"The desire within the Protestant community for Unionist unity is palpable…. "Translation: I am desperate for a pact.
"This opinion poll confirms what I have known for a very long time: pro-Union voters are fed up with the sorry spectacle of Unionists tearing lumps out of each other whilst nationalists sit on the sidelines laughing at and profiting from our division. People want to see the Unionist parties working together to see the enemies of the Union defeated at the ballot box."Translation: I am desperate for a pact. Really desperate.
"I would urge the Ulster Unionists to come together with us to see that the swing in the forthcoming election is in favour of Unionism. By co-operating and working together we can ensure that two-thirds of Northern Ireland’s Westminster seats – 12 out of 18 – are represented by a Unionist in our national parliament at Westminster."Translation: Please agree a pact or I'm toast.
"This poll also highlights the danger of Unionism splintering. In the European election we saw what the entry of a splitter did – pushed Sinn Fein to the top of the poll. "
Translation: Europe embarrassed my wife, but the next election is a major danger for me.
"The Unionist community want to see the electoral rise of Sinn Fein halted. By working together we can do it. I urge those who want to sow further division to put their bitterness to one side for the better good of Ulster’s place inside the United Kingdom. Country is more important than ego. We stand ready and willing to work with fellow-Unionists. By our combined efforts we can secure a real victory for Unionism."
Translation: Please agree a pact for the good of my seat. Pretty please?
17 comments:
class, if only the TUV would stand...
On Dodds' website, there is an article where he is trying to block the development of 200 social houses in the Girdwood site in North Belfast. Could this be because these houses once built will be occupied by catholics? Given the growing nationalist population of the area and the adjacent loyalist depopulated wasteland, I think its a fair assumption.
So it's politician in shock "doing everything to get himself elected" shocker?
He's speaking to the voters here, not other parties. The NF will have to stand, to honour their commitment to put up 18 candidates. The TUV, as discussed below, won't stand as their presence would probably guarantee another terrorist MP.
So what Dodds is doing is warning the Noh Belfast electorate not to vote for the UCU-NF but for him, in case the vote splits down the middle and Kelly comes through.
It's hardly anything to get too excited about, surely? I feel sorry for the majority of people in North Belfast who would hate to see such a scumbag as Gerry kelly as their MP.
But NI can't move on until the DUP either reform or are destroyed, so the NF taking a big chunk out of Dodds' vote is long-term positive.
And it also can't move on until the majority of the natonalist community realise what a hopeless shower of one-dimensional, hate-mongering, achieve-nothing wastes of oxygen Scum Fein are. The swift medicine of the abstentionist and murderous Kelly as a constituency MP who has no coherent agenda for making North Belfast a better place to live might have to be what the doctor orders, as unpalatable as it may be.
Interesting to see the high profile Sinn Féin has given Gerry Kelly of late. The SDLP has repsonded by nominating Alban Maginness as Minister for Justice. And Nigel has been hatemongering over proposals for housing on the Girdwood Barracks site.
Plenty of mentions for this site over on Slugger lads..........
http://sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/sinn-fein-top-tele-poll-with-21-of-vote/
Peter, You say 'but NI can't move on until the DUP either reform or are destroyed'. In what way do you feel that the DUP need to reform and, if they fail to, what would you envisage as a better governmental model to facilitate progress?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article7024111.ece
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0213/1224264353177.html
I think the most interesting thing about the Belfast Telegraph opinion poll is that 40% of Protestants polled say they would not vote if an Assembly Election was called tomorrow.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/13/david-cameron-ulster-unionists-editorial
I understand there will be a census in N.I. in 2011. Will it be at the beginning of the year or the end? How long afterwards until the results are made public? It should be interesting and will show us whether this blog is right in its views.
Sunday 27th March 2011 is the date of the next Census.
Horseman,
I'm surpised you didn't pick up on David McNarry's call for a unionist pact at the Westminister election
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/39Unionists-should-renew-pact-talks39.6068840.jp
This flies in the face of the UCUNF alliance which was reaffirmed by the UUP Executive only a week or so ago. Shadow SoS Owen Paterson said empahtically that there would be no tripartite pact.
The UUP is a sectarian shambles!
The UUP are split into three factions:
1. The UCUNF faction which wants the Tory project to work.
2. The Socialist faction who are pro-labour and hate the idea of any link up with the English Tories.
3. The Unionist Unity faction who want a electoral pact with the DUP and maybe even the TUV.
I found Dodds's comments ironic in the extreme. He bangs on and on about unity, putting differences aside, drawing together, ceasing to tear lumps out of one another...
What a real, honest-to-God, goddamn shame it is that he so openly, blatantly, proudly draws the line on all these laudable sentiments at the doors of his Catholic fellow-citizens. It's truly revolting, and little short of the kind of soft-peddled "it's not racism, it's pride" Klan pap David Duke used to ooze in the US South. At least Northern Irish nationalist parties pay lip service to the interests of the wider community... people like Dodds clearly couldn't give a flucking fie.
NTNA
My feeling that the DUP must reform is due to a feeling that the party has lost its USP and is in grave danger of haemorraging its core hardliners to the TUV and its new middle-class voters to the NF, basically leaving it without an electoral base.
I would suggest that its best hope is to try to ditch the evangelical wing and rebrand as a strongly socialist unionist party, in the hope that when NI politics moves away from constitutional politics to more normal left-right fare, it is positioned as the party of choice for left-leaning unionists. It could probably then attract the UUP left, both members and voters, while admitting that the conservative middle class and the "never, never" brigade may both now be permanently lost to them.
"I would suggest that its best hope is to try to ditch the evangelical wing and rebrand as a strongly socialist unionist party"
That's a start, but if they want a future, they need to stop leaning on the Protestant horn at all, whatsoever. What they need to do is start talking about the advantages of staying in the UK (where applicable), working to appeal to ambivalent Catholics who aren't anxious to upset the apple cart, and rein in the worst aspects of loyalism. They need moderates of all backgrounds... they can afford to lose the extremists at either end... they won't be voting for moderate unionist parties in either case. It's a gamble... they might be squeezed out of existence by the ends. But to my mind, it's the only shot they've got.
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