Northern ireland

Few events have appalled London liberals so publicly as the surprise emergence of the ten MPs of the Democratic Unionist Party as a force in UK politics. The metropolitan horror has been given full expression in the Twitter railing against ‘misogynist dinosaur homophobes’ and the press caricatures of DUP politicians as overfed, bowler-hatted Orangemen slyly looting government cash. Words such as ‘vile’ and ‘disgusting’ are flung around exultantly, as all nuance is shed. And beneath this lies an unspoken, potent little thrill: how wonderful, finally, to have a bunch of people whom one can openly despise. I fear that thrill is going to intensify very soon, when images trickle in

Talks to form a new power sharing executive in Belfast have broken down again.  Largely this is because James Brokenshire, the Northern Ireland Secretary, has been unable to impose a believable deadline after which he would enforce direct rule. This is a particular shame, because shaking the magic money tree in the direction of Northern Ireland could, with some skilful diplomacy, have the effect of resetting Stormont talks. From the collapse of the power sharing executive in January, up until last week’s Confidence and Supply Agreement between Arlene Foster’s DUP and Theresa May’s Conservatives, Sinn Féin briefly held all the cards. It could sit back as the institutions collapsed, blame the DUP’s (chiefly Foster’s)

In the face of a possible rebellion over an amendment to the Queen’s Speech, the Government has backed down. Chancellor Philip Hammond announced this afternoon that women from Northern Ireland will be given the right to an abortion in England on the NHS. This wasn’t a change ministers wanted, but for a weak minority Government propped up by the slenderest of margins, this is the new reality. It’s unlikely this will be the last time in this Parliament that ministers relent where they would have once stood their ground. Ever since the amendment was tabled by Labour MP Stella Creasy, the Government had looked under pressure. There were reports that as many as 40 Tory MPs

A political party barely known outside Northern Ireland now holds the balance of power in Parliament. Nobody saw it coming, but then that’s the new catchphrase in politics. So who are the DUP? And do they deserve the pillorying that has been coming their way since the general election catapulted them into the spotlight? I have been watching the party up close for decades. Yet while the DUP isn’t always a pretty sight to behold, the party is much more complicated than the hysterical stereotyping makes out. It’s true that the DUP has its roots in uncompromising unionism and religion. And for many years it was little more than a one-man’s fan club: the political extension of Ian Paisley’s hardline

Forgive the inflammatory headline, but that’s the conclusion that millions of Britons have drawn from media descriptions of the DUP. Mainland commentators seem unable to make any distinction between the Democratic Unionist Party, founded by the late Ian Paisley, and his small Free Presbyterian sect, which is indeed influenced by American fundamentalism. We know the DUP is against abortion and gay marriage. But are its members also creationists who think the world was created 6,000 years ago? In this week’s Holy Smoke podcast, Cristina Odone and I talk to Jon Anderson, a Northern Irish writer specialising in religious and political sectarianism. He lays some myths to rest. For example, the

Well, Arlene and Theresa have met for negotiations about the DUP/Tory deal that a million people got so exercised about, they signed an online petition to have it stopped. And you know what? There is no indication, not a whisper, since those talks broke up, that abortion was so much as mentioned; nor indeed gay marriage. Indeed, the whole notion that the DUP might be out to subvert gay marriage in mainland Britain, let alone do anything about the abortion laws (which undeniably need revisiting – tightening), was simply risible. So much for the scary talk from Ruth Davidson (who proclaimed that one of the things she put above party

Well, that didn’t last long: in April, I rejoined the Labour Party. Last Sunday, I cancelled my subscription and cut up my membership card. Being part of the official opposition to a Tory Government, my conscience can live with; being the official opposition to the unborn, it cannot. I’ve always leaned towards backing Labour. And while my radicalism may have mellowed somewhat in my old age, I would certainly have voted for Jeremy Corbyn in the first leadership contest. So when the snap election was called, it seemed like an obvious move to put my money where my ballot is. But the first sign of trouble came almost immediately afterwards, when Labour’s

I suppose that if you are under thirty, Northern Ireland seems a place far away and it must be difficult to imagine a time when news from the province was a regular feature of the BBC and ITV nightly news bulletins. The Good Friday Agreement, for all its imperfections and awkward compromises, settled something that now belongs to something close to ancient history. A YouGov poll last month suggested only one in five voters thought they knew even a fair amount about Jeremy Corbyn’s history with Sinn Fein, the IRA, and the wider republican movement. The young can be forgiven their ignorance. But there are many people old enough to remember what

Theresa May has been continuing her UK-wide tour to convince voters in all corners of the country to back the Conservatives. This weekend saw the Tory campaign machine make a whistle stop tour in Belfast. The Prime Minister attended a local agricultural show and talked to farmers and families about why they must support the party. So far, so uncontroversial. All Prime Ministerial candidates seeking election or re-election make the customary stop on the far side of the Irish Sea to make a pitch to Northern Irish voters. This time, however, Theresa May’s trip has unleashed anger among both voters and politicians in Northern Ireland. Her attempt to charm locals has backfired spectacularly. Theresa May

Theresa May’s awkward dinner date with Jean-Claude Juncker stole the headlines, but there was another Brexit development that passed with much-less fuss: the European Union’s plan for Ireland to reunite after Brexit, which it inserted quietly into its negotiating guidelines. Few in Britain paid much attention to it. Across the Irish Sea, it was a different story. Among Catholic communities, there is growing hope that Brexit could be the issue which finally sees partition end on the island. Yet within Protestant communities, there is a growing fear that the EU is using Brexit as a tool to sneak through Irish reunification. The British government appears to be doing precious little to stop it. The issue of

When David Cameron called his Brexit referendum, the potential difficulty of Northern Ireland was not uppermost in his mind. Nor does it seem to have worried Theresa May greatly when she announced a snap general election this week. Even before this fresh electoral battle, Northern Ireland’s politics were already — to paraphrase Sean O’Casey — in ‘a terrible state of chassis’. Perhaps May thought the existing chassis in Belfast couldn’t get any worse. On reflection, I’m not so sure. The last Assembly election in March left the DUP and Sinn Fein, the two tribal behemoths, delicately balanced on 28 and 27 seats respectively. Unionists lost their overall majority. Six weeks

There’s little enthusiasm just about anywhere for this summer’s snap general election, and no more so than in Northern Ireland where voters’ growing apathy is mixed with a feeling of dread. Saying that politics in Northern Ireland is rarely straightforward or smooth is something of an understatement. But the timing of this summer’s election could not be worse for the country: the peace process is currently navigating its way perilously through one of its most difficult periods since 1998’s Good Friday Agreement. While the stasis which is paralysing Stormont shows no signs of ending: four months on since power-sharing collapsed in the region, the parties are yet to resolve their issues and

Amidst the apparent chaos in the days after the Brexit vote, one important story largely slipped under the radar. Now, the demand issued by Sinn Féin for a border poll on reunification of Ireland is resurfacing. Admittedly, back in June, it was difficult to know how much attention to pay to such a demand. Irish reunification is, after all, the entire purpose of the Irish Republican party. However, in the months since the referendum, the peripheral possibility of Irish reunification is starting to move centre stage. And the old platitude from Sinn Féin is morphing into a growing and credible movement on both sides of the Irish border. But it’s not only Sinn Féin who are pushing

There is a saying that whoever the Prime Minister hates, they appoint as Northern Ireland Secretary. James Brokenshire, Theresa May’s unlucky pick for the job, had three options yesterday: a new election, direct rule, or a fudge. When the clock struck 4pm, three weeks after Northern Ireland’s election, there was only one option: it was always going to be the Irish fudge.  James Brokenshire had tried valiantly to maintain the fiction, which no one believed, that at 4:01pm yesterday he was prepared to fire the starting pistol of Northern Ireland’s third assembly election in a year. It wasn’t a credible threat, and people in Northern Ireland have a way of telling the one

You’d think, with Brexit talks starting sometime after Wednesday, that Northern Irish politicians would have something better to do than engage in the amusing party politics that leave everyone else in Ireland and Britain stone cold. But nope, given the possibility that the EU could insist on the imposition of a land border between the north and south of Ireland, and at the very least the challenge of sorting out how to stem the free flow of booze and fags from a UK outside the EU to a Republic within it, the parties are locked on the following issues: the status of the Irish language (Sinn Fein); the extent to