Posted by Jim on January 23, 2017
Mid-Ulster Assembly member Michelle O’Neill is to lead Sinn Fein into
the Six County Assembly elections in March, it has been announced.
She takes over from Martin McGuinness, who last week announced his
decision to quit active politics over serious health issues. That came
amid a major breakdown of relations between DUP and Sinn Fein, which
triggered the collapse of the powersharing executive in Belfast.
Although formerly the agriculture minister and more recently the health
minister, Ms O’Neill is not well known outside her own constituency and
is a relative newcomer to the Sinn Fein frontline. She has a background
in social welfare issues and has been more prominent in in recent weeks
since Mr McGuinness became ill.
She was formerly the political adviser to Mid-Ulster MP Francie Molloy
before being elected to the Stormont Assembly in 2007.
As the head of Sinn Fein’s Stormont team, Ms O’Neill could become deputy
first minister in March if Sinn Fein is returned as the largest
nationalist party after the election, or First Minister if Sinn Fein is
the largest party overall.
Announcing the appointment, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said Ms
O’Neill represented a “new generation” for the party. He said: “This is
a handover of a primary leadership position from my generation, from
Martin’s generation, to another generation.”
He added: “As a united all-Ireland team, we will give her the space and
support to find her own voice and continue the good work Martin
pioneered.”
Ms O’Neill said being a republican was her “way of life”. She told Fein
supporters at Stormont: “I won’t let you down”, and added: “This is the
biggest honour and privilege of my life.”
She said she would continue Mr McGuinness’s “good work”.
“I have never been afraid of a challenge and I have never been afraid to
act,” she said.
The 26 County Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan was among
the first to congratulate Ms O’Neill. He said it was “a very proud and
special day for her and her family”.
“I know that we share a sense of urgency in our determination to see the
power-sharing institutions effectively functioning at Stormont once the
election has taken place,” he added.
Posted by Jim on January 19, 2017
Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness has effectively retired from politics
after announcing he will not be standing for re-election in the 2 March
poll to the Belfast Assembly.
A former IRA commander, in recent decades Mr McGuinness became
synonymous with Sinn Fein’s peace strategy and its efforts to achieve a
reconciliation with unionism and the British establishment.
His decision to quit Stormont was announced in three television
interviews this evening. It followed his resignation as deputy first
minister last Monday week in protest at the latest corruption scandal to
engulf his unionist partners in the Six County Executive.
That prompted this week’s collapse of the power-sharing Executive and
the calling of elections for March 2nd.
In a statement, he said a deterioration in his health had coincided with
the refusal of DUP leader Arlene Foster to step aside pending an
investigation.
“For me to be part of an administration that was being accused of
corruption.. was absolutely intolerable and under no circumstances is
Sinn Fein willing to be part of an administration that is going to be
continually subject to this sort of allegation, particularly when it’s
coming directly at our partners in government.
“I felt I had no option whatsoever [but to resign] and it was with a
very sore heart that I had to do what I had to do.”
He also revealed he had planned to step down in May this year, which
would have marked the tenth anniversary since he and the late DUP leader
Ian Paisley entered government together, a pairing which became famous
as the “chuckle brothers”.
“Unfortunately, my health and the current crisis have overtaken this
timeframe,” he said.
He was determined to overcome the rare and serious illness with which he
has been diagnosed, and said he would continue to support Sinn Fein as
best he could.
“Over the last 10 years I have worked tirelessly to make powersharing
work,” he said. “The institutions are now in a deep crisis as a result
of recent events and we are facing into an election when the people will
have their say”.
Sinn Fein was a party in constant development, renewal and evolution, he
said, and he felt privileged to have been a part of that.
“It remains my own personal and political ambition to break the link
with Britain and to unite all who share this island under the common
banner of Irish men and women.
“I am deeply proud of the generation of Irish republicans that came
before us. A generation that kept the vision of freedom alive through
the difficult post-partition era when they faced unrelenting repression
and persecution from the Ulster Unionist Party in an apartheid Orange
state.
“I have been privileged to be part of the generation that broke that
apartheid state apart and to have been part of a Sinn Fein leadership
that delivered peace and radical change. There are more republicans
today than at any time in my generation.”
Mr McGuinness said his “obvious health issues” were being addressed by a
superb team of national health service doctors and nurses.
“But I want to be open and honest with my friends and colleagues in Sinn
Fein, with the electorate of Foyle and with the wider community beyond
my own constituency. I also want to be fair to my family and to the
teams of carers who are doing their best to provide me with the
treatment I now require to deal with this very serious medical
condition, which I am very determined to overcome,” he said.
“Unfortunately, I am not physically able to continue in my current role
and have therefore decided to make way for a new leader.”
Mr McGuinness said that as a Sinn Fein activist he would continue to
“play a full and enthusiastic part in that essential process of building
bridges, of dialogue and of reconciliation between our still divided
people”.
“Despite the current difficulties and challenges, I am confident and
optimistic about the future. We have faced more difficult times and
found a way forward. As a society we have made enormous progress. We
must continue to move forward. Dialogue is the only option.”
Posted by Jim on January 18, 2017
Sinn Féin spent ten years trying to show Unionists how The North could work if Unionists could live on equal terms with the rest of the people here. The DUP spent those ten years proving they couldn’t. Only they can prevent The North working.
Brian Feeney. Irish News. Belfast.Wednesday, January 18, 2017
WHAT’S the way out of this one? Make no mistake, the collapse of the executive and assembly is the worst crisis the Northern institutions of the Good Friday Agreement have faced since 2001 for a number of reasons.
The collapse sixteen years ago was caused by David Trimble walking out because the IRA had not decommissioned at the speed he wanted them to. Trimble could never leave such matters to the bodies set up to oversee them, in that case the International Decommissioning Commission.
The subsequent walk-outs and collapses were also mainly caused by Unionists setting various conditions for Sinn Féin, on one occasion aided and abetted by the RUC getting themselves in a twist about their own informers in the Republican Movement.
This collapse is different in nature and type. It’s the first time Sinn Féin has walked away from institutions in the last eighteen years. That’s why it’s so serious. They have pulled the plug but still both Unionist parties and the SDLP don’t get it. Indeed the only person up at Stormont apart from Sinn Féin former MLAs who does understand is inevitably Jim Allister.
On Monday, Allister correctly told the BBC that Sinn Féin have taken a ‘strategic decision’ to shut down the Executive and Assembly because it was not delivering. Full marks for reading Gerry Adams’s speech to the party’s Cúige Uladh, and believing him. Of course, given the ability level of the average Unionist MLA at Stormont, Allister has only to close one eye to be king, as a former Nationalist party leader said of the old Stormont.
Few noticed that while announcing Sinn Féin would not nominate a Deputy First Minister, Michelle O’Neill said, ‘we [Sinn Féin] will not be back in this chamber’ until they had a satisfactory resolution of the matters of equality of status and parity of esteem the DUP’s denial of which provoked Sinn Féin into pulling the plug.
Therefore, when the election takes place , Sinn Féin will again not nominate anyone to an Executive. There are three weeks before our proconsul [ the Secretary of State]has to call another election if there is no Executive. In those three weeks there is no chance of the DUP eating humble pie, and demonstrating a firm purpose of amendment not to sin again by reciting an act of contrition. There is equally no chance of the proconsul calling another election — on the principle that repeating the same action, over and over again, and expecting a different result is a sign of madness.
What will happen? The most likely outcome is a very lengthy period of the Assembly meeting as a talking shop, as in 2008 when Sinn Féin boycotted the Executive after the refusal of the DUP to honour their 2007 commitment to devolve policing and justice. In this case it could be years while negotiations take place to find a way to ensure the DUP honors the agreements they have signed up to at St Andrews and Fresh Start.
In the meantime parties are on election footing. Sinn Féin have the initiative and the DUP are on the back foot unwilling to accept that the election is about their bad faith and what Sinn Féin chair Declan Kearney called their ‘institutionalized bigotry’. Yet they can’t face the voters if they admit the election is about the ‘cash for ash’ scandal. So they will adopt the mendacious line that it’s an attack on Unionism and an attempt to bring down their leader. That doesn’t augur well for talks afterwards.
Still, the Assembly is more important to the DUP than Sinn Féin which has bigger fish to fry in Dublin. The DUP don’t realize that pulling the plug and treating Stormont with contempt has energized Sinn Féin supporters who have been wanting the party to stand up to the DUP for years, the more stridently since Foster took over to lead like the antediluvian rural Unionist she is.
Sinn Féin spent ten years trying to show Unionists how The North could work if Unionists could live on equal terms with the rest of the people here. The DUP spent those ten years proving they couldn’t. Only they can prevent The North working.
Posted by Jim on
Irish News Editorial. Belfast. Wednesday, January 18, 2017
While the political focus in Northern Ireland has been on the collapse of the Stormont structures, an even bigger issue is looming which will impact on the lives of people throughout this island.
Theresa May’s landmark speech yesterday shattered any remaining hope that the UK’s exit from the EU would be a soft Brexit, retaining some form of access to the single market.
The prime minister’s determination to remove Britain from the single market is a move that will cause deep concern in Northern Ireland.
Angela McGowan of the CBI warned that ruling out membership of the single market has “reduced options” for maintaining a barrier-free and tariff-free trading relationship between the UK and the EU.
Of course, it is not just the trading relationship with Europe that is at issue, but there are fears that a hard Brexit will lead to border controls between north and south.
The land border between the UK and the EU is a reality that the British government has to deal with but the concern is that any arrangements will not necessarily be in the best interests of Northern Ireland or the Republic.
Mrs May said keeping the common travel area would be a priority in the Brexit negotiations and while she talked about delivering a “practical solution”, we still have no clear idea what that solution will involve.
It is only seven months since the then home secretary, on an eve of referendum visit to Northern Ireland, said: “It is inconceivable that a vote for Brexit would not have a negative impact on the north/south border, bringing cost and disruption to trade and people’s lives.”
Mrs May may have changed her tune but the many people who rely on free movement throughout this island are genuinely worried about the impact of border controls.
With Stormont in limbo and the largely unknown and untested James Brokenshire said to be representing the north’s interests in any talks, those people will have even more reason to be apprehensive.
Posted by Jim on
ELECTIONS A DISTRACTION FROM FAILURE OF PARTITION — 1916 SOCIETIES
The 1916 Societies note the continuing political crisis in the Six Counties, which began with yet another in-house scandal at Stormont – over a botched energy-efficiency scheme – and has culminated since in the collapse of the Sinn Fein-DUP Coalition and the calling of new elections by British Secretary of State, James Brokenshire.
Our view is that the instability ongoing, with the elections that hope to manage it, reflect bankruptcy on the part of the Stormont project. Its fundamental lack of legitimacy – born of the partition system itself – ensures that perpetual crisis, such as that before us, remains its defining feature. Those subject to the whims of this failed set-up deserve better.
That Stormont is wholly unable to deliver at a time of deepening economic crisis – set only to be exacerbated by the impending arrival of Brexit – adds to the imperative that partition rule, of which Stormont is the lynchpin, give way to the all-Ireland republic. We cannot afford that another generation be held hostage to unworkable partition, whose design is to divide the Irish people that British rule can continue.
In reality, the elections in March will be a meaningless exercise as they cannot resolve the issues at heart – among them the bizarre duality of a political system that entrenches sectarianism at the centre of government, supposedly for the purposes of peace. Dysfunction remains the typeset of the northern statelet accordingly – in perpetuity and regardless of elections.
Such is the nature of partition that it can be no other way. Such is its price – the means to afford it a false sense of normality – that instability can never be far from the surface. Our people deserve more than the sectarian failure bequeathed them by partition and herein lies the nub. For a workable resolution of the matters at hand, partition itself must be ended.
Ultimately, Stormont is the means through which partition rule in Ireland is upheld, serving as a bridgehead between British policy and Irish acquiescence to its terms. It stands, as such, as a bulwark against the realising of republican objectives. Another election to this reactionary entity will in no way alter that reality and it is incumbent that republicans take note. Stormont must go.
As such, the only election we are interested in is an all-Ireland election, where Stormont and partition are consigned to history. We hold that our ‘One Ireland One Vote’ proposal for a referendum on Irish Unity can set forth the pathway required. With that in mind, we invite the Irish public to reject Stormont, with this coming election, and to embrace instead that endeavour.
