Trevor Smith (York, House of Lords): The formal re-uniting of the Ulster Unionist Party and Conservatives is major blunder by David Cameron: it will further polarise politics in Northern Ireland. It will invite a response not only from the other legitimate political parties in Ulster but, worse, is likely to provoke further violence from the dissident Republican para-military groups.
His assertion at the UUP's annual conference that this new merger signals his Unionist credentials is foolish and dangerous posturing. The UUP is now a small rump of a party with only one MP at Westminster and she, Lady Hermon, is rightly sceptical of the new arrangement. It will do nothing for the Tories and precious little for the UUP.
However, Cameron's Unionism is not spread equally thickly throughout the UK. In Scotland he tactically hopes that the SNP will be successful enough to limit the number of Labour MPs at Westminster to secure him a majority at the next General Election. Cynical tactics for a party leader who proclaims transparency and integrity in policy formation.
Trevor Smith is the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on Northern Ireland in the House of Lords
Comments
What rubbish. Why, Trevor, don't you do the decent thing and contest elections in Northern Ireland with your Alliance election buddies instead of constantly wittering on about sectarianism? Alliance have been assuming the moral high ground for years but doing nothing practical to replace the sectarian political structures of Northern Ireland with any real politics. Ditto the Lib Dems.
Your attitude is typical. It assumes that people in Northern Ireland are born sectarian and should have no right to participate in the politics of the State in which they live. Your attitude is pathetic in the extreme.
"it will invite a response not only from the other legitimate political parties in Ulster but, worse, is likely to provoke further violence from the dissident Republican para-military groups. "
Trevor,
Should the (very remote) chance that terrorists might be upset be the determining factor when we are deciding upon a particular course of political direction?
What is certain is that this will go down like a lead balloon in Scotland and Wales and cement the Conservative's status as political pariahs.
The Tories only have one MP in Scotland at the moment and they won't get any more if they link theirselves up with ulster unionists!
I'm not so sure that is how the Tories will view it. In their eyes they have gone from being the only party ever to have achieved an outright majority of Scottish votes at any General Election, in 1951, to flat-lining on one seat, with little sign of a Tory revival to match that in England.
They are aware that their previous electoral success in Scotland was in large part due to the sectarian protestant working class vote. They have, to give them their due, steered clear of using sectarianism to bolster their failing electoral performance. It cannot be lost on them though that their involvement in Ulster unionism must raise their unionist profile with this segment of the Scottish working class vote.
It cannot be lost on them though that their involvement in Ulster unionism must raise their unionist profile with this segment of the Scottish working class vote.
If they wanted to raise that profile with that segment, then an informal alliance with the much more "protestant" DUP would have made much more sense. It also could helped them out last night in the Damien Green debate when they (the DUP MPs) pointedly did not turn up and vote with the Tories; with those 9 on board the government would have been defeated.
Paul. That’s an interesting point. I noticed in the reporting of the UUP conference that there was an attempt to portray the DUP as Ulster Nationalists and by implication as ‘soft’ on the union. Cameron’s rhetoric and that of the UUP seems to be aimed at Orange sentiments and it is these rather than religious affiliation, per se, that underlies sectarianism in Scotland.
There are at least three reasons why religion no longer plays the role in Scottish politics it used to. Since Thatcher and especially since her ‘sermon on the Mound’ the Church of Scotland has been seen as more closely identified in its public stance with the anti-conservative consensus in Scotland. The organised working class has been atomised and, with large numbers now dependant on welfare, the widespread Scottish protestant ethos of self-reliance has waned. With religious attendance in terminal decline the focus of sectarianism has metamorphosed into a tribal anti-Catholic bigotry based around football affiliation and the Union Jack rather than religious identification.
It should probably be noted that, whereas Catholic schools have remained closely identified with the Catholic Church state schools have become far less identified with the Church of Scotland than they were in the 1950s. So the education system perpetuates tribal allegiances, but with a weakened protestant identity.
It maybe that the Tories calculate that the effect of this may just trip things in a few Scottish seats. They are also looking at the post-election issue of legitimacy and doing some groundwork. Presumably so as to be able to more convincingly appeal to hard-core unionist sentiment in Scotland. Personally I think they have miscalculated because most people in Scotland regard Orangism in the same way they regard the BNP.
And Lord Smith's prognosis for changing politics in NI?
Vote Alliance?!
People in NI have the RIGHT to partake in the politics of the UK and people like Lord Smith should be ashmaed of the fact that they are faciliating discrimination.
No more second class citizens. Equal citizenship NOW!
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