The DUP refusing to let Sinn Fein have First Minister means a December Assembly Election. Will the numbers change in a fresh Election?
What parties seats are vulnerable or who might make gains in any constituencies ??
What utter nonsense.
what had an Irish language act have to do with the dup?
Dup have stated the will serve with a sf first minister / something the main parties in the south won’t say.
the only Trojan horse is the equality Trojan horse that Gerry says sf will use to break the Protestant bastards
The polls are saying the opposite. Dup will gain - provided they stay out
No, throwing their toys out of the pram the second they lose first minister is a far better look.
So you are implying that the dup are under an obligation to sit in an executive no matter what?
Heaton-Harris is now threatening the thing that has got Stormont going before - get back in there or there'll be water charges.
It is blatantly undemocratic but it can’t be admitted here.
I'm not disputing that they have a right to do it; I am disputing that it is democratic to collapse functioning democratic institutions in protest at something not done by those institutions, and over which those institutions have no control.
At a minimum, if DUP MPs do not with draw from the Westminster institutions which imposed the Protoocl on them, their claim that withdrawing from entirely different institutions is a form of protest against the actions of the institutions they continue to participate in is hard to take seriously.
My own opinion is that they simply don't want to feel as if they're playing second fiddle to a Taig First Minister. They're using the protocol as their excuse and if it wasn't the protocol they'd be blaming something else. I don't think the DUP are intelligent enough to hold a coherent political strategy aside from doing the polar opposite to SF. If they had the intelligence that you appear to give them credit for, they wouldn't have followed the path they have taken over the last six years.
However, it is most unfortunate that the DUP's intransigence on this is effectively suported by an incompetent and disingenuous government in London who don't want NI making their their Brexit crapfest make them look bad. It is a lot easier to point at the EU and say that it's all their fault.
Complete non-sequiter to the post it quotes.....if you don't understand the subject matter and just wish to rant,that's ok like,perhaps you should outline this
What?
You can't see the difference between the PIRA and the old IRA, so it is more than a bit rich to accuse others of not seeing a difference. You also can't see the difference between the Northern Irish identity and Kerry which says even more about an inability to discern difference.
From someone who is unable to distinguish between the old IRA, PIRA and new IRA, the accusation of not comparing like with like runs more than a little hollow.
I have said already that both SF and the DUP were wrong to collapse Stormont. At one level, when you look at the issue and the length of time, it could be argued that SF were worse, but to me both were wrong.
You have clearly demonstrated your need (we know why) to make sure that everything the DUP do is the same as SF do.
Which is evidently not true.
You resist evidencing this when asked what rights SF are blocking and refusing to see the difference between abstaining on something the devolved government can fix and something it can't.
It's quite evident you dispise the GFA and parity of esteem gauranteed under it
Your not comparing like for like,SF collapsed it for Irish language act,among other basic progressive legislation....and had a deal with Arlene foster and the DUP leadership's to have it up and running within 100 days
DUP are collapsing it,as their vote was split and cost em seats,and simply don't want a Catholic first minister,and is using opposition to legislation a government it was part of agreed to,as a Trojan horse to impose it's long term sectarian stragedy on NI
Risible nonsense.
I have clearly said that both the DUP and SF are wrong to have brought down Stormont. Which bit of that don't you understand?
All I am doing is pointing out the huge hypocritical holes in your argument, and you resort to strawman attacks on me.
You won't argue over the merits because like the JBritish you feel the need to shore up belligerent Unionism in order to try and stall the inevitable.
You don't have the right to hold people to ransom over something they can do nothing about. Discuss.
Absolutely it is time. Removing the requirement for designation and letting Stormont become a normal parliament gives the balance of power to parties like Alliance, SDLP and the Greens.
They either have the right not to take their seats, or they don't.
Arguing over the merits of their reasons is a completely different thing. I believe neither SF nor the DUP have been right to block the Stormont Assembly. I also believe that the right of the SF and DUP children to behave in that manner should be removed by the adults in government in Dublin and London.
What's the state of play right now, I think the decision on a date for election has been postponed to middle of Dec, and if still no agreement on a date by then it will be postponed into late January, with the possibility of then setting a date of after April?
Something is very wrong with the process, citizens are being left in limbo, anyone waiting for change has to grin and bear it.
I think the election results will be a hammering for the DUP at this stage. They are going to be wiped out.
Parties 'walk' from government ALL the time.
What they don't do is hold people to ransom to try to get concessions those people cannot give.
There is no equivalence here, no matter how much you want to obliquely support DUP belligerence.
P.S. Reviews of agreements are always welcome. The GFA has been added to several times and yet still is not fully implemented.
So.. it still suits the DUP from a political strategy point of view. They lost seats in the last Assembly elections and want to get back the first minister position. When SF pulled out previously, it suited them as well. There's a pair of them in it. For the citizens of NI, it's like having two monkeys on yer back, wrangling all the time and trying to throw the other off.
I'd be the first to condemn SF for something but the DUP not taking their seats in Stormont is not the same as when SF did it.
The DUP helped create this situation which was brought about by Westminster. Stormont cannot do anything about it. So what the DUP are doing is punishing one house for the actions of (effectvely) a higher house. However, the DUP are satisfied to continue as normal in that higher house and are not holding the same protest.
In addition, the problem is not the agreement. The problem is that some politicians in NI were happy to proceed with brexit against the wishes of the majority there knowing that Brexit was going to create difficulties one way or the other with the EU in terms of the land border. The agreement is what the UK government put forward as a solution after the DUP rejected everything else (some of which would probably have had less impact on NI).
But SF have walked away in the past, the DUP are playing the same card that SF played a few years ago. For much the same reasons, it suits them from a political strategy point of view. So you can hardly blame them. Imitation being a form of flattery.
The problem is the Agreement itself and this binary idea of identifying as nationalist or unionist etc. This just plays to the extremes. Long past time for a review, do you think? Let the middle ground get a look in.
They can abstain...nobody stopping them. But not at the expense of people who have no power to give them what they want.
Again: SF pulled out of the Assembly/Executive over issues the assembly could sort but wouldn't. The DUP did it over issues the Assembly/Executive have no power to solve and over issues they backed and endorsed themselves.
You could also put it differently. Do DUP MLAs have the right to peaceful protest by not taking up their seats, or is this right to peaceful protest only allowed to those a poster agrees with?
Easy way to sort no institutions is joint rule with Dublin,same as was on table in 07,before paisley folded
You do democratically challenge any issue,but do so in places where will effect change,your politians are lying to you,that stormont effects change on the protocol
it would be akin to keeping down a town/local council over laws decided by stormont.....
your being lead up the path,simply because political unionism is weak in its leadership roles,if this leads to joint rule,with potentially a Dublin lead SF government,where do your political leaders look to blame/boycott then?
@downcow just out of curiosity, what is the benefit of the stand being taken by the DUP & potentially the wider unionist community and how exactly will this have an effect on changing the protocol?
Why is the DUP (& the wider unionist community) not using the same approach on those who introduced the protocol i.e. Westminster (albeit with support from NI unionists)?
To be fair, it is an approach that doesn't really make much sense and more as if they want to make a stand but not too much of one. Why are the unionists not challenging the tories who were the ones that voted this into law? Instead they're making it a local issue which seems absolutely futile as it cannot be resolved here.
The difference is SF are NOT holding the people to ransom by abstaining,
By all means abstain to your heart's content, what you cannot do is remove governance from the people over something they cannot change.
The unstated premise in your position is this: if a minority is in a position to collapse democratic governing institutions as a form of protest at the actions of a different government, this is a democratic thing to do.
Obviously, not everyone will agree that it is. Indeed, the suggestion that it is is a surprising one. On the face of it, collapsing democratic institutions is not a democratic thing to do; it seems, rather, to be basically antidemocratic. This issue has already been raised but, in your summing up, you ignore it.
The question you posed is: do unionists have the right to fight this democratically? You should perhaps rephrase this as something more like: do unionists have the right to fight this by non-violent means?
To sun up the last number of posts.
huys I asked if you thought the unionist community had the right to fight the protocol and you tried to divert to the dup with your answers. I know you don’t like it that 80% of unionist voters want stormont to stay down until protocol is sorted. So let’s forget about the dup etc and answer the question.
does the unionist community have the right to fight this democratically, including asking our politicians not to enter stormont until it’s sorted. We don’t trust them. It’s not the dup deciding not to go into stormont. It’s the people telling them ‘don’t you dare’.
I recognise the right of sf to abstain from Westminster. Even though it means I have no MP
what’s good for the goose.
guys it’s not happening. It’s a non discussion. There will be no devolved institutions in ni until protocol is sorted or there is a United island - and that’s hardly eminent.
you’ll note the one great white unionist that was supporting ‘Irelands future’ has had to crawl into hiding in shame and be dropped from the programme. Turns out he was more republican than the republicans 😂
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