The DUP

[LongTimeLurker]

10 hours ago, Jacksgranda said:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-41518256

DUP politician says something intelligent, measured and reasonable, so the usual suspects will be steering well clear. Hopefully things don't escalate to something as calamitous as a Bloody Sunday parallel.

[welshbairn]

DUP politician says something intelligent, measured and reasonable, so the usual suspects will be steering well clear.

It's certainly a novelty.

[Jacksgranda]

24 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

DUP politician says something intelligent, measured and reasonable, so the usual suspects will be steering well clear. Hopefully things don't escalate to something as calamitous as a Bloody Sunday parallel.

He was getting brownie points from Finola O'Connor on tonight's Inside Politics. 

I've a sinking feeling that's where it's heading, hope I'm wrong.

 

[Granny Danger]

On 17/09/2017 at 17:29, RedRob72 said:

On 17/09/2017 at 16:15, John Lambies Doos said:

Welcome back, where you been hiding?

Aye, been having a quick look in now and then, just haven't been posting much.

You're a far better poster when you don't post.

 

Anyway, I thought Northern Ireland was going to fall apart unless the devolved Council started working again.

 

[RedRob72]

You're a far better poster when you don't post.
 
Anyway, I thought Northern Ireland was going to fall apart unless the devolved Council started working again.
 

Aye, fair enough. Reciprocally, I haven’t missed your smug sanctimonious pish either!

[Co.Down Hibee]

13 hours ago, Jacksgranda said:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-41518256

DUP politician in not being a twat for a day shocker!

[welshbairn]

2 hours ago, Jacksgranda said:

He was getting brownie points from Finola O'Connor on tonight's Inside Politics. 

I've a sinking feeling that's where it's heading, hope I'm wrong.

 

Kicked out of the party for being sensible?

[NotThePars]

LTL expecting pats on the backs for a party member saying something fairly normal. Classic.

[mjw]

LTL expecting pats on the backs for a party member saying something fairly normal. Classic.

Aye but the usual suspects....

[welshbairn]

Meanwhile: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-41532309

Boeing has received $12 billion in subsidies from the US Government, Bombardier $1 billion from Canada, not sure about the UK. It doesn't even have a plane to compete with the one Bombardier are getting hit for. Better get this sorted before Brexit and we're on our own with Canada.

 

[Glenconner]

Did all the retired RUC men go to live in Spain?

Asking for a friend who lives in Catalonia.

[Jacksgranda]

9 hours ago, Glenconner said:

Did all the retired RUC men go to live in Spain?

Asking for a friend who lives in Catalonia.

Are they looking to recruit them to take on the Civil Guard? They'd be better asking The Free State to send over a couple of squads of Garda to help them out.

[LongTimeLurker]

The point the DUP guy was making was that having legality on your side doesn't actually matter very much in the eyes of international opinion, if your opponents can successfully portray themselves as being downtrodden wee victims when you try to prevent them from breaking the law. NI emerged on the basis of mass civil disobedience in 1912 and notions of popular sovereignty derived from 17th century Scottish history against the idea that Westminster could simply impose Dublin Home Rule on them by diktat with a top down understanding of sovereignty similar to Madrid's, so you could just as easily find ways to spin a narrative where the parallels that are made are with people like the Catalan firemen being like the men that signed the Ulster Covenant at much the same time of the year 105 years ago.

Edited October 7, 2017 by LongTimeLurker

[welshbairn]

Or the IRA in Belfast in the late 60s when Catholic homes were getting torched, though they were a bit slow to react. It's daft to draw analogies between Catalonia and Northern Ireland or Scotland when the histories and current contexts are so different.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

The point the DUP guy was making was that having legality on your side doesn't actually matter very much in the eyes of international opinion, if your opponents can successfully portray themselves as being downtrodden wee victims when you try to prevent them from breaking the law. NI emerged on the basis of mass civil disobedience in 1912 and notions of popular sovereignty derived from 17th century Scottish history against the idea that Westminster could simply impose Dublin Home Rule on them by diktat with a top down understanding of sovereignty similar to Madrid's, so you could just as easily find ways to spin a narrative where the parallels that are made are with people like the Catalan firemen being like the men that signed the Ulster Covenant at much the same time of the year 105 years ago.

 

It's also the more industrially advanced North East Corner

 

Because the "unionists" are also "separatists" depending whether you're looking from London or Dublin you can map an equivalence either way.

 

This kind of ambiguity led to the peculiar sight in the Celtic End at Tynecastle a few seasons ago of people stood side by side waving the Flags of the Spanish Republic and the Vatican City

[LongTimeLurker]

4 hours ago, welshbairn said:

...It's daft to draw analogies between Catalonia and Northern Ireland or Scotland when the histories and current contexts are so different.

Largely agree, but the existance of Northern Ireland is not something Westminster ever really wanted in the first place and it needed two massive displays of civil disobedience in the shape of the Loyalist workers strike in the mid-70s and the street protests against Maggie T's Anglo-Irish Agreement to keep it secure during the Troubles after Stormont had been prorogued, so it's an example of a political entity successfully emerging and sustaining itself through an assertion of popular sovereignty in a constitutional environment that is generally hostile to power ultimately being with the people rather than with the crown. Kosovo set the precedent for secession based on a clear expression of popular sovereignty being widely recognised against the wishes of the sovereign state involved and Spain understood at the time that it set a dangerous precedent for them and has never recognised Kosovo. The tide may be swinging back towards UDI being an acceptable thing to do again after it not generally being seen as acceptable to adjust borders in post WWII Europe due to the problems that the Sudeten German question led to.

Edited October 7, 2017 by LongTimeLurker

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Largely agree, but the existance of Northern Ireland is not something Westminster ever really wanted in the first place and it needed two massive displays of civil disobedience in the shape of the Loyalist workers strike in the mid-70s and the street protests against Maggie T's Anglo-Irish Agreement to keep it secure during the Troubles after Stormont had been prorogued, so it's an example of a political entity successfully emerging and sustaining itself through an assertion of popular sovereignty in a constitutional environment that is generally hostile to power ultimately being with the people rather than with the crown. Kosovo set the precedent for secession based on a clear expression of popular sovereignty being widely recognised against the wishes of the sovereign state involved and Spain understood at the time that it set a dangerous precedent for them and has never recognised Kosovo. The tide may be swinging back towards UDI being an acceptable thing to do again after it not generally being seen as acceptable to adjust borders in post WWII Europe due to the problems that the Sudeten German question led to.

What was so different from the 70's and 80's proposals from the eventual settlement that made it worth all these deaths?

[LongTimeLurker]

There was never a justification for violence or a need for any deaths. Partition should have been done and dusted as an accepted constitutional fact in the mid-1920s when the Free State opted not to pursue the Boundary Commission in exchange for not having to pay a lot of money still owed to the UK. The difference in what made the GFA acceptable to Ulster Unionism in a way Sunningdale and the Anglo-Irish Agreement were not was in Dublin's posture on ditching their constitutional claim to NI dating back to the 1937 Eire constitution of de Valera and in no longer providing terrorists with a safe haven as that was what had created the basis for ongoing armed conflict.

My point was more that Sunningdale was transparently obviously only seen as an interim arrangement to UI from Westminster's standpoint and Ulster Unionists didn't meekly submit to the doctrine of the sovereignty of the crown in parliament on that, but asserted the popular sovereignty type of idea that the majority in NI could effectively veto decisions of the parliament of the sovereign state through acts of mass civil disobedience. Belfast had an arguably similar type of general strike in 1974 to that Barcelona is having now even if the parallels are far from exact. I found it interesting that the DUP politician preferred not to highlight that.

[Jacksgranda]

1 hour ago, welshbairn said:

What was so different from the 70's and 80's proposals from the eventual settlement that made it worth all these deaths?

By the time the Belfast Agreement was put to a vote (Sunningdale was defeated at the ballot box as was the Anglo Irish Agreement) the various paramilitary groups were on cease fire, which was not the case at Sunningdale and the AIA.

[Glenconner]

hee hee

Seriously, trying to equate Catalonia at the time of the Spanish Civil War with Carson, Craig and Glen Barr, ffs. Your having a giraffe.