Friday, October 29, 2010

Sinn Fein to take their seats at Westminster?

Ah, no, at least not yet, but the title will have got you interested anyway!

So, it's not the big boys but instead one of the Adams Youth will be taking their seat there as a member of the UK Youth Parliament today. Connor Morgan will be not only sitting on the famous benches, but also speaking today in House of Commons Chamber, in the Irish language no less.

I can understand Iain Dale's gut reaction:
I applaud the peace process. It is remarkable what has been achieved on both sides of the political divide. But the fact that Sinn Fein MPs do not take their seats still shows what a divided place Northern Ireland is. I have tried to write up this story in an unemotional manner but believe me, I am tempted to write it very differently. For my heart still tells me this is wrong. That a supporter of a cause which took the lives of Lord Mountbatten, Airey Neave, Ian Gow and so many more besides, should today be sitting beneath the plaque to Airey Neave in the chamber of the House of Commons, leaves me cold
So, I can understand it but Dale is wrong on a number of levels with this.

Firstly, Connor Morgan is exercising a fundamental democratic right as a British citizen (well, he will have been born one at the very least). We don't have to agree with what our opponents say but if we start putting on limits on where they can exercise that right, then it's us, not them, who are undermining democracy.

Unionist MLAs at Stormont every day deal with Sinn Fein, a party which contains members who murdered friends, colleagues and family members of many of the UUP and DUP's representatives. I've written before about the plaque there dedicated to the murdered law professor Edgar Graham and I often wonder what he would think about seeing Adams, McGuinness, Kelly and Co sitting in the chamber and forming part of our Executive. That we will never really know for sure. However, if in the interests of a peaceful settlement Unionists at the sharp end are prepared to make such a compromise, then those who have *only* suffered indirectly at the hands of the IRA should be prepared to do the same.

Finally, Sinn Fein no longer aim a metaphorical and real gun at the head of Unionists but are instead now sending members to the United Kingdom's Youth Parliament, to speak in Irish, at Westminster. Sinn Fein now play a meaningful role in administering a "partitionist" assembly and in the UK's democratic process. The Union is more solid (although also radically different...and better) now than it was before they began their campaign four decades ago. The "armed struggle", in other words, failed. I know me saying this may upset some, but I genuinely believe Connor Morgan speaking at Westminster today, in a strange way, is the proof of that fact and the proof that Ian Gow, Airey Neave and indeed, Robert Bradford didn't die in vain.

5 comments:

Gary said...

However gut wrenching and repulsive it is, you good Sir are correct.

Dilettante said...

Radically different yes, but... better? Do you really prefer devolution to integrationism?

O'Neill said...

Gary,

Thanks. Although with respect to that last sentence, I'm very aware that how I, who didn't directly suffer at the hands of the provos, may see things a lot different from those that did.

Dilettante,

No, the Union is stronger despite not because of the devolution experiment. I was guilty of a bit of Ulster-centricism with that sentence- N.Ireland at the beginning of the 1970s was on the brink of a civil war that could well have rivalled the horrors of those seen in the ex-Yugoslavia. It was the presence of the British army which prevented that from happening, yet as the papers from that era now prove, the Labour administrations of Wilson did think about withdrawing their moral responsibility to NI. Our future connection with the rest of our nation was on a knife-edge; now compare that with today's situation.

Interestingly enough, at the darkest hour when it looked like our government may possibly let us down and pull out, the Dublin administration went into full-panic mode.

tony said...

How kind of you to advocate democracy............well done! Considering the attitudes of your peers that is an achievement.

As if the British political war mongers who advocated war on the Irish in Ireland could be innocent victims. Jim Royle's favourite patter springs to mind. And save us the DUP and UUP shite.............remember what David Ervine said about knowing the colour of the wallpaper in these very same guys houses. Many of these victims were armed members of HM forces, militia's or arms lenghth death squads. None were any more innocent than your average Joe IRA ASU member. Indeed as we know many were infinitely worse, using sexually barbarism and torture.

The Republican movement at times very nearly achieved their objective of expelling the Brits in the 70's especially. However by the 90's the peace process and guaranteed equality was the best deal militarily and politically availlable from the Brits. This was achieved despite the kicking and screaming of Irish Unionists and their nutter allies in the British Tory party who were institutionaly opposed to equality.

O'Neill said...

"Many of these victims were armed members of HM forces, militia's or arms lenghth death squads."

The IRA murdered 728 civilians, people with no connection to either the security forces or loyalists paramilitaries. (http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/cgi-bin/tab2.pl)

"None were any more innocent than your average Joe IRA ASU member. Indeed as we know many were infinitely worse, using sexually barbarism and torture."

"None"? That would include those slaughtered at Enniskillen, Frizzels, Teebane, Darkley, Warrington, la Mon? Your hyperbole isn’t doing you any favours here. Do you not acknowledge that many (and not just Unionists, how do you think the family of Jean Conville regard Adams?) may have justifiable issues with the representatives of a organisation which caused these and many more attrocities? Or is the problem of people like myself and Iain Dale with Sinn Fein arise simply and purely from our bigotry?

"The Republican movement at times very nearly achieved their objective of expelling the Brits in the 70's especially."

No, Wilson may have considered pulling the British Army out (to the ROI’s governments panic). The Brits, those people born and bred in Northern Ireland that valued the Union, the majority would have remained. The objective of a “United” Ireland wouldn’t have been achieved merely by the removal of the British Army.


"However by the 90's the peace process and guaranteed equality was the best deal militarily and politically availlable from the Brits."

Adams is the ultimate pragmatist. If he had thought that there was any chance of success of expelling the British army militarily he would have continued. That being the case, the IRA “miltary campaign” was stopped well short of their declared target. Ten years on how much nearer are they to that target? Nearer than in 1972,1982?