RADIO FREE EIREANN will broadcast this Saturday November 24th on WBAI Radio 99.5FM or WBAI.ORG at 12 noon-1pm New York time or 5pm-6pm in Ireland or anytime after the program on WBAI.ORG – Archives (scroll back to 12 noon Saturday)
CARMEL QUINN of the Ballymurphy Massacre families, will describe how it felt to speak at the inquest into the British troop murders of 11 people including her older brother,a Catholic priest and mother of 8 children,and also report on her American tour which included meetings with Congress a special Irish Embassy reception and public events.
Balladeer,historian and songwriter DEREK WARFIELD, now with the Young Wolfe Tones, will talk about Evacuation Day,on November 25th, celebrating the day British troops left New York and Washington’s Army took the city back in triumph at the close of the American Revolution.
JOE JAMISON,longtime Irish American labor activist, and also a peace activist will report on the Peace And Neutrality Alliance Conference in Dublin and growing concerns about Irish neutrality and independent foreign policy.
We will preview an upcoming WBAI Special Event,staring MALACHY McCOURT and co-host JOHN McDONAGH, with a special intervention by Fr. PAT MALONEY.
Posted by Jim on November 21, 2018
Peadar Toibin
As good a place as any to begin a debate on the way forward.Following a week in which Sinn Féin TDs approved parts of the proposed abortion legislation that goes well beyond anything which was agreed to at its Ard Fheis, Meath West TD Peadar Tóibín finally had enough and announced his resignation.
He was already under suspension and his letter to Party Chair Declan Kearney requesting clarification on whether there was “a future for me and republicans like me to contribute to the development of the party” was ignored.
The fact that his letter was not responded to either by Kearney or McDonald or Leinster House whip Aengus Ó Snodaigh speaks for itself. His letter of resignation also refers to his having been gradually excluded from speaking time and the media.
Sinn Féin in the meantime were setting in train the process of replacing Peadar as the party candidate for the next general elections. They had no shortage of lap dogs to assist in that. They know that whoever they select has no hope of winning the seat, but whoever does run will be happy enough to have secured the fickle favours of the bosses. The sole objective is to prevent Peadar being re-elected, and the candidate selected is irrelevant. Just another useful idiot.
Of course, as the dozens of former elected representatives north and south including people who were and are TDs, MLAs, and councillors as well as several hundred members, who have resigned in the past few years under similar treatment or been expelled attests, this is nothing new.
The party leadership’s, public and hidden, arrogance and thirst for power at any price brooks no resistance. They were stupid enough to believe that they could make a pitch to replace the Labour Party as the main social democratic liberal party while assuming that the base would be retained.
Well, as the recent Presidential election results showed, with the embarrassing performance of the former TG4 presenter, that assumption may have been premature.
Constituencies in which Sinn Féin are strong were notable by the almost complete absence of posters and canvassers. In only one constituency where SF has a current TD did their candidate get more votes than Peter Casey who they had spent most of the last two weeks of the campaign ridiculously calling a fascist.
Anyone wishing to vote for a vacuous liberal pro abortion devotee of the Castro gang had a far better choice if that was their wish, and even the majority of those identifying in exit polls as Sinn Féin voters chose Higgins or Casey.
Of course it would be preferable if Peadar now faded into the background. That has generally been the, not always voluntary, fate of those who have fallen foul of the commissars. Peader it seems is intent on being part of a republican alternative.
He has been invited to speak at a commemoration in Ballymore Eustace on Saturday, November 24 in honour of Frank Driver. Driver was a former vice President of Sinn Féin whose activism in the party and Óglaigh na hÉireann dated back to the 1918 election. He was one of the “foundational Provos.”
Posted by Jim on
“Brilliant public intellectual Fintan O’Toole led the way in exposing the Brexit con-game.
He was one of the very first to point out that Brexit was all about an upsurge of English nationalism. Here, in this article, he is at his very best. Definitely a must-read:
‘There is overwhelming evidence that the English people who voted for Brexit do not, on the whole, care about the United Kingdom and in particular do not care about that part of it called Northern Ireland. …
These are two seismic shifts. Neither of them is caused by anyone in Ireland. They are products of the rise of English nationalism and of the great Brexit upheaval that has left Britain so deeply uncertain about its identity and its place in the world. To throw up one’s hands in exasperation at the old familiar eruption of the Irish question is to miss the whole point of this moment – which is, of course, the English question.’ “
Don’t blame the Irish: the Brexit chaos is all about England
Fintan O’Toole.The Guardian. London. Monday, November 19, 2018
Brexit has been derailed, as it was always going to be, by the Irish question. And, amid the chaos, there is something oddly comfortable about this. Isn’t that what the bloody Irish always do – disrupt an otherwise placid British polity with their hopelessly convoluted and unresolvable feuds?
In 1922, reflecting on the way Ireland had dominated imperial politics even on the eve of the great catastrophe of the first world war, a rueful Winston Churchill told the House of Commons: “It says a great deal for the power which Ireland has, both nationalist and orange, to lay their hands upon the vital strings of British life and politics, and to hold, dominate, and convulse, year after year, generation after generation, the politics of this powerful country.”
In this very familiarity lies the lure of self-delusion: Brexit would have been gloriously harmonious if only the orange and green disruptors hadn’t laid their hands upon its vital strings and played on them their own eternally discordant tune. Already, among the Brexiters, there is his self-exculpatory narrative: it wasn’t us, m’lud [My Lord] who brought our country to this disgraceful state. It was the usual suspects across the Irish Sea.
But beneath this tatty comfort blanket, there are two starkly naked truths. They are not at all familiar – indeed they are startlingly new. They are so novel that the British system has been completely unable to fully recognise or process them. And it is this inability that has made the Brexit negotiations so tortuous and their outcome so miserable.
One of them has to do with a breathtaking shift in the balance of power. The other concerns the inability of the existing political culture to deal with the rise of English nationalism and its vast implications for the existence of the United Kingdom. To resort to the old familiar blame game is to miss what is really going on.
First, negotiations will always be determined by the balance of power. The very poor outcome of the Brexit negotiations for Britain reflects the realpolitik: there was a relatively small and isolated country up against a huge multinational bloc. This is the accustomed way of such things. But this time there has been a staggering variation: the places have changed. Britain, not Ireland, is the relatively small and isolated country. Ireland, not the British Empire, has on its side the power of a huge multinational bloc.
This in itself is deeply disorienting. It is a new thing: the first time in 800 years of Anglo-Irish relations that Ireland has had more clout. No wonder the Brexiters and the British government found it impossible for so long to even recognize this new reality. They operated – and some of them continue to operate – under the old rules, in which the game would be settled between the big powers, and the interests of a small country such as Ireland could be easily shoved aside. The Irish would get a few platitudes about peace but the real deal would be done between London and Berlin.
Yet, it has not been like that. In part, this is because of simple arithmetic: Ireland is not isolated, it is part of a bloc of 27 states. There is a basic lesson here for the Brexiters: even a very small country inside the EU has more influence than a much larger country on the outside. In part, too, it is because of basic statecraft. The Irish government and diplomatic service, backed by a near-unanimous consensus in the Dublin parliament, had a very clear sense of where Ireland’s vital national interest lay, and hence of what they needed to achieve.
There was one big thing Ireland could not get: Ireland cannot, much as it would love to, force the UK to stay in the EU. Given this reality, Ireland had three priorities. One was to avoid the reimposition of a hard Border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. The second, to protect the 1998 Good Friday agreement and the rights of everyone in Northern Ireland to continuing Irish – and therefore EU – citizenship. The third, to preserve the close personal and economic relationships on these islands by preserving the common travel area and keeping the UK as closely intertwined with the customs union and single market as possible.
Ireland got exactly what it wanted in the draft withdrawal agreement. This undoubtedly shaped the entire deal; but instead of whining about this, the Brexiters might reflect that if they had been as clear about their aims and as skilful in achieving them, we might not all be in the current mess.
The other big new thing is that the force that has shaped one side of Anglo-Irish relations for centuries – British unionism – is visibly faltering. Visibly, that is, everywhere except in Westminster. There is a weird disjunction between what is actually happening in Brexit and the official narrative that has framed it. In part because of the quirk of fate that gave the balance of power at Westminster to a minority Northern Irish party, the DUP, Brexit has been shaped around a sentimental story of rallying behind what Theresa May calls the “precious, precious Union”.
But this is fundamentally phoney. There is overwhelming evidence that the English people who voted for Brexit do not, on the whole, care about the United Kingdom and in particular do not care about that part of it called Northern Ireland. Asked in the recent Future of England survey whether “the unravelling of the peace process in Northern Ireland” was a “price worth paying” for Brexit that allows them to “take back control”, fully 83% of leave voters and 73% of Conservative voters in England agreed that it was. Three-quarters of English “leave” voters said they did not want their taxes to be used to subsidize public services in Northern Ireland. And last week, in a major Channel 4 survey, asked how they would feel if “Brexit leads to Northern Ireland leaving the UK and joining the Republic of Ireland”, 61% of leave voters said they would be “not very concerned” or “not at all concerned”.
These are two seismic shifts. Neither of them is caused by anyone in Ireland. They are products of the rise of English nationalism and of the great Brexit upheaval that has left Britain so deeply uncertain about its identity and its place in the world. To throw up one’s hands in exasperation at the old familiar eruption of the Irish question is to miss the whole point of this moment – which is, of course, the English question.
• Fintan O’Toole is the author of Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain
This article originally appeared on The Guardian