Friday, March 12, 2010

CIF in "nail on head" shocker

Good start...
In what has been the worst postwar parliament...
And that worst postwar parliament is where exactly boys and girls?

Montgomery has come up with one of the rather more intuitive analysis of the UUP decision this week to take a stand for democracy in a place where the vast majority of dishonourable members struggle with its basic concepts:
Is the party in the grip of liberal extremists, forced out of opportunistic necessity to fall in with a Tory party still too rightwing for many of them?

Or is the point of the UUP to revert to being the Ulster branch office of the wider Tory party? Or is it even to outflank Jim Allister's TUV, attacking the DUP from the right – an obvious temptation, now that the DUP has self-consciously established itself as a responsible, mainstream party? I'd argue that however contradictory and, as it happens, tactically mistaken, the party of the Belfast agreement opposing a consequence of that agreement might appear, the future for the UUP lies in that decision. It follows that its future should be opposition.
The idea of a Trotskyite style infiltration of the UUP (as in the the job done by the Militant Tendency on 1980s Labour) by "liberal extremists" does conjure up a slightly bizarre picture, but an undeniable truth is contained in that last sentence. The other strategic options mentioned are, I guess, still open for debate.

In light of recent events, this fact probably also needs emphasing again and again:
Whatever criticisms can be made of Cameron as a party leader, his decision to ally with the UUP doesn't fit the standard template. It hasn't been a decision made out of expediency or because polling said so, or because a shining orange figure visited Steve Hilton in a dream one night. This has been a course taken by Cameron out of sincere unionist belief, and he's to be applauded for it.

11 comments:

Orangeman said...

Montgomery would be a good unity candidate for South Belfast. If in 2005 the SB UUP had backed him over McGimpsey, there would have been no Spratt in the field (DUP signalled they would not have stood against Montgomery) and thus no SDLP victory.

tony said...

A victory for bigotry eh Orangeman?

O'Neill said...

Re his article, I should say it reminded me a bit like those very complicated questions you used to get in math class in school where you'd get separate marks for both the correct answer and the correct way at arriving at the answer.

Montgomery's answer is correct (ie UUP needs to define itself as a separate entity in order to have any kind of future and Cameron is a conviction Unionist). I don't agree with much of his \"calculations" with regards as to how he reached that correct answer though.

The main difference with his analysis and those of the other stereotypical ones offered by the same old suspects is that you feel he wants and sees the need for an alternative to the Unionism offered by the DUP and TUV.

Re his proposed jt candidature in 2005, I think he would have proved too much of an individualist to have fitted into the collective group-thought that would have been required.

Orangeman said...

Beter an individualist who would have comfortably won the seat than a conformist McGimpsey who didn't have a clue how to fight a campaign and who facilitated McDonnell's win.

Tony, if you see victory for unionism as a victory for "bigotry", so what?

Anonymous said...

Slight problem with claiming the UUP's actions were about becoming the opposition. It's list of demands over P&J (which were largely offered) were all about it getting a bigger role on the Executive not less. So the facts simply don't fit the theory

tony said...

Orangeman

>>Tony, if you see victory for unionism as a victory for "bigotry", so what?<<

I'm not entirely sure what this statement means.

Do yo believe that Unionists are all the same? Namely the raison detre is to stop a Nationalist winning a seat.

Correct I do see as bigotry an 'orangeman' calling for unionists to unite to keep out the fenians. As a matter of fact I believe the author of the blog does too. So by definition that puts a crack in your united unionism agenda.

>>So what!<<

The meaning of Sinn Fein in our native tongue eh orangeman, a bit like the Rangers fans sing "Naebdy likes us...........we don't care!

The absolute pariahs of Europe!

O'Neill said...

"Slight problem with claiming the UUP's actions were about becoming the opposition."

I am saying they should become the opposition, as far as I am aware they aren't. Their argument is if the Executive is presently a dysfunctional joke, should we really be consider devolving such an important function as p and j

O'Neill said...

"As a matter of fact I believe the author of the blog does too."

He does indeed. Also I think it's a strategic mistake which will not increase the total pro-Union vote.
Incidently, when I conducted a poll on here on the subject, over 70% voted against "Unionist Unity"; completely unscientific I know, but then so are the ones produced by the NIO and the Bellylaugh.

tony said...

Say for example there could (unlikely I know) ever be a single Unionist party then winning a seat bereft of the atavistic reasons posited by the likes of the orangemen would be no biggie. Imagine if you will the Unionist parties in Scotland uniting to deny Nationalists democracyyyy...................eh wait a minute..............ok not a great example. Considering their rcent behaviour that may not be too far fetched.

Anonymous said...

"completely unscientific I know, but then so are the ones produced by the NIO and the Bellylaugh."

Hmm polling by Millard Brown Ulster or Inform Communications with balancing for age gender religion party preference etc is as 'unscientific' as a self-nominating poll on a blog. Sorry but that is just plain wrong.

O'Neill said...

Honestly, how much value do you place on the results produced by the BT and NIO polls over the last few weeks?