Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): As the only major party in Ireland to oppose the Lisbon Treaty, Sinn Féin has been enjoying its biggest political boost for some time in the aftermath of the treaty's rejection by the Irish people.
"Last week In Ireland some of the political analysis of republicanism had a major success," the party's Dublin MEP Mary Lou McDonald said in London on Wednesday. "When Irish people came out and voted down the Lisbon treaty, it wasn't a vote against Europe. We are a European nation. We are at the heart of Europe and that's where we'll stay, but it was a very clear demand from Irish people for real democracy in the European project."
McDonald was speaking at a public meeting at the London Irish Centre, where Sinn Féin was attempting to rally support in Britain for its vision of Irish unity.
"We need to get people here to become persuaders for Irish unity," party president Gerry Adams said. "We need to figure out campaigns, consciousness-raising, find whatever means to get this into the mainstream of the opinion-making and decision-making processes on this island."
" We need to develop a very concentrated programmatic and sustained lobby of all the political parties," he added.
"I'm not just restricting that to Westminster. There are potential friends and allies in the Parliament up in Scotland, in Wales, and if they ever put together some devolved administration, here in England."
Amidst the bouyant post-Lisbon mood, some significant questions were raised by members of the audience. Professor Mary Hickman of London Metropolitan University questioned how much credit Sinn Féin could claim for the referendum result given the right-wing forces that also opposed to the treaty.
Martin Collins, a long-time ally of Labour's former Northern Ireland spokesman, Kevin McNamara asked for more details of Sinn Féin's strategy for political engagement in Britain.
"I've always said when I come here that I don't know how to do that here," Adams responded. "I know how to do it at home. I could come and say the totally wrong thing on the television and annoy everybody."
"People here know how to do that. People here know how to engage. There are brilliant examples of work done in very hard times by people like Martin and others. So if you like I throw that question back to you.""We will resist the temptation to set up another organisation here, which will immediately seek the correct ideological position and decide on the most sectarian position possible about how to be more ultra-left than the other factions, but we will seek to harness the energy which is out there."
Sinn Féin's strategy for acheving Irish unity ultimately depends on winning a referendum in Northern Ireland. In his speech, Adams gave some clues as to how he sees that happening.
"Some unionist leaders have recently begun expressing concern at what they describe as 'apathy' among unionist voters."
"It is clear that some unionist leaders are fearful that a substantial section of the unionist electorate is increasingly becoming indifferent to politics."
"They are afraid that that may evolve into an indifference to the union, and they know that the potential exists to persuade a section of the unionist electorate that partition does not serve their best interests and that a united Ireland does. "
For Stormont-watchers the main meat of the event may have been an insight into Sinn Féin's attitude to its current difficulties with the DUP. In that respect there was some tough language from both Adams and Regional Development Minister Conor Murphy, who warned:
"The institutions are only of use to Irish republicans if they deliver for Irish republicans and the people of Ireland generally. Sinn Féin's participation in the institutions is based on that and we do intend to deliver for our people. We have been doing that but we have key issues that need to be resolved."
Comments
Very interesting. Is there a DUP equivalent arguing publicly across the UK for Northern Ireland staying part of the Union, as opposed to just making the case within the establishment institutions as at present? There are English making the case for the Union as well as Scots and Welsh on both sides of the borders but I have the feeling that with respect to NI it is they can stay if they wish the underlying feeling being they are not part of who 'we' are.
An autonomous Ulster/Six Counties/Northern Ireland (you choose) as part of the republic with the Ulster Protestants and Ulster Scots recognised as a national minority and lesser used language respectively is my option, but democracy will decide.
http://thecornishdemocrat.blogspot.com/
My impression is that the other parties are more Westminster focused and that Sinn Fein tend to do this sort of thing more in part because they don't take their seats.
I don't know of any specific DUP organisation here. They were quite close to the Monday Club at one time. Indeed, the vice-chairman of the Monday Club, Andrew Hunter, was the DUP MP for Basingstoke for a couple of years before the last election.
My impression is that the other parties are more Westminster focused and that Sinn Fein tend to do this sort of thing more in part because they don't take their seats.
Despite the recent publicity over 42 days and the DUP, none of the Unionist representatives are at all “Westminster” focussed, just check out the attendance records of the DUP MPs, not one over 50%- Paisley’s is less than 30%.
No, the DUPs’ strategy remains fighting for the Union within the very narrow and tight confines of Ulster, or… actually let me rephrase that, the DUPs’ strategy remains fighting for the "British/Ulster Protestant" people within the narrow confines of Ulster, which is something quite different entirely. Even their latest much-heralded initiative, the setting up of a Unionist Academy and “fighting” for the right to have British symbols displayed is concentrated only on the Union as it affects Ulster and ignores completely the wider picture as it might upset their new-found friends such as Alex Salmond, I suppose. T
his continuing concentration on "Britishness" as solely an ethno-nationalist concept which ignores completely even the possibility of someone like me being proud to regard myself as both British and irish poses, in my opinion, a much bigger danger to our place with the United kingdom than anything Sinn Fein or Irish nationalsim can muster.
There are a few of us in Northern Ireland, but only a very few who consider ourselves as United Kingdom and not Ulster Unionists, but we are losing the battle to not the Irish nationalists, but the fundamentalists of the DUP, who are now, to all intents and purposes ,Ulster and not British nationalists. If Sinn Fein stopped looking at the unification of Ireland through their own narrow ethno-nationalist prism, then they’d realise that with a few concessions here and there, the DUP’s own peculiar brand of socially ultra-conservative nationalism could exist as easily within and all-Ireland as an all-UK framework.
oneill
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