Burnside Misses The Target

A day late, but here’s the obligatory Orange post:

ULSTER Unionists have accused Alex Salmond of undermining the traditions of the Orange Order by forming an "unholy alliance" with other devolved administrations which threatens UK rule.

To be fair (and it’s hard) to him, I’m not sure the undermining of The Orange is Alex’s paramount consideration.....

David Burnside, an Ulster Unionist member of the Northern Irish Assembly, said Mr Salmond's attempts to work with Wales and Northern Ireland to wrest more powers from Westminster would antagonise England.

Burnside, despite the evidence of what comes next, is one of the more clued-in Unionist politicos and he’s spot on with this particular analysis.

He said the move would not only threaten the Union, but the Protestant traditions on which it was formed.

But here’s where it all starts to go a bit wonky...."Protestant traditions", whatever they may be, are absolutely irrelevant to the present debate about the future of the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is an amalgam of different cultures, beliefs and peoples; it’s one of the main reasons why Britain is Great. Salmond and Paisley’s present shenanigans don’t in any way threaten "Protestant traditions" and indeed, in an independent Scotland or a DUPed Prodistan in NE Ulster, "Protestant traditions" may actually play a more prominent role in daily political, cultural and social life than they do at the present moment.

However, Mr Burnside clearly has other thoughts and priorities:

Ultimately, he feared the current direction could threaten the foundations of the Orange Order.

Again, no it doesn’t. The threat posed to the UK by the SNP, DUP, Plaid Cymru and (almost forgot) Sinn Fein threatens the foundations of our multi-cultural, multi-belief society. And once again, if and when N.Ireland and Scotland leaves the United Kingdom, the Orangemen can rest assured that they’ll be allowed to keep on marching; might even get back up the Garvaghy or down O’Connell Street with a wee cup of tea and currant bun at Mary’s afterwards, no doubt

Unionism needs its more intelligent spokesmen to be looking at the bigger picture and the bigger picture is way beyond what Burnside is chuntering about here. The only reason Salmond and Paisley are able to push their anti-UK, anti-English agenda is because of devolution, Take away their Mickey Mouse parliaments and deflate their balloons of self-importance and delusion. Get them back to talking real politics in a real parliament.