Northern Ireland Flag Protests

[TheNewTeddy]

link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20940126

I'll give a backgrounder since I've been following this rather close for the past few weeks.

In mid to late December, Belfast City Council held a vote, and they voted to remove the union jack on all but certain days

...actually a bit more background is needed.

Northern Ireland has 5 main political parties.

Sinn Fein is the party of Republicans. They want to join with Ireland, care not for the British or the British system, and were once the political wing of the IRA, a terrorist organization that organized killings during "The Troubles" in NI.

The SDLP is Nationalist. They also want to join with Ireland, but are more moderate about it. They focus on Labour and Social Democratic issues (hence the name) and are generally seen as on the left. They sit with Labour in Westminster on most issues.

The UUP is Unionist. They have some weak ties to the Conservative Party, and are right-wing on the issues. They are also strongly pro-UK and want NI to remain a part of the UK.

The DUP is also Unionist, but has been able to attract some support from Loyalists. Their leader once 'invaded Ireland' with other drunken teenagers, and "took over" a local town hall and raised the union flag before heading home.

The Alliance is a moderate centrist party. They once had minor ties to the Liberals. Their membership and voter base is mostly Protestant and Unionist, but their policies are such to avoid splitting between Unionist/Nationalist and rather the party focuses on being a bridge between the two sides.

A few things to know about history in NI:

From apx 1100 to apx 1970 the British (mostly Protestant) treated the Irish and Northern Irish pretty poorly. In the latter part of this time period (60's) many municipalities in Northern Ireland had drawn their ward boundaries in such ways that Catholics could not gain a significant number of seats, even in areas where they were the overwhelming majority. Eventually, they got pissed off and wanted to march, so they asked for a permit to protest and it was denied. Another, this time Protestant group, asked for a permit and were granted. So the Catholics decided to march anyway. They were met by the army, and some trigger happy army fellow decided to start shooting, eventually the entire army was shooting and many died. This is known as "Bloody Sunday"

Following this, Catholics in NI decided to fight back, quite literally. They joined the terrorist IRA in large numbers and thus began "The Troubles", a terrorist campaign against British rule on the island of Ireland. The IRA was not only up against the UK Army, but against the UVF, a terrorist group on the side of Protestants and Unionists. The two sides battled it out in terrorist/sniper campaigns until the mid 90s when the two sides agreed to peace. The road to peace was a very bumpy one, and it's only been in the past 5 or so years that peace has really taken grip.

Anyway, back to this December. The Union Jack is seen as offensive to many in the nationalist and republican community because of it's connection to the oppression of the past 9 centuries. SF and the SDLP had been demanding that Belfast City Hall take down the flag and fly only the city flag (NI itself no long has a flag) This, of course, was opposed by unionists. In December, the Alliance proposed a compromise; that City Hall would do what Stormont (the Legislature) does, and only fly the flag on certain days (celebration days mostly) They had a vote and this passed.

This is when the protests began. For most of the end of December, and, for most of so far in January (with a break for the holidays), every night, Loyalists have been protesting on the streets. Recently it has become increasingly violent and the police have been attacked. Ties to the UVF have been found and the situation is getting a bit dicey. Bullets have been sent in the mail to various politicians, and a few homes of politicians have been attacked.

Today is one of the designated days to fly the flag and it remains to be seen how this will impact the situation.

My take:

I think that this, despite being terrible, is very important. For the past 5 years, most of the complaints have been about IRA like groups and the threat they pose. Now it's very clear that Loyalist extremists also pose a real threat. It's not a one-sided issue any more.

[TheNewTeddy]

A few more things about NI politics, as this has the potential to become the NI thread.

NI had a Parliament from it's creation in 1921, to that parliament's abolition in 1973. (It should be noted that NI sends MPs to Westminster)

The elections during this period were nearly identical. They used the same map, and always produced the same results, with a few variations of course.

The UUP won an overwhelming majority, with the Nationalists taking just under 10 seats, and Labour scraping a few from Belfast.

Things started to change after Terence O'Neill was elected as Prime Minister. He started to open up to the Irish community.

During his reign there was an incident in 1968 where another "banned" protest took place. This resulted in the severe an unwarranted beating of many protesters - including many politicians - at the hands of the police force the RUC. This was broadcast on the media worldwide.

O'Neill introduced many reforms in response, but not the electoral reforms demanded by the Catholics. The marched on Belfast, and were met by a group of Loyalists who savagely beat them while the RUC looked on and watched. This sparked rioting. During this time period, a dozen UUP MPs from the NI Parliament quit due to opposition to O'Neill, and a snap election was called, where O'Neill nearly lost his own seat to a man named Ian Paisley. The election itself:

http://en.wikipedia...._election,_1969

was inconclusive with many anti O'Neill members elected, depriving him of his majority. O'Neill resigned as a result.

Brian Faulkner took over as Prime Minister. He invited in a Labour member into government, and tried to change the committee system as well. At this time, Labour formed the more united Social Democratic and Labour Party, or SDLP, taking in many Labour and Nationalist members. After two youths were shot by soldiers in the Foyle area, the SDLP refused to partake in Parliament. During his reign, in 1972, the Bloody Sunday events occurred and this was the effectual death of Faulkner's government. The UK Prime Minister decided to remove security powers from the NI Parliament, and in response, Faulkner prorogued the Parliament, and the UK PM decided to introduce "Direct Rule" - or in other terms, the UK Parliament would now run NI, and the NI Parliament, was no more. (Note: the Flag went out the window as well at this time)

In 1973, there was an attempt to set up an Assembly in NI to replace the Parliament. This Assembly would be based on First Past The Post, and thus eliminate any possible gerrymandering to prevent Catholics from electing members. The results were shocking to many.

UUP - 24 || SDLP - 19 || DUP - 8 || UUP(A) - 7 || Vanguard - 7 || Alliance - 8 || Labour - 1 || Loyalist Independent - 3 || Ind Unionist - 1 ||

The DUP, lead by that Ian Paisley fellow, managed to secure 3rd place. 7 UUP members opposed to the assembly were elected. Vanguard also elected 7, they were, like the DUP, another anti-UUP Unionist party. The Alliance managed to tie the DUP with 8 members.

This assembly produced a power-sharing deal, where the UUP, SDLP, and Alliance would form a coalition government. This lasted just a few months, after which protests from unionist forces forced the assembly to collapse.

In 1975, they again tried the assembly method.

UUP - 19 || SDLP - 17 || Vanguard - 14 || DUP - 12 || Alliance - 8 || "Union Party" - 5 || Others - 3

The UUP, Vanguard, and DUP managed a majority of seats. These parties were opposed to the idea of power sharing with the Catholics, and thus assembly thus fell apart very quickly.

In 1982 they figured the third time's the charm and held yet another election to the assembly.

UUP - 26 || DUP - 21 || SDLP - 14 || Alliance - 10 || Sinn Fein - 5 || Others - 2

The SDLP and SF decided to boycott the election, and the UK government felt to continue would be pointless, thus, no executive was elected from this assembly. Ian Paisley had to famously be dragged out of the assembly, quite literally kicking and screaming.

It was not until 1996 that another attempt was tried, this time, to elect a "Political Forum" for NI. The results were as follows:

UUP - 30 || DUP - 24 || SDLP - 21 || SF - 17 || Alliance - 7 || UKU - 3 || PUP - 2 || UD - 2 || Womens - 2 || Labour - 2

The forum 'worked' and resulted in the Good Friday agreement of 1998.

As a result of said agreement, elections were scheduled for 1998 to the new Assembly known as Stormont. While past assemblies have been called Stormont, I will call only the current assembly "Stormont" to prevent confusion.

The results were as follows

UUP - 28 || SDLP - 24 || DUP - 20 || SF - 18 || Alliance - 6 || UKU - 5 || PUP - 2 || Womens - 2 || IndUnionist - 3

The rules were that each party would identify as Unionist or Nationalist (or neither) and that the top Unionst and top Nationalist parties would each pick the First Minister and deputy First Minister. Any parties over a certain threshold of seats would be allowed to chose members to the cabinet. A Grand Coalition was thus formed with the 4 largest parties, the UUP, SDLP, DUP, and SF. The DUP and SF hated one another however. This assembly had some trouble but did some good.

In 2003 further elections were held. The results were trouble.

DUP - 30 || UUP - 27 || SF - 24 || SDLP - 18 || Alliance - 6 || Others - 3

The DUP refused to support a SF deputy First Minister, and SF refused to support a DUP First Minister. The assembly thus fell apart right away, and "Direct Rule" was re-introduced.

In 2007 they tried the election thing again.

DUP - 36 || SF - 28 || UUP - 18 || SDLP - 16 || Alliance - 7 || Others - 3

Well that helped. The DUP and SF both realized that they'd rather give each other the dreaded FM posts than have the UK rule over them for another 4 years and so finally came to an agreement. Ian Paisley became First Minister, and SF's Margin McGuninness became deputy First Minister. They would go on to become known as "The Chuckle Brothers" as they apparently got along quite well with one another on a personal level.

This assembly then did something no Parliament within NI had done since the 60's. It managed to complete it's full term without interruption.

Another election was held in 2011

DUP - 38 || SF - 29 || UUP - 16 || SDLP - 14 || Alliance - 8 || Others - 3

The Alliance finally managed the threshold to elect members to cabinet. They were put in charge of the Police, the first time someone from NI would rule over the police politically. The police had changed much from it's RUC days, now the new PSNI (Police) had minimum quotas for hiring Catholics to ensure that the discrimination of the past would not happen again.

The odd thing is during the past number of years, it's been the UUP and SDLP complaining that the DUP and SF are working "too" well together, and that, in their words, at cabinet meetings it's almost as if the DUP and SF had already talked about proposals and agreed on how to proceed Both parties have and are debating pulling out of cabinet to become opposition parties, but this has yet to happen.

Edited January 9, 2013 by TheNewTeddy

[-TSS-]

To me all this hassle seems like that the people in Northern-Ireland have realized that people elsewhere in the world have forgotten that Northern-Ireland exists; so they have to remind of their existence.

[Black Dog]

To me all this hassle seems like that the people in Northern-Ireland have realized that people elsewhere in the world have forgotten that Northern-Ireland exists; so they have to remind of their existence.

And how stupid they can be.

[Argus]

You could have saved the long backgrounder. Most of it can be summed up as "Catholics and Protestants don't like each other", which I think everyone pretty much knows anyway.

This flag flag is mostly being organized by old unionist politicians like the aforementioned Paisley, as evil, racist and bigoted a man as ever lived, who miss the power they had when they were murdering Catholics and are busy stirring up trouble in an effort to get it back. Most Northern Irish, Catholic and Protestant, care more about unemployment and the economy than how many days the flag flies at city hall. But a substantial mob in both constituencies can still be brought out into the streets by rabble rousing slime like Paisley.

[TheNewTeddy]

FTR two of my heroes are Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams. Two men who once wanted to quite literally kill one another were able to sit down at the same table and decide they wanted peace. To me that is the best symbol for hope you can have.

Also FTR I side with the Catholics on the issues.

[Guest]

I side with any democratic majority, so I agree with the Loyalist position as far as Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK goes. I sympathise with the Catholic minority in Ulster, but not with the Republican position in Eire.

I spent some time over there, in uniform, and I despised both the men you mentioned, but I agree with your comments on them.

[TheNewTeddy]

I, for one, can't see NI just "joining Ireland". It's far too different to just be some random part of Ireland. It's also far too different to just be some random part of the UK, which, for all intents and purposes, it what it is today.

I see the "end" state of NI being somehow 'shared' between the UK and Ireland, so that it is a part of both and yet, part of neither.

[TheNewTeddy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20982800

A bit of a backgrounder.

In Stormont, there is a rule that when one community declares something of critical interest (IE, Nationalists or Unionists) there needs to be a double-majority vote on the issue. Not only a majority of the entire parliament, but a majority from both communities as well.

It seems, from the link above, the DUP is claiming a similar stance on the flags issue in Belfast.

Given the protests they, using simple logic, seem to have a pretty solid case.

[-TSS-]

As for Paisley and adams wasn't it a case that unless there had been an understanding on forming a coalition-government within a given time the governance of the province would have been transferred to be jointly administered by London and Dublin and that would have rendered the politicians of the province useless. Even Paisley and Adams don't hate each other that much that they would have let that to happen.

I guess there are a lot of people of Irish descent in Canada and they are interested in this issue of Northern-Ireland, which is understandable.

[TheNewTeddy]

I drew this myself. It's not very good, but it might help people understand where in Northern Ireland these things are taking place.

Note that Belfast is, by far, the largest city in NI, while the Foyle Area is the second largest, being about a quarter the size of Belfast. No other towns even come close to this in terms of size.